Title: After I Do
Series: -
Author: Taylor Jenkins-Reid
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: July 1st 2014
Pages: 336
Source: Purchased
Rating: ✰✰✰✰.5
CAWPILE: 8.71/10
Synopsis
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?
Review
“The sun will rise no matter what pain we encounter. No matter how much we believe the world to be over, the sun will rise.”
This is the last book of Taylor Jenkins-Reid’s that I had left to read, until she releases more, and it is one of her earlier works - her second published novel. And I loved it, I think it might even be one of my favourites of hers, definitely my favourite novel outside of the Quartet. I read it completely within one day, and it strikes me as being a perfect holiday read (though fair warning it made me cry A LOT).
I think one of the things I love the most about this book is the journey, we follow Lauren through the aftermath of the separation and on her journey of realisation towards herself, love, marriage, and relationships. I found it fascinating to see her struggle with feeling lost in all of these areas, and her search for answers in people and the different advice they gave her.
I think the advice is also a really important aspect of this book, there’s so much to relate to in this book for so many people and for so many different reasons. But a lot of the advice is both helpful and adaptable to whatever your situation is, ultimately you’re left asking yourself what is important to you and what you want in life which I think is always a useful reflective task. This book was just packed full of advice and different outlooks from people who genuinely cared for Lauren, and it was wonderful to see how different it was depending on the character.
It has been a long time since I have purposely stayed up late in order to finish a book because I couldn’t put it down, but After I Do made me do that. It was making me so emotional that I just had to finish it in bed, trying not to cry so that I wouldn’t wake my partner up. I’m not even sure why it got me so much, but it really did. Taylor Jenkins-Reid has a remarkable ability to draw you into her characters and make you care for them, and it really worked on me.
The only downside for me was that I didn’t always like Lauren or agree with the things that she did which put me off of her, but I did really enjoy the journey that she went on and I do think some part of disliking her was an intentional move from Taylor Jenkins-Reid. When we first meet her, she is meant to be frustrating, and as we move on I suppose we get to the reality of what their separation looks like, and realistically she isn’t going to be fine immediately, but the journey to the end I did enjoy. As she understood herself more, I found I liked her more which is probably quite true to life for many people.
I also loved the family aspect, Lauren’s family were a really special addition to the story, a really good support system and at times some needed comic relief. Because as much as this was a book about romantic love, it is also a book about other types of love and support, and Lauren’s family played a vital role in this.
So now I’m at the end of Taylor Jenkins-Reid’s current works I’m not quite sure what to do, especially knowing that her next projects won’t be related to one another I wonder what she’ll do. Will she keep writing stories about famous people? Or head back to writing about regular people with regular relationships? I don’t know but I’m excited to find out!
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