"After I Do"

“After I Do”

Written by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Review written by Diana Iozzia

“After I Do” is a romantic contemporary fiction with a wonderful depiction on marriage. And marriage falling apart. This book follows two spouses, lead character, Lauren and her husband, Ryan. Lauren and Ryan have hit the point in their marriage that after years of being together, they have fallen out of love for each other. They decide after many emotional fights and long nights to separate for one year.

We meet a fantastic cast of characters. I listened to this book as an audiobook. As much as I loved the narrator, her ‘boy voice’ was silly and definitely detracted from the story. Her narration for the females was great, giving little characteristics to each. Lauren has a close family of her mother, her brother Charlie, her sister Rachel, and her grandmother. We also meet some new characters to everyone’s lives: Charlie’s pregnant fianceé, Natalie, the mother’s boyfriend, Lauren’s coworker and friend, Mila, and David, Lauren’s second love interest.

I felt that although I have never been through a marriage difficulty such as separation and possible divorce, this felt like a very natural read. There are many wonderful scenes of heartbreak, happiness, love, longing, and more. I felt that this was a perfect book. At no point did I wish something were to be written differently. I loved the dialogue, the characters, the detail, the story. I could go on for pages upon pages about the dialogue, but I won’t. This was the first audiobook that I truly enjoyed and would give five stars to. I cannot wait to read another book by this author.

I also enjoyed that Ryan’s perspective wasn’t told in first person narration, but we read e-mails from him, which was a nice story telling technique that I didn’t expect.

Oh, actually, I can definitely name something that I wished wasn’t included. God, is it awkward to listen to sex scenes being read out by a narrator? Especially the first one which was full of Lauren screaming. I shudder thinking about it now.

In conclusion, I fully recommend this book. It made me feel so deeply for the characters. I swear, don’t listen to an audiobook in public, because this one was very funny, and I probably looked strange laughing to myself. This reminded me very much so of “The Last Five Years”, which is a favorite musical about the dissolution of a marriage. However, “After I Do” was a much lighter and fluffier version. This is a nice, relaxing read for vacations or tired days after work.