What happens when “I love you” becomes “I don’t love you anymore”? Taylor Jenkins Reid’s sophomore novel, After I Do, tackles this devastating question with the kind of unflinching honesty that makes readers squirm in recognition. When Lauren and Ryan reach the breaking point in their six-year marriage, they devise an unconventional solution: a year-long separation with one ironclad rule—no contact whatsoever.
This isn’t your typical romance novel where love conquers all through grand gestures and passionate reconciliations. Instead, Reid crafts a meditation on what happens after the honeymoon phase ends, when real life strips away the butterflies and leaves behind the grinding dailiness of sharing a life with another person.
A Marriage Dissected with Surgical Precision
Reid’s greatest strength lies in her ability to dissect the slow erosion of Lauren and Ryan’s relationship without assigning blame. The novel opens with a fight in a Dodger Stadium parking lot—a mundane disagreement about where they parked the car that reveals the deeper chasm between them. Through skillfully woven flashbacks, we witness how small resentments metastasize into relationship cancer.
The author captures the insidious nature of marital decay with remarkable accuracy. Lauren’s observation that “resentment is malignant” rings painfully true. Reid shows us how arguments about calling the plumber or frequency of sex become stand-ins for deeper issues of respect, desire, and emotional connection. The accumulation of these micro-aggressions creates a portrait of a marriage that didn’t explode—it simply withered.
What makes this portrayal particularly effective is Reid’s refusal to make either character a villain. Ryan isn’t an abusive monster, nor is Lauren a shrewish wife. They’re simply two people who stopped seeing each other clearly, who allowed routine to replace romance and convenience to supersede connection.
Lauren’s Journey of Self-Discovery
While Ryan remains largely absent for most of the narrative—a bold structural choice that initially feels frustrating—this absence becomes the novel’s greatest asset. Lauren’s year of solitude transforms from punishment into liberation, and Reid chronicles this evolution with nuanced detail.
Lauren’s relationship with David, a fellow separated spouse, serves multiple narrative functions. It’s not just about sexual awakening (though Reid handles the intimate scenes with refreshing directness), but about rediscovering agency. When David asks her what she wants in bed—something Ryan apparently never did—it becomes a metaphor for reclaiming her voice in all aspects of life.
The supporting characters feel authentically drawn rather than conveniently placed. Rachel, Lauren’s sister, provides both comic relief and genuine wisdom. Their mother’s relationship with Bill offers another perspective on love and commitment in middle age. Even Mila, Lauren’s coworker, brings depth to discussions about long-term relationships and parenthood.
The Ask Allie Device: Clever or Contrived?
Reid’s use of the advice column “Ask Allie” as both plot device and thematic vehicle produces mixed results. When Lauren begins reading old columns and eventually writes her own letter, it provides a framework for examining the novel’s central questions about marriage, independence, and true love.
The column works best when it offers Lauren perspectives she can’t get from her immediate circle. Allie’s responses to other letter-writers illuminate different approaches to love and commitment, showing Lauren alternative ways of thinking about her situation. However, some readers may find this device occasionally heavy-handed, particularly when Allie’s final letter to Lauren delivers what feels like the novel’s thesis statement.
Technical Craftsmanship and Emotional Resonance
Reid demonstrates significant growth from her debut Forever, Interrupted. Her prose has gained confidence and precision, particularly in capturing the rhythms of contemporary speech and thought. The email drafts that Lauren and Ryan write but never send serve as windows into their private emotional landscapes, revealing truths neither can speak aloud.
The pacing occasionally falters in the middle sections, where Lauren’s daily life sometimes feels repetitive. However, this may be intentional—reflecting the slow process of healing and self-discovery that doesn’t follow neat narrative arcs. Real personal growth rarely provides the satisfying momentum that fiction demands.
Reid excels at small moments that reveal character. Lauren’s observation about her marriage—”We have spent enough years together to know how to work in sync, even when we don’t want to”—captures something essential about long-term relationships that many authors miss.
Relationship Models and Modern Marriage
One of the novel’s most sophisticated elements is its exploration of different relationship models through Lauren’s observations of other couples. Her grandmother’s traditional marriage, her mother’s struggle with commitment to Bill, Charlie and Natalie’s young love heading toward parenthood, and Mila’s life with Christina and her twins—each offers a different template for what partnership can look like.
Reid doesn’t privilege any single model but suggests that happiness requires conscious choice and ongoing effort. The question isn’t whether Lauren and Ryan belong together, but whether they’re willing to do the work required to make any relationship function.
Critical Considerations
While After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid succeeds in many areas, it’s not without flaws. The novel’s resolution feels somewhat rushed after the careful pacing of Lauren’s year-long journey. Ryan’s character development suffers from his physical absence—we learn about his growth primarily through his unsent emails, which creates emotional distance.
Some plot points strain credibility. Lauren’s discovery that Ryan has been reading her email drafts throughout their separation provides the climactic reunion but feels like a convenient solution rather than an earned one. The revelation undermines the year of no-contact that forms the novel’s central premise.
The book also grapples with questions it can’t fully answer. If Lauren can be happy without Ryan, does that mean their love isn’t worth fighting for? Or does independence actually strengthen her capacity for healthy partnership? Reid explores these tensions without providing easy answers, which is both the novel’s strength and potential source of reader frustration.
The Verdict: A Mature Examination of Love’s Complexities
After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid succeeds as both an engaging story and a thoughtful examination of modern marriage. Reid avoids the trap of providing simple solutions to complex emotional problems. Instead, she offers something more valuable: recognition that love alone isn’t enough to sustain a relationship, but that doesn’t make it any less worth fighting for.
The novel will particularly resonate with readers who’ve experienced the slow drift that can occur in long-term relationships—that sense of waking up one day to discover you’re living with a stranger who happens to share your last name. Reid’s exploration of how two people can lose each other while sleeping in the same bed feels achingly authentic.
Key Strengths:
- Realistic portrayal of relationship breakdown and recovery
- Strong character development for Lauren
- Nuanced exploration of different relationship models
- Honest depiction of sexuality and desire in marriage
- Skillful use of supporting characters to illuminate themes
Areas for Improvement:
- Ryan’s character development limited by his absence
- Some plot conveniences strain credibility
- Pacing issues in middle sections
- Resolution feels somewhat rushed
For Readers Who Enjoyed This Book
If After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid resonated with you, consider these similar explorations of relationships and self-discovery:
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – A darker take on marriage’s hidden dynamics
- The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo – Another examination of timing and choice in love
- Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng – Family dynamics and communication breakdown
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid – Reid’s later work on love’s complexities
- Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman – Solo journey of self-discovery
- Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan – Different cultural context but similar relationship themes
After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid positions itself as a grown-up romance for readers ready to grapple with love’s messier realities. It’s a book that trusts its audience to handle ambiguity and finds hope not in happily-ever-after guarantees, but in the possibility that two people can choose each other again and again, even after they’ve chosen to walk away.
