Divorce me, Husband is one of those series that are worth reading if you can binge them, but once you get caught up, there’s no point continuing. Actually I rather like romance series with arranged marriages where they later fall in love, like in The Evil Lady will Change that I reviewed last time. But plenty of other fans like the trope as well, which is why there are dozens of series with the same premise. Divorce Me, Husband is on the mediocre side both in terms of story and in terms of art, so it’s not something I’m going to stick with now I’ve caught up (chapter 20 as of writing).
Summary
She possessed the body of a supporting character who was swept away by her husband’s treason and was killed.
I’m trying to divorce my husband, Claude, to survive, but this guy won’t let me go. In the original novel, it was said that he was clearly a man with no interest in his wife, so why is he refusing the divorce?
Even if you give me the most expensive diamond in the Empire, I refuse to live in such a marriage. Because I want to live!
So please, please… divorce me, husband!
The heroine Ayla has good reason to divorce “her” husband after transmigrating into the world of a novel where she gets killed because of a husband who doesn’t love her.
The series has got all the usual cliches, like dumb servants who actually mistreat a duchess because her husband ignores her, petty nobles who actually talk down to a duchess in public for the same reason, the usual tea party full of snark, scheming royals and of course, the grand daddy of all cliches: “I’M MAKING ALL THESE CHANGES TO THE STORY, BUT WHY ISN’T EVERYTHING THE SAME AS THE BOOK?”
To Ayla’s credit, she realizes very quickly that some of the things she read in the novel are different from what she’s encountering. The original female lead is petty and jealous, the original male lead is a lazy, crazy and rude and her husband is actually a sweet and affectionate gentleman who was only avoiding her because he mistakenly (?) thought she was scared of him.
Claude is one of the brightest spots of “Divorce Me, Husband” because he is so open about his feelings for Ayla and his desire to be closer to her. The majority of these romance series have a male lead who is either super dense about his own feelings or super tsundere so he’ll never say his feelings out loud.
Claude on the other hand comes clean not just once but repeatedly and makes a sincere but cute and clumsy effort to win her heart by doing things she likes. He’s even man enough to apologize when he oversteps his boundaries by interfering in her social relationships. Honestly, he’s a complete sweetheart, so if you’ve had enough of neglectful male leads in Korean series or the abusive/rapey CEOs and princes in Chinese series, he’s a breath of fresh air. If I continue reading this, it will be largely for him.
BUT! There’s a problem with his relationship with Ayla. The problem is the original Ayla. If new Ayla hadn’t transmigrated and asked for a divorce, Claude would have ignored the original forever until dragging her to a messy end.
That’s one thing I really don’t like about transmigrated arranged marriage series. The implication is always that the bullied or ignored person deserved it somehow, and if only she would change herself, everyone would also change and start treating her better. Sure it’s not good to be entirely passive in life, but sometimes people treat you badly because they’re bad people, not because you deserved it by being quiet or scared. And sometimes it’s not possible to safely stand up for yourself, especially when those in authority are turning a blind eye to the bullying or even engaging in it themselves.
So yeah, poor original Ayla. Hope she found happiness somewhere else and not with a husband who completely ignores her for a year because of some pre-wedding jitters. Then says “I like this version of you better” when an imposter steals your body, so sad.
But the series doesn’t dwell on the unfortunate implications of this trope for long, so neither shall we. The long and short of it is that Divorce Me, Husband has a cliched story and a dense female lead who is resisting the advances of our sweetheart Claude because she remains convinced he is a traitor even though she has plenty of evidence that things in the novel are not what they seem. So whether you enjoy it or not depends on your tolerance for stubborn leads balanced with your love for puppy dog love interests.
For my part, I was going to firmly drop it, but the latest chapter (20) ended with Claude in a pinch, so I have to read at least one more just to make sure my boy is okay. Plus, even better, Ayla is finally using her knowledge from the novel to change Claude’s fate, though she hasn’t admitted it to herself yet.
I think the next five chapters will be the key to whether this series is worth continuing or not. Since the raws seem to be caught up with now, I’ll have to check back in about 6 weeks, but the next developments will be important. If Ayla successfully shakes off that pesky “It’s just a novel” mindset and commits herself to staying with Claude and saving his life, all well and good. Otherwise Divorce Me, Husband will just be another mediocre entry in the rapidly saturating field of Korean webtoons. Remind me in 6 weeks to check back again and see.