After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Published by Washington Square Press on July 1st 2014
Pages: 352


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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.

Plain and simple, After I Do is absolutely phenomenal. It’s a touching story about marriage, and what happens long after the honeymoon phase has ended. I suspect readers who’ve never been in a committed, long-term relationship may not be as affected by the book because it’s less about falling deeply in love than it is about slowly falling out of love. However, as a woman who has been married for twenty years and known my husband for more than half of my life, the story really resonated with me. Read More