Julia Whelan narrates the story of a couple who are struggling with a rough patch in their marriage. Lauren and Ryan met at 19, and married at 24. Now 29, they are struggling to remember why—or even if—they still love each other, so they decide to take a year-long break. Whelan perfectly captures the arc of their relationship, which moves from awkward college flirting to the caustic sniping of a marital fight over something truly stupid. Her skill at narrating the everyday is both a strength and a flaw: For some this performance might be too uncomfortably like their own lives laid bare, while for others it could be deeply cathartic. Whelan also gives depth and personality to secondary characters, who are generally underdeveloped in the text. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
After I Do: A Novel
Narrated by Julia Whelan
Taylor Jenkins ReidUnabridged — 9 hours, 21 minutes
After I Do: A Novel
Narrated by Julia Whelan
Taylor Jenkins ReidUnabridged — 9 hours, 21 minutes
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Overview
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.
Editorial Reviews
"Taylor Jenkins Reid offers an entirely fresh and new perspective on what can happen after the "happily ever after." With characters who feel like friends and a narrative that hooked me from the first page, After I Do takes an elegant and incisively emotional look at the endings and beginnings of love. Put this book at the top of your must read list!"
"This beautifully rendered story explores the brilliance and rarity of finding true love, and how to find our way back through the painful aftermath of losing it. These characters will leap right off the page and into your heart."
Taylor Jenkins Reid delivers 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. I fell in love with Ryan and Lauren from their passionate beginning, and I couldn’t stop reading as they followed their unlikely road to redemption. Touching, perceptive, funny, and achingly honest, After I Do will keep you hooked to the end, rooting for husbands and wives and the strength of true love.
Taylor Jenkins Reid has written a poignant and heartfelt exploration of love and commitment in the absence of shared time that asks, what does it take to be the love of someone's life?
Forever, Interrupted weaves a beautiful love story with a terrible tragedy. Told in alternating timelines, each chapter progresses sequentially from two different arcs: one of a blooming, forever love and another of overcoming a sudden, inexplicable loss. Each storyline moves effortlessly and seamlessly through the connected stages, while also emphasizing the strengthening of old friendships and the forging of new ones. Whether told in past or present voice, Reid’s debut is a superb read from start to finish!
"Sweet, heartfelt, and surprising, Forever Interrupted is a story about a young woman struggling to find her way after losing her husband. These characters made me laugh as well as cry, and I ended up falling in love with them, too."
"Moving, gorgeous and, at times, heart-wrenching. Taylor Jenkins Reid writes with wit and true emotion that you can feel. Read it, savor it, share it."
Praise for After I Do:
“Written in a breezy, humorous style familiar to fans of Jane Green and Elin Hilderbrand, After I Do focuses on Lauren’s journey of self-discovery. The intriguing premise and well-drawn characters contribute to an emotionally uplifting and inspiring story.
"You'll laugh, weep and fly through each crazy-readable page."
"Taylor Jenkins Reid writes with ruthless honesty, displaying an innate understanding of human emotion and creating characters and relationships so real I’m finding it impossible to let them go. After I Do is a raw, unflinching exploration of the realities of marriage, the delicate nature of love, and the enduring strength of family. Simultaneously funny and sad, heartbreaking and hopeful, Reid has crafted a story of love lost and found that is as timely as it is timeless."
Praise for After I Do:
“Written in a breezy, humorous style familiar to fans of Jane Green and Elin Hilderbrand, After I Do focuses on Lauren’s journey of self-discovery. The intriguing premise and well-drawn characters contribute to an emotionally uplifting and inspiring story.
