“A seductive twist on the timeless tale of a couple trying to rediscover love in a marriage brought low by the challenges of domestic togetherness…touching, perceptive, and achingly honest.” –Beatriz Williams, New York Times bestselling author 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 … 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.more
Ryan and I are two people who used to be in love. What a beautiful thing to have been. What a sad thing to be.”
After I Do shows the delicious high of being in love. The kind of love that sparkly young eyes think will last forever as long as you just believe. Sigh. But when your partner’s adorable oddities start grating on your nerves and you’re feeling unappreciated and invisible and that beautiful love slowly turns to indifference, then resentment, and eventually plummets to full-out hate… what then?
Taylor Jenkins Reid shows the disintegration of a marriage, which is hard, but watching her characters make a plan that does not immediately jump to divorce offered a lot of hope to me as a reader. Yes, there are relationships that need to be ended permanently but both of these characters acknowledge that not all is lost…it’s just been painfully neglected over the years.
I really enjoyed how Ms. Reid explored marriage in general and didn’t shame any of her characters’ choices. I would recommend this book to anyone who is in or ever has been in a long-term relationship. Actually, even those who haven’t could benefit. Being married for a number of years myself, I could relate to so much and found this book to be surprisingly optimistic. If you don’t read this one, read something by Taylor Jenkins Reid. She’s amazing!
My favorite quote:
“I know it will be OK because everything is OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”
I love how every book by Taylor Jenkins Reid is completely different to her others. This one is very thought provoking and it certainly made me contemplate my ideas and others’ ideas about about marriage, love and commitment. A great cast too – she’s a master at creating people rather than just characters, and making you love them all.
“We are tied to each other. We can hate and love, miss and loathe each other all within the same breath. We can never want to see each other again while never wanting to let go.”
After I Do is the fourth book I have read by TJR and it’s safe to say she is hands down one of my favorite authors ever! I have loved every single one of her books in such different ways and this one was no different. What do you do when you aren’t in love with the love of your life anymore? I felt like it took a very honest and real look at what happens when your marriage just isn’t working anymore. Reid has this was of writing books that I can emotionally connect with very quickly, I get so wrapped up I loose all track of time and by the ending I am usually a sobbing mess. This was another five star read for me and one I would highly recommend!
Audiobook Review
Overall 4 stars
Performance 4.5 stars
Story 3.5-4 stars
I have been meaning to read Taylor Jenkins Reid for some time, so last night I disregarded my other commitments and just started. I could not put this book down. I haven’t read/listened to a book in one sitting in a very long time. The narration by Tara Sands was amazing and she gave such a powerful and emotional performance. Her comedic timing was spot on and she really drove home all the joy, pain, anger, love, and heartbreak of these characters so well.
The raw and brutal honesty of Ryan and Lauren’s marriage in crises shook me. It hurt my heart and made me so incredibly sad because it was so relatable. It shined a light on how mundane every day things can chip away and deteriorate any relationship if you let them (and sometimes even if you don’t). I feel truly conflicted writing this review, because while I loved the writing and this aspect of the book, I also strongly disliked the characters. I don’t really consider this a romance. It feels more like a cautionary tale. Ryan and Lauren were so self-centered and selfish. I think the lack of Ryan’s POV was also a huge drawback. The email snippets were not enough and I really wish we could have seen things through his eyes. I didn’t feel like their separation actually accomplished anything (besides letting them date/have sex with others), but perhaps that was the point. There is no huge reckoning and though things conclude on a hopeful note, the author makes it clear several times that the real work of saving their marriage lay ahead. There are no promises of happy endings. Just a renewed desire and will to keep trying. And perhaps that’s entirely the point.
CW: sex with OW/OM, death of loved one, cancer
This book was heartbreaking and beautiful. It hit so close to home for me so I was extra emotional reading this, like crying every few pages. My sister has been telling me about Taylor Jenkins Reid for along time since she’s one of her favorite authors and specifically told me about this book because of the similarities in my life/relationship. I finally started it after scrolling through my hundreds of books in my Kindle library and now I don’t know why I didn’t read it sooner. It’s been hard having to work and do other life things when I kept thinking about reading this book and finishing it. Now that I have finished it I know it’s going to be one that sticks with me for a long time. Taylor’s writing style in this book was wonderful as it really ropes you in. I look forward to reading more of her books.
Taylor Jenkins Reid has created characters that are not only realistic, but are relatable to anyone who has ever been married. Following the relationship of the two main characters to see how their relationship breaks down and then gets built back up was done subtly and so well written that I couldn’t put the book down. I enjoy books that take real world situations and teach you something about your own life while you experience things through the eyes of someone else. I would highly recommend this book.
This book left me in a puddle at the end. But in the best possible way because this is an incredibly beautiful book!
It was a unique take on what happens in a marriage when the luster wears off…Lauren and Ryan decide to take a year off from their marriage when they realize they are no longer in love with each other.
