After I Do

A married couple separates for a year when they’re struggling.I loved Lauren’s relationships with her family, especially her supportive sister and feisty grandma. Those relationships helped give the book a bit of depth.

“Isn’t it nice … once you’ve outgrown the ideas of what life should be and you just enjoy what it is.”

“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.”

“Why do we do this? Why do we undervalue things when we have them? Why is it only on the verge of losing something that we see how much we need it?”

“Your love life should bring you love. If it doesn't, no matter how hard you try, if you are honest and fair and good, and you decide it's over and you need to go find love somewhere else, then...what more can the world ask of you?”

After I Do follows Lauren and Leo, a couple who seem like they’ve got it all — until they don’t. After years together, their relationship stagnates and they decide to live apart for a year to rediscover themselves and decide if they want to stay married. What starts as a hopeful experiment becomes a deeper exploration of identity, love, and the parts of ourselves we forget in long-term relationships. Lauren’s journey of self-discovery is heartfelt, messy, and very relatable.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is show more one of my favorite authors! Similar to Liane Moriarty, the odds are high that I’ll like or even love what she writes, so I’m always down to pick up her books. They are emotional and often about relationships and life pivots with characters who are deeply human. My favorite so far is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo!

This book didn't blow me away, but it was engaging enough to keep me turning pages. It landed squarely in the “beach read” category for me, which means it's not one that will stick with me over time. show less

Love is not static. It changes. It is adaptable. It can grow and it can disappear. It is amazingly special but it isn't easy. It has to be worked at. And if you don't pay attention to it, it can be hidden behind the mundanities of everyday life. When this happens, many people give up, finding it too hard to work their way back to the love they once felt. But are there other options? For Lauren and Ryan, in Taylor Jenkins Reid's newest novel, After I Do, the solution is to take a year off of their marriage to determine if what they once had, the love they once cherished, is worth saving.

Lauren and Ryan met in college. Their relationship was charmed, the envy of friends and family. But eleven years in and six years into their marriage, show more all is not well in Camelot. In fact, things are downright unhappy. Lauren and Ryan don't even want to be in the same room together anymore. They snipe at each other, throwing small unkindnesses at each other, freezing each other out, cutting at each other a thousand ways. They are resentful, irritated, and annoyed with the other most of the time. Things finally come to a head when they acknowledge the state of suppressed warfare in their home and they don't know if their marriage can survive the people they've become. The spark is well and truly gone from their relationship and brutally, truthfully, they aren't in love with each other anymore. But they both remember how it used to be and don't want to let that go without at least trying to recover it. So they agree to be apart for a year, not to contact each other, to focus on what they need individually in order to remember why they fell in love in the first place. Their decision isn't an easy or conventional one but they feel as if it is their only chance to save their marriage.

Told mainly through Lauren's experiences, the novel is realistic and honest about the fading of love in the face of small daily resentment after small daily resentment. Reid captures beautifully (and painfully) the building minor aggravations that chip away at the very foundation of happiness, thoughtfulness, and love and how those aggravations ultimately grow so large that they overtake any finer feeling. As their year apart progresses, Lauren reads Ryan's written and saved but unsent emails to her and starts writing her own as well. The sporadic emails allow each of the characters to safely air their grievances, the ways they feel the other has marginalized them, and the things that are so important that they have to change if there will ever be a chance to come back together again. Lauren, with the insights of her mother, her siblings, best friend, and grandmother comes to realize the many shapes that enduring love takes and she must decide if she and Ryan are fighting for happiness and to find a way back to loving each other, as opposed to being "in love" with each other, or if this year apart means that they can and should live without each other.

The emotions are so raw and so completely unadorned and truthful here that some portions of the novel are hard to read. As Lauren works back and forth through her own desires and intentions with regard to Ryan's and her future, the reader swings through foreboding, worry, and happiness all in equal measure. Watching the characters lose themselves almost completely is painful and knowing they will be forever changed at the end of their year apart no matter what their ultimate decision is is nerve-wracking. The narrative tension is consistent and the novel is perfectly paced. This is not really a romance but it is definitely a novel about love, knowing what is worth saving, what real, messy love looks like, and the importance of nurturing it before it is gone. Relatable and instructive, it is a novel worth reading for anyone who has been through the ups and downs of marriage or long term relationship. show less

After I Do follows Lauren and her marriage to Ryan. After several years, they have reached a breaking point and are on the verge of divorce. Instead, they decide to take a year long separation with no contact. Lauren goes through the feelings of anger, depression, resentment, and failure.