Julia Whelan narrates the story of a couple who are struggling with a rough patch in their marriage. Lauren and Ryan met at 19, and married at 24. Now 29, they are struggling to remember why—or even if—they still love each other, so they decide to take a year-long break. Whelan perfectly captures the arc of their relationship, which moves from awkward college flirting to the caustic sniping of a marital fight over something truly stupid. Her skill at narrating the everyday is both a strength and a flaw: For some this performance might be too uncomfortably like their own lives laid bare, while for others it could be deeply cathartic. Whelan also gives depth and personality to secondary characters, who are generally underdeveloped in the text. K.M.P. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
2014-04-10
An unhappily married couple spends a year apart in Reid's (Forever, Interrupted, 2013) novel about second chances.When we meet Lauren, she and her husband, Ryan, are having a meltdown trying to find their car in the parking lot at Dodger Stadium after a game. Through a series of flashbacks, Lauren reveals how the two of them went from being inseparable to being insufferable in each other's eyes—and in desperate need of a break. Both their courtship and their fights seem so ordinary—they met in college; he doesn't like Greek food—that the most heartbreaking part of their pending separation is deciding who will get custody of their good-natured dog. It's not until Ryan moves out that the juicy details emerge. Lauren surreptitiously logs into his email one day, in a fit of missing him, and discovers a bunch of emails to her that he had saved but not sent. Liberated by Ryan's candor, Lauren saves her replies for him to find, and the two of them read each other's unfiltered thoughts as they go about their separate lives. Neither character holds anything back, which makes the healing process more complex, and more compelling, than simply getting revenge or getting one's groove back. Meanwhile, as Lauren spends more time with her family and friends, she explores the example set for her by her parents and learns that there are many ways to be happy. It's never clear until the final pages whether living alone will bring Lauren and Ryan back together or force them apart forever. But when the year is up, the resolution is neither sappy nor cynical; it's arrived at after an honest assessment of what each partner can't live with and can't live without.Reid's tome on married life is as uplifting as it is brutally honest—a must-read for anyone who is in (or hopes to be in) a committed relationship.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940176924107 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 12/06/2022 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Sales rank: | 745,278 |
Read an Excerpt
After I Do
We are in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, and once again, Ryan has forgotten where we left the car. I keep telling him that it’s in Lot C, but he doesn’t believe me.
“No,” he says, for the tenth time. “I specifically remember turning right when we got here, not left.”
It’s incredibly dark, the path in front of us lit only by lampposts featuring oversized baseballs. I looked at the sign when we parked.
“You remember wrong,” I say, my tone clipped and pissed-off. We’ve already been here too long, and I hate the chaos of Dodger Stadium. It’s a warm summer night, so I have that to be thankful for, but it’s ten P.M., and the rest of the fans are pouring out of the stands, the two of us fighting through a sea of blue and white jerseys. We’ve been at this for about twenty minutes.
“I don’t remember wrong,” he says, walking ahead and not even bothering to look back at me as he speaks. “You’re the one with the bad memory.”
“Oh, I see,” I say, mocking him. “Just because I lost my keys this morning, suddenly, I’m an idiot?”
He turns and looks at me; I use the moment to try to catch up to him. The parking lot is hilly and steep. I’m slow.
“Yeah, Lauren, that’s exactly what I said. I said you were an idiot.”
“I mean, you basically did. You said that you know what you’re talking about, like I don’t.”
“Just help me find the goddamn car so we can go home.”
I don’t respond. I simply follow him as he moves farther and farther away from Lot C. Why he wants to go home is a mystery to me. None of this will be any better at home. It hasn’t been for months.
He walks around in a long, wide circle, going up and down the hills of the Dodger Stadium parking lot. I follow close behind, waiting with him at the crosswalks, crossing at his pace. We don’t say anything. I think of how much I want to scream at him. I think of how I wanted to scream at him last night, too. I think of how much I’ll probably want to scream at him tomorrow. I can only imagine he’s thinking much of the same. And yet the air between us is perfectly still, uninterrupted by any of our thoughts. So often lately, our nights and weekends are full of tension, a tension that is only relieved by saying good-bye or good night.
After the initial rush of people leaving the parking lot, it becomes a lot easier to see where we are and where we parked.
“There it is,” Ryan says, not bothering to point for further edification. I turn my head to follow his gaze. There it is. Our small black Honda.
Right in Lot C.
I smile at him. It’s not a kind smile.
He smiles back. His isn’t kind, either.
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