Taylor Jenkins Reid

AFTER I DO 

A couple embarks on a journey of self-discovery when they decide to take a year off from their troubled marriage to see if they can fall in love again. By the author of Forever, Interrupted. Original.

A Novel

After I Do

Sarah Campbell

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. It's a lesson learned by those who have faced the most miserable of tragedies, and it's a secret that I suspect you yourself already know: the sun will always rise. Always. 

The sun rises the next day after mothers lose their babies, after men lose their wives, after countries lose wars. 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. So you can't go around assessing love by whether or not the sun rises The sun doesn't care about love. It just cares about rising.

It was supposed to happen after the baby was born. Or when I was with her. Or as she held my hand and told me the meaning of life. It wasn't supposed to happen when I was laughing with Ryan about Old Spice. Some people love that about life, that it's unpredictable and unruly. I hate it. I hate that it doesn't have the common decency to wait for a profound moment to take somnething from you. It doesn't care that you just want one picture of your grandmother holding her great-grandchild. It just doesn't care.

It's loud out here in the front of the hospital. Cars are zooming by. Ambulances are puling in and out. It occurs to me that I am not the only one losing someone right now. Natalie isn't the only one about to have a baby, either. Charlie's not the only man about to become a father. My mother isn't the only one about to lose her last parent. We are a family of people going through all the things people go through every day. We are not special. This hospital doesn't exist for us. I'm not the only woman about to call her husband and ask him to come home. I don't know why it feels good to know that. But it does. There are millions of me.

"Can I get you anything?" I ask her. "Ice chips?" 

“You know I'm not actually in labor, right?" Natalie laughs at me, and I laugh back. 

“Fair enough!" I say. It wasn't when she said she needed to be here for Grandma that she became a sister to me. It was when she made fun of me for offering ice chips. Big gestures are easy. Making fun of someone who's just trying to help you, that's family.

“I was ready to die, and I think that was the only way could admit it." 

"Because my husband is gone, Lauren," she says. "I love you all so much. But you don't need me anymore. Look at all of you. Your mom is doing so well. Fletcher is fine. You three kids are doing great.”

“No, you are," she says, patting my hand. "But I miss my mom," she says. "I miss my dad. I miss my big sister. I miss my best friend. And I miss my husband. I've lived too long without him now." 

"But you were doing OK," I say. "You were getting out of bed. You were making a life without him." 

My grandmother gently shakes her head. “Just because you can live without someone doesn't mean you want to," she says. 

The words bang around in my brain, knocking into one another, bouncing off the edges of my mind, but they keep rearranging themselves in the same order. 

I don't say anything back. I look at her and squeeze her hand. I often think of my grandmother as the old lady at the dinner table. But she's seen generations. She was a child once. She was a teenager. A newlywed. A mother. A widow.

“I’m sorry this has been so hard,” I say. “I never thought of how difficult it must have been for you without Grandpa. It’s a hard life.” 

“No, sweetheart. It’s not a hard life. I’m just done living.”

"Yeah," I say. She seems too weak to keep talking, so I don't want to ask her questions. And yet there is so much I want to learn from her. Her eccentricities, the things that felt so silly and laughable before, now seem profound and insightful. 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?

I can spot Ryan in a crowd. I can recognize his scent from another room. Just a few months ago, we were separated at the grocery store, and I found him by recognizing his sneeze from few aisles away. But at this airport, this time, I got it wrong. It’s not Ryan. All of that fear and jealousy and hurt and pain so sharp I thought it could cut me — wasn't real. It was entirely imaginary. It's stunning, really, what I can do to myself with only a misunderstanding.

"But the way I see it" she continues, 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?”

Melanie Harvie

A lovely read, but not my favourite. Very predicable. You can see what’s going to happen a mile off. 

Aims

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?

A cute tale of the tumultuous trials a marriage can put you through. A book of self discovery and reflection. 

Siri 

Third book of TJR! Cute book actually, it tells about the challenges of a couple who lost love and discovering love again and how they fixed it in a very unique way. It occurred to me that after marriage, it isn't about having perfect love life but truly understanding your other half. I loved the ending and it's a refreshing read.

stephie

such a good basically second chance book, i needed to read this book right when i did, this is definitely one of trj bests, absolutely fell in love with the characters, but i would have killed myself right when i saw this man dated three different girls in one year anywayssss love it!!

debbie <3

A cute and more realistic love story - I enjoyed the way it was broken up into the different sections and how the plot moved forward with their email drafts. The beginning of part 1 made me nostalgic for the beginning parts of my own relationship 🥲

Paige Paul

I have never been so stressfully invested with a book before. This story was beautifully told of a marriage fuzzily out and trying to work through the extinguished spark in it. I was really wondering what was going to happen and how it would end. I can’t say this would never happen to me but I guess it could to everyone and it just made my stomach pitch and twist as it went on and the actions they both went through. The writing as usual was beautiful and while I was stressed I was satisfied with the ending it had too. 

Priscilla Stanfield

I like when the right book finds you at the right time. 