This story created a lot of anxiety. Reid captures real life trivial arguments that blow up due to lack of communication and harboring resentment. I think there are valuable lesson Reid touches on in her story, using a cast of female family members to show different lives and choices. As always, Reid tells an intriguing and heartfelt story about relationships.

This story has stayed with me beyond the last page. College sweethearts, Lauren & Ryan, started marriage madly in love, but now they actively dislike each other. How did they get there? What will they do about it? The solution is to separate but not divorce. Told mostly from Lauren's point of view, the reader gets a story of self discovery and a new level of honesty - with herself, with her family, and ultimately with Ryan. I liked the characters in this story - all of them. And I appreciated the way supporting characters were well developed.

After I Do is one of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s early novels. That doesn’t make it any less enjoyable, but don’t go expecting a huge number of characters, complex plots across time and Mick Riva.

The story is told from the perspective of Lauren, who is about to turn thirty. She’s been with Ryan for over a decade but their marriage isn’t working out. They argue all the time and it’s an effort to be in the same room together. They decide to separate for a year – no contact, do what you want and see who you want to see. For Lauren, it’s an opportunity to spend more time with her family and do things on her own. But she still misses Ryan, so she starts writing draft emails to him explaining her feelings which is a kind of therapy show more in a way. As the year draws to a close, Lauren needs to ask herself what she wants. Does she want or need in Ryan in her life?

This is a sweet story. It’s not life changing, but it’s honest. It takes the good with the bad of marriage as well as the feelings and logistics of separation. It’s not a romance either. It’s about a range of different loves – for family, for friends and for those who are in your life. It’s about improving the every day from saying you really hate pho to taking a life changing leap into a new career. All these things happen with Lauren and her family and it just seems so real. The characters are endearing, but not over the top perfect. Not everything is explained in minute detail either – Lauren’s parents are separated and she hasn’t seen her dad for decades. It’s just a fact, not something to obsess over. I really liked that. The focus of the book was on current relationships – growth or space. We don’t need to know everything about everything (although there was some repeated discussion about what I’d call ‘rat runs’ – taking the back streets of L.A. to avoid traffic and gain time).

The novel has a lot of feels, which readers of TJR will be familiar with. Happiness, sadness, awwww moments and some angry ones. The minor characters definitely bring those, such as Lauren’s grandmother (what a legend) and Natalie, Lauren’s brother’s fiancé. Overall it is a delightful story about personal growth and family that reads beautifully. The story is tight and it just flows, pulling the reader along with it.

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I rarely read the same author in near succession, but I found myself with two Taylor Jenkins Reid books on hold simultaneously: After I Do and Atmosphere. Since it had been a while since I last read a Reid book, I initially placed a hold on After I Do to rectify that. When I discovered she was publishing a new book, Atmosphere, I decided to place a hold for that as well. Naturally, I had no control over when I’d get my turn. To my surprise, my turn for Atmosphere came first. I’m a huge fan of Reid’s books, and I was thrilled to read After I Do in close succession.

After I Do is a unique story about marriage, or rather, it’s about an effort to stay married. It’s emotionally charged and tugged at my heartstrings throughout the show more entire narrative. Lauren and Ryan, a married couple, have been together for a long time, and their attitudes towards each other have changed, causing their love to fade. As the rift in their relationship deepens, they make an unconventional decision: they choose to separate for a year, with absolutely no contact between them. This is the only rule; everything else is open to them.

My emotions were on a rollercoaster ride throughout this book! It was heartwarming to witness Lauren and Ryan’s journey of love and the construction of their adult life together. However, it was heartbreaking to observe the disintegration of their marriage. I couldn’t fathom the reasons behind the deterioration of their relationship. Moreover, I observed a constant shift in my thoughts and feelings during that year of separation. I couldn’t make up my mind about what I wanted for them, and I was equally clueless about how they would navigate this challenging phase.

The story of Lauren and Ryan is fantastic, but I also genuinely enjoyed the supporting characters, including Lauren’s mom, grandma, sister, and brother. As Lauren embarked on her year of self-discovery, she also had to be there for her family. Each family member underwent their own life transformations, and it was wonderful to witness those as well.

I borrowed the audiobook of After I Do from my local library using Libby. Julia Whelan provided another excellent narration. The audiobook concludes with an interesting conversation between Taylor Jenkins Reid and Julia Whelan, which is definitely worth sticking around for after the book ends.

I have photos and additional information that I'm unable to include here. It can all be found on my blog, in the link below.
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