This book explores things from Lauren’s perspective though we do get to read a little of Ryan’s side through his email drafts. Relationships and marriages look different, depending on who’s looking at them. Lauren learns that her siblings, her mother, and her grandmother all see things differently than she does. She learns about herself, love, loss, and healing along the way.
This was an emotional book for me. All marriages have ups and downs. It’s inevitable. I’ve been married a long time and over the years I experienced some of what Lauren (and Ryan) did at the beginning of this book. Reading it as an onlooker brought up so many thoughts and feelings, both of sadness and gratitude. Sadness that I didn’t see things from my husband’s side of things all those years ago, and gratitude that we came through the issues and years stronger and better than we were before.
I would recommend this book to everyone…married, single, in a committed relationship, etc. EVERYONE can take something from this book! It was incredible!
A book of believable characters and real issues wrapped in an entertaining read%,
I should have known better than to start a Taylor Jenkins Reid book late at night with the intention of reading just a few chapters before bed. This book, like her others, was impossible to put down once I’d sunk in. Her writing is so deeply honest and compelling, and I’m just absolutely in love with her characters. She tells stories that feel like bits of your heart made bare, and they’re worth every single second of staying up way, way too late.
Goddamn can TJR write a good book. This was both profoundly sad and extremely thought-provoking and inspiring…and kept me up at night.
~ C.
This book made my cold, dark heart come to light! I was like the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes when he discovered the meaning of Christmas. After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid made me believe in true love, well, a wee bit at least!
Lauren and Ryan have been together for a little over ten years, and married for six of them. The two have reached a point in their marriage where they’re questioning whether or not they still love each other. To decided if their marriage is worth saving, the two agree to take a year-long break from each other, no contact whatsoever.
“Just because you can live without someone, doesn’t mean you want to.”
Let me just say, this book was so unbelievably relatable. From the secondary characters, Lauren’s hilarious family, to the mistakes she kept making in her relationship, I totally kept saying, ‘yup, been there, done that,’ and even the inner monologues we get from Lauren with her friends, family and ‘boyfriend’. This book was so relatable on a personal level.
I’ve read other books by Reid, and like those, this one was masterfully written. Hands down, Reid is probably one of favourite romance authors out there right now. The dialogue flows exquisitely, the characters are well-developed, and the pace is exactly what you’re looking for with a romance novel.
I fell in love with the grandma as soon I heard the first words muttered out of her mouth,
“Well, the cancer’s coming back, but other than that I’m doing fine.”
She was insightful, witty and sarcastic, everything a grandmother should be. While she was a secondary character, this grandma had some very wise advice and the family, and specifically Lauren, should have listened to her more often.
“You have that someone. That’s all I’m trying to say. Don’t give up on him just because he bores you. Or doesn’t pick up his socks.”
My emotions had a bit of whiplash while reading this book. It is impossible to read this and not see yourself in some of these situations. From love, family, grief, careers and even friendships — this books had it all and I couldn’t help but get a little choked up at parts, which made me realise what a spectacular book this was. Any book that makes my cold heart feel something is doing a pretty damn good job!
All things considered, I wasn’t surprised I would love After I Do. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a phenomenal author and I’ve decided to keep reading her books. Maybe this cold, bitter dark heart of mine will open up to the idea there is real love out there, not just in books? LOL Who am I kidding?!?
Read my full review here: https://bit.ly/2I1B0pN
Halfway into the book, I’m hating it. I’m absolutely hating the way Lauren is dealing with all of this. This story has so many of my most recurring pet peeves in romance. But then…
Then Lauren has a conversation with Rachel, her sister. It’s a short conversation, seemingly insignificant, it’s just the two of them hiking and having a sisterly moment. And it hit me. Hard. Because I’m Rachel. If you have read this book, you’ll probably understand what I mean. If you haven’t, then go read it and you’ll understand what I mean.
I felt guilty. I felt so guilty for judging this fictional woman when she was just trying her best. The book changed for me after this. I read the second half with different eyes. I cried the whole last 40 minutes of the story. And… I don’t know. I think it changed me a little bit.
I still don’t agree with most of the things Lauren did. I still don’t like that the whole story was built on the fact that Lauren and Ryan just didn’t communicate.
But I also feel like I understand them, I understand what happened and why it happened, and I also think I understand myself better now.
Taylor Jenkins Reid is an author I really admire so I was really excited to read this book.
This is the story of a marriage between two people that love one another so much until they start to have problems of communication and decide to take separate ways for a year.
We get to read about the heroine’s troubles and self discovery and her struggle to find a way back to love.
I loved this book.
This was the first book of Taylor’s that I read. Up until this point I had not read many fictional, romance type novels. This book turned me over into a whole new genre that I love. After I Do was relatable and realistic to so many couples out there. She hit the “For better or for worse” right on the nose. Loved it!Taylor Jenkins Reid