Review by Booklist Review
ldquo;I was a tree struck by his lightning." One might expect to read this in a romance novel. But Havrilesky wrote it to describe her feelings after her soon-to-be husband selflessly protected their dog from a vicious attack, and it becomes a transcendent if recognizable kind of truth--that one can love someone without liking them all the time. Now 13 years, two children, one step-child, and several dogs into their marriage, Havrilesky analyzes how she and her husband, Bill, have managed not only to survive but to thrive in an institution that can all too often leach joy before the first glass of wedding-reception champagne is downed. Love is messy, love is mean, love is tolerating bodily noises and mental malfunctions, but as a popular advice columnist and journalist, Havrilesky knows that if love is anything, it is also tolerant and grateful, sexy and companionable. Most of all, it is a state not to be taken for granted. Newlyweds, nearlyweds, and golden-anniversary celebrants alike will find much that is familiar, inspiring, and comforting in Havrilesky's clear-eyed paean to marital bliss and blunders.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Havrilesky (What If This Were Enough?), New York magazine's former advice columnist, considers the beauty and monotony of matrimony and family building in this deliciously sardonic memoir. While she writes movingly about her love for her husband, Bill, more poignant are her darkly funny ruminations on the way that "the world's most impossible endurance challenge" can put even the strongest relationships on trial. "Being married is far more interesting than falling in love," she writes. "Agony in a half-open, half-empty cereal box. Longing in a badly washed dish. Slow evolution, or a slow unraveling: it can be hard to tell which." With acerbic humor and keen wit, Havrilesky explores the complicated emotions associated with major milestones in her life--describing the decision to get married as "a culmination of every wrongheaded notion you've ever had" and her baby's birth by C-section as "rummage around in my open belly like... a cabinet jam-packed with heavy sports equipment." No matter the joke or metaphor, palpable within each story is her love for her family--including her "snoring heap of meat" husband--and the friends who've helped her along the way. Havrilesky's candid reflections will delight those who've taken the plunge, for better or for worse. Agent: Sarah Burnes, the Gernert Co. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
In a world where marriage is often presented as either a problem or a solution, "Ask Polly" advice columnist Havrilesky (How To Be a Person in the World) drives home the point that such binary oppositions are fictions--as irrelevant and dangerous as the happily-ever-after stories of Disney princesses. In wittily titled chapters that foreground the tension between expectation and reality, Havrilesky takes readers through her own experiences of "tedium" and the divine, while also opening up broader issues annexed to the institution of marriage and its measurements of success. She recounts meeting her husband, describes the complexities of falling in love, and asks why American society tends to fixate on the concept of love. The book explores rom-coms, romance novels, and the author's experience as an advice columnist, where she answers difficult questions relating to marriage and divorce, love and loss. Havrilesky is at her best when considering the idea of romance and the pressure to become overinvested in marriage and parenting at the expense of one's own well-being. VERDICT Havrilesky successfully provides ample opportunities for readers to laugh, commiserate, and critique, regardless of their phase in life or marital status. A welcome addition to memoir and women's studies collections.--Emily Bowles, Lawrence Univ., WI
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The author and longtime New York Magazine "Ask Polly" advice columnist trains her incisive eye on her own marriage. "I'm old and you're old and nothing new is ever going to happen to us!" Havrilesky tells her husband, Bill, late in the book. "We'll just get older and older and everything will stay exactly the same until we're dead." She shares this pessimistic and yet relatable sentiment after recounting a mild attempt at an extramarital flirtation that went awry, a development that was surprisingly crushing to her. The "tedium" in the subtitle is part of what fuels Havrilesky's ambivalence toward the project of marriage--that and the fact that "even after years of careful training, a spouse will still do whatever a spouse feels like doing." In Bill's case that means making unappealing noises, interrupting, and wearing golf shirts, "perhaps the least attractive article of clothing available to humankind." The author takes readers through the relationship chronologically, beginning with the honeymoon phase, in which she and Bill had copious amounts of sex and watched a lot of TV. Then it's on to marriage and the births of their children, which prompted their questionable decision to move to the suburbs in order to avoid the "progressive elites" in their Los Angeles neighborhood. Alongside her chronicle, the author offers running commentary on how the marriage has adapted--or failed to adapt--to life's vicissitudes. For her part, Havrilesky honestly serves up her own flaws for the reader's perusal; for example, she describes herself as a "wise guru type who knows everything about everything…about as appealing a mate as Jabba the Hutt." Meanwhile, Bill comes off quite well, though the author describes his annoying habits in perhaps too much detail. There are times when Havrilesky's interest in writing ambitious prose or making a metaphor work get in the way of her narrative, but overall, this is a delightfully quirky memoir that refreshingly dissects the institution of marriage. An engaging, candid, relatable memoir of love and marriage. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
