Review: After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Published: July 1, 2014

Publisher: Washington Square Press

Format: copy via Booksparks

Rating: 5/5

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?

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

**ATTENTION I FOUND A NEW AUTHOR TO OBSESS OVER**

Seriously I love this book and author so much I ordered her previous novel just pages into this novel. Honestly when I read the concept that Lauren and Ryan were going to take a year off of their marriage to figure things out I wasn’t so sure how this would pan out. Okay so I had my theories on how I thought things would work out and trust me it wasn’t positive. The fact that so many things could’ve happened such as falling in love with someone else, I couldn’t see this ending in a good way.

In the very beginning Lauren cant handle things and she logs into Ryan's emails while there she sees Ryan has written drafts of emails and she checks them out. There are emails to Lauren in them he tells her things he felt he could never tell her. While at first she gets mad but eventually she starts to see things from his eyes. She began to realize how they both took things for granted. She realized how he saw her and most importantly how she saw him. She starts writing her own emails at first they are very mean but slowly but surely they turn emotional. She soon stops seeing how he is doing and starts to focus on her own well being.

I loved the journey that Lauren takes. She takes this time to focus on herself and in the process she becomes closer to her family as well. Although this book is about a marriage, bottom line it all boils down to communication, work and effort. Everyone seems to love the ideal of love but love and attraction is the easy thing. Marriage takes work and effort if you don’t put the work in it can all fall to the wayside in a blink of an eye. However at the same time you have to want to put the effort in. If you don’t than there are bigger issues. But sometimes things are definitely worth fighting for. This book shows us that marriage isn’t perfect that sometimes you have to step back and if your love is strong enough nothing can break that bond. This is hands down one of fave reads of the year. It’s funny, witty, emotional and makes you see life and love in all it’s grit and glory. Taylor Jenkins Reid takes you on a ride on that you soon won't forget.