Review: After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

5 stars for After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

After I Do is an amazingly, perfectly, wonderfully beautiful, yet achingly honest story. It is a timeless tale of relationships and the roles we play in making or breaking them.

• How is it possible to hate and love, miss and loathe each other all within the same breath?
• How does one handle and manage the conflicting feelings of never wanting to see each other again while never wanting to let go?
• Where does it leave us when to make things easier by bottling up feelings of unhappiness is actually making things more difficult and resentful in the long run?
• How can a marriage evolve and yet proof that the couple is still tied to each other?

As much as this seems to be a book for the ladies and wives, it is very much a story apt for the men and husbands. After all, it takes two wings to fly, two legs to walk, two hands to clap, and two hearts to love.

Falling in love with someone is easy. It is loving when the newness has worn off, when life gets tough, when things get in the way, that complicate matters of the heart. In a similar fashion, falling out of love with that same someone is easy too. But when you fall out of love, it does not mean that you stop loving said someone. They simply don't make your heart beat faster.

At the end of the day, all that really matters in a relationship is that you open your heart, give everything you have, and keep trying. That is so real, a practical lesson for everyone, yet easier said than done.

A highly recommended read.


Publisher: Washington Square Press
Publication date: 1 Jul 2014

*** Favourite quote 1 ***

I thought of all those people I had seen making their way down the mountain. They seemed victorious. As I started to turn down the mountain, I knew that I would seem victorious to all the people I would pass on the way down. It just goes to show how alike failure and success can appear. Sometimes only you know the truth.

*** Favourite quote 2 ***

He is next to me but not beside me. We are both in this bed, but we are not sharing it.

*** Favourite quote 3 ***

It will be OK because everything is OK in the end. And if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.

*** Favourite quote 4 ***

His handwriting is so childish. Men’s handwriting is rarely identifiable by any sense of masculinity. It’s only identifiable by the lack of sophistication. They must decide in sixth grade to start worrying about other things.

*** Favourite quote 5 ***

Rachel and I sit down on either side of Grandma. She looks tired. Not the sort of tired after you’ve run a race or the sort of tired after you haven’t slept. She looks the sort of tired that you might be after living so long on this earth.

*** Favourite quote 6 ***

Here is what I can tell you. All that matters in this life is that you try. All that matters is that you open your heart, give everything you have, and keep trying.

~ After I Do
Taylor Jenkins Reid

@}--->>--->>-----

We are two people who used to be in love. What a beautiful thing to have been. What a sad thing to be.

When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. There is only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.

After I Do 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.

It’s the story of a couple caught up in an old game — and searching for a new road to happily ever after.

*Blurb from author's website*

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