After I Do Book Review
Falling in love is the easy part, that’s the tagline for the book and if you’re married or have been married you know just how true the statement really is. Marriage takes lots of work, it’s hard and it requires that you take nothing for granted. It’s easy to fall hopelessly in love but to stay in love is the difficult part and “After I Do” explores one couple’s marriage when it hit the breaking point. They come up with a very unusual plan to fall back in love again. The main character Lauren goes on a journey to
discover a way to fix her marriage. Lauren and Ryan agree on a year long break. They can’t call or text each other and after the year is up they come back together to
see if they want to remain married or get a divorce. That’s the basis of the book.
Although the book is a work of fiction it reads so real, it feels so real and in it’s pages I feel like I’m Lauren, and if you’ve even been married you could probably understand it very well. I’ve been in her shoes some times and others I just don’t know what she’s going through. I loved this book. It’s by far one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time. I love how the story unfolds and when I was starting to lose hope the author dropped in some gems at the right time to keep me interested. Relationships are complex and we all have to finds the right ways to make ours work and while I don’t know that I could do what this couple did so save theirs I know I would do anything I needed to make sure my marriage is strong.
This book made me laugh, I cried a lot, it even had me thinking about my marriage and tools I could use to keep things spicy. I think of Lauren’s mom and wonder what kind of mom I would be when I have adult children. Would I be able to sit back and let them “live their lives” and not meddle. I thought of how their family grew and evolved and it reminds me of my growing family of siblings, in-laws and kids. After I Do is the kind of book you pick up and don’t put down until you finish. It’s the kind of book that you have to keep reading until the end, you have to know what happens next and you fall in love with all the characters. It’s a must absolutely add to your “Read List”. I will say that the only thing I didn’t like was the back seat role Ryan played in this book. Even though it was him and Lauren who were having issues we got the whole story from
Lauren’s eyes, except for a few gems – I won’t tell how but I loved reading about how Ryan was dealing with the separation. I wish there was more of him in the novel but
it’s not a deal breaker for me.
About After I Do:
When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.
Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?
This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple
caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.
Praise for the book:
“Moving, gorgeous and, at times, heart-wrenching. Taylor Jenkins Reid writes with wit and true emotion that you can feel. Read it, savor it, share it.” – Sarah Jio, New York Times bestselling author of The Violets of March
Buy the book
- Amazon Paperback: http://amzn.to/1iLZqf6
- Amazon Kindle: http://amzn.to/1knPxoL
About the author:
Taylor Jenkins Reid is an author and essayist from Acton, Massachusetts. She graduated from Emerson College with a degree in Media Studies. Her first novel, Forever, Interrupted, was named one of the “11 Debuts We Love” by Kirkus Reviews. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alex, and her dog, Rabbit. Her forthcoming novel, After I Do, was published July 1, 2014.
Connect with the author:
- Facebook: http://on.fb.me/QCF5T8
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tjenkinsreid
- Website: http://www.taylorjenkinsreid.com/
- Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1uZBWfi
