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I decided to conquer reading 24 books in 2024. The first book I read for this year is After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I was drawn to this book because it’s about a couple at their wit’s end trying to make their marriage survive, even if it means taking drastic measures.

About After I Do By Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“A seductive twist on the timeless tale of a couple trying to rediscover love in a marriage brought low by the challenges of domestic togetherness…touching, perceptive, and achingly honest.” —Beatriz Williams, New York Times bestselling author

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 Review of After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

My marriage has been on rocky ground for some time now. It almost led to us getting a divorce this past year. When I read the description of After I Do, I was expecting to be turned off by this book, especially since I liked The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It had some twisted views about relationships (not that I’m judging!!)

In the novel “After I Do,” the central couple struggles to maintain their marriage. They have reached a point that many couples experience in their married life – they are bored with each other. In an attempt to make each other happy, they are sacrificing their happiness and starting to resent each other.

The couple decides to take a year apart from each other with no contact with each other at all. My heart went in my stomach thinking about them making this drastic move. While I believe absence makes the heart more robust, I’m also smart enough to know that we are all human and have physical needs! I saw this as a recipe for disaster.

One quote from the book gave me a ton of food for thought.

“If you stay married for a number of years and you have a happy time together, and then you decide you don’t want to be married anymore and you choose to go be happy with someone else or doing something else, that’s not a failure.”

Lauren’s mother

While I can understand why her mother may have made this statement, given her failed marriages and the current societal perspective on the value of marriage, I disagree that this isn’t a failure. I do feel when one decides to get married; they should do it for life unless there is abuse or affairs. Other than that, I do feel a marriage is meant to be something we take part in for LIFE with ONE partner.

But I also have been divorced twice now, but both times, it wasn’t my call to make. But to say that it was a mistake for those divorces to take place would honestly be a lie because I’m married to the exact man I should have married the first time.

In a way, I feel like a hypocrite because I believe in couples staying married throughout their lives, but I also believe that a couple chooses how their relationship progresses. I don’t believe anyone willing wants to stay with someone who leads to unhappiness. After all, we all want to live intentionally since we only get one chance at this life.

I fight to keep my marriage with my current husband because marriage is not an easy road. Those who disagree either haven’t been married long and are still in the blissful honeymoon stage or haven’t had many real-life issues thrown their way. Plus, I also feel that the longer one is married, the more they forget the hardships they went through to get to the blissful stage again.

After I Do is a solid book that opens up a lot of food for thought moments regarding our relationships with our spouses, family, and friends. It also makes a person think about their view of themselves.

After I Do also showcases how our personal relationships affect our marriages. I love how her brother decided that he had the ability to be a good father and husband. In his mind, it didn’t matter what his history looked like.

I recommend this book for those who feel challenged in their marriages or seek inspiration about love’s power.

Talk to me in the comments:

Have you read After I Do yet?

If you haven’t, does it sound like a book that may interest you?