When Lauren and Ryan meet in college, they fall for each other right away. Their relationship is full of fun, passion, and love, so it’s only natural they get married after graduation. They become a part of each other’s families and their own family, with their dog, Thumper.
But somewhere along the way, they’ve started getting angrier at one another, not enjoying each other’s company, not having sex. They honestly don’t even like each other, and it’s not one thing causing these feelings, it’s a combination of things. So one night, with their marriage at the breaking point, they decide to go their separate ways for a year. They can see other people, do whatever they want, and in a year, hopefully they’ll be ready to try again. The only catch is they’re not to contact each other for the full year.
At first, Lauren can’t believe she’ll survive without her husband. Can’t they just put more work into their marriage? But the more time they spend apart, she realizes that they took each other for granted, took their love for granted. And as she sees herself as a person separate from Ryan for the first time, she needs to decide what’s important to her relationship-wise. Can she and Ryan truly be happy if they start again, or has their chance at love and happiness passed?
Taylor Jenkins Reid brings such poetry and emotion to her books. This story was all-encompassing, a look at love when it’s hot and when it goes cold, the way we are so inexorably connected to one another, and how we must find ourselves and each other in order to make a relationship last. This was a truly thought-provoking book. It made me smile and, of course, it made me cry.
With completing After I Do, I’ve read the last of her books. I’d been holding on to this one for so long because I didn’t want to be without any TJR books, but I couldn’t resist. Now I have to wait until her next one comes out!
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