Published July 1, 2014
About the Book:
From the author of Forever, Interrupted—hailed by Sarah Jio as "moving, gorgeous, and at times heart-wrenching"—comes a breathtaking new novel about modern marriage, the depth of family ties, and the year that one remarkable heroine spends exploring both.
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.
My Thoughts:
Taylor Jenkins Reid is shaping up to be one of my favorite authors. Her two books out to date are both easily some of the best books I've read in a long time, and I read a lot. I really loved Forever, Interrupted, but I think I actually loved After I Do even more. Like her first book, this one is also beautifully written and very real. The dialogue between characters and situations are all very authentic. She makes you really care about the characters and relate to them. All marriages have ups and downs and the struggles that Lauren and Ryan experience ring true to my own experiences and those that friends have shared with me over the years about their own marriages. There is no major, drama-filled thing that goes wrong. It's usually the little things that add up over time, the things we let slide to avoid a fight, those things that irritate us but we don't want to come across as mean or bitchy for saying them to our partner, etc. They fester and cracks form in the foundation of a marriage when they are left to build, and being unhappy in your marriage weighs on you so much. It's all here in this book, and it's written in way that is true to life. I also really love Lauren's family. She has the most amazing, funny, supportive family, and her Grandma is THE BEST! Love her so much!
Also, want to note...in ways this is similar to Rainbow Rowell's Landline, as it is about a marriage that is falling apart and if it can be fixed. This book is all of the things Landline could have been but isn't. Reading this made me realize even more where Landline went wrong and how it could have been so much better. If you want to read about the struggles of marriage, real relationships, finding happiness, etc., choose After I Do between these two books (or really choose it over any book with similar themes).
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