Jenna

Liyah 🤎

Read this because I've heard so much about this author. It was def a nice palette cleanser from the other romance books I've read lately. It basically follows a married couple on the verge of divorce who decide to take a break for a year to see if they want to stay married. Honestly a weird premise I think they could've learned what they learned by just going to marriage counseling and maybe living in separate quarters but pretending to be single is weird. I thought Lauren's family members were written really well and were quite loveable. The "lesson" of the book is a cute one–life doesn't have to be lived by a script and relationships are what you put into them. CLiche but cliche because its true and I think the book tries its best to give that platitude some weight. In general, though...I don't like the central couple. This book is nearly a decade old so I can forgive its lacking interpersonal gender politics but as a reader in 2023 with my beliefs I saw fundamental cracks in the relationship of the characters that i think the narrative didn't repair. From the beginning, Ryan is a little whiny and manipulative, and neither Lauren nor the book holds him to tasks for that. Like the weird thing with him always wanting her to say she wants to have sex or the way he blows up at her because he feels bad that he messed up their honeymoon...and Lauren coddles him...BIG NO from me. And it happened so early and often in their relationship that i honestly thought the book wasn't going to put them back together because their issues seemed structural. How they did come back together was pretty dramatic and a little cheesy but I'll allow it every romance book needs its cheesy run into each others arm moment. At least there was no 3rd act breakup! Could be a good book club book and couples co-read!

Cori

** spoiler alert **
           This book made me feel human and made me look at love in a different light. I don’t know much about love myself but this book made me realize that I don’t have it all figured out. And that’s the beautiful thing about it. It taught me to never give up on anything, Rachel’s Bakery, Charlie’s kid, and Ryan and Lauren getting back together made me realize that maybe it’s okay to not have everything figured out. But we can try

took me a while to finish it because i didn‘t want to put up with all the drama at once but in the end it was actually okayish 

sophia

chateau

dragging in the middle of the book. there are a few things quiet unnecessary to tell, but the ending was perfect. i love it.

Riya

the fact that this book has been exalted so much despite it romanticising misogyny and emotional abuse, baffles me. I went in thinking I would get some real good angst, pain, and groveling but what I actually got was most bland characters I've read in a book recently. If you're going to present us with a story about second chances then make sure your characters are not paper thin.
It was disgusting to read Lauren being okay with her husband "smelling bad" and finding peace with it. Yuck. It's not even about her being okay about his body odor. I could have ignored that if she hadn't been lenient about all his other misdemeanors. Can't believe this is the same writer who wrote 'The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo'. So disappointed.

Ryan 

part 2 of "if this book ended with a polyamorous relationship, i wouldn't be mad"

Kate

Arianna

Hannah

I love Taylor Jenkins Reid and it does hurt me to give any of her books less then a stellar five star review but of the books I have read from her This is my least favorite. The ending is not the one I wanted to see for one, but it also feels rushed towards the end, maybe i’m missing something. In this case I just felt very unsatisfied by the outcome. It’s not an awful book but u would recommend every other TJR book i’ve read before this.

I was skeptical at first since the book is about a divorce and I didn’t see myself caring enough about the characters to stay hooked. But they really did convince me from the opposite. Besides the romance, Lauren also had quite the character development and it was nice to see how she found herself in her year apart from Ryan. 

Tabea

The way Reid writes about life is always the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read. Reading TJR I’m always so in love with the things she can say and the life lessons she adds to her books. “After I Do” should be read by everyone that is married or wanting to get married someday. It’s so real and if you thought it was cheesy you need to read it again- and this time understand it. 

Cassie French

rakshu

Taylor truly NEVER disappoints man. the angst was so on point. this book is all i needed in my life right now

Couldn’t read more than half of the book. 

Barbara

this book continues to impact me even over a month after reading it

kels

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, comes a breath taking 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. Don't miss the new novel from Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carrie Soto is Back, out now

Es geht um eine Ehekrise, kenn ich also nur second-hand, trotzdem ist der Schreibstil wunderbar! Allerdings ist der Plottwist revidiert, was mich erzürnt hat. Sehr softes, entspanntes Buch, allerdings tatsächlich ein ernstes Thema was sich durchzieht, worüber ich sogar mit meiner Mama diskutiert habe. Wie geht man im Leben mit dem Thema Liebe um, kann ein Paar in einer Ehe für immer „glücklich“ sein, oder sollte man überhaupt sein Leben lang nur in einer Beziehung sein? Huijuijui

Leon

Levena Banda

Lauren and Ryan fell hopelessly and irrevocably in love with each other in college and got married soon after.
Fast forward to like 10 years and they're still married but the spark is gone, they resent each other, they only ever seem to argue over everything from calling the landlord to picking what to eat they're both unhappy.
Falling in love is the easy part. Committing to it?
Working to maintain it? Not so much. Will Lauren and Ryan accept the cards they've been dealt with or will they stay and fight for their love? 


TJR's books for me are like strong perfume, better in small doses and at a distance. Don't get me wrong, I
absolutely adore her books, but I don't particularly like the recurring dark themes, ya know- death, divorce etc etc.
Idk I guess I normally prefer lighter reads so I read her
books sparingly, if that makes sense.

Regardless, this book was so heartwarming and messy and damaging and healing and so brutally honest.

This book resonated with me because I think oftentimes I forget I have to put a conscious effort
in maintaining my relationships.

Zaira A 

Oh this book is such a compelling story. This story touches so many situations and moments that any person who has been in a relationship or married has gone through. I loved that the author made Lauren and her marriage so relatable. I found myself multiple times reading and saying to myself of "damn I have been there". I liked the fact that the book didn't sugar coated there issues or made them overly dramatic. Ryan and Lauren went through situations just as getting annoyed over what do you want for food or lack of intimacy. This is why I loved this book the fact that it doesn't portrait a perfect or fairy tale marriage. 

I felt her heartache as you see how her relationship deteriorates over time. Once Lauren and Ryan decided to take the year apart I couldn't stop saying oh no... Even though I knew it was going to happened since it's the premise of the book. I enjoyed seeing Lauren character developed through the book. The only thing I wish the book had was Ryan point of view, although we get a glimpse of it, I wanted more more more! Such an easy read. Definitely one of those books that makes you think about your relationship.

AFTER I DO

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