Customer Reviews

I Do. I Did. Now What?! Life After the Wedding Dress

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This book isn't a guide to marriage any more than Paul Reiser's "Couplehood" is; rather, it's a humorous memoir about one woman's experiences as a newlywed. The book contains many themes universal to all domestic partnerships (not just marriage), including the endless debate of "what's for dinner?," arguments that drag on for days (dubbed here "The Perfect Fight" a la "The Perfect Storm"), and the challenges of trying to be a good mate when the perfect "suburn legend" wife is living next door (she even makes her own onion dip--WITHOUT using Lipton's soup mix). Yes, Lee can come off a bit spoiled and bratty at times--few people will be able to relate to her single, Sex in the City NYC lifestyle of parties and Prada--but overall, she is candid, funny, and willing to be self-effacing. A fun read for anyone struggling to acheive domestic bliss.

people are very divided on this book, but i wasn't into it. i guess the author is trying to be funny but she is so shallow, petty, and self centered, it seems to me that she wanted a wedding and not a marriage. last time i checked i enjoy hanging out with my husband, don't really care if he beats me at scrabble, or uses my shampoo. because those things don't matter. i guess if the book was funnier or more insightful i could have gotten beyond the whinning. but when you start the book basically complaining that you went to st. lucia, i can hardly relate.

Jenny's account of the first two years of marriage cannot be more accurate. I think I may have married her husband's clone, because he would always leave a dirty knife on the kitchen counter I had just wiped down a million times, the bathroom looking like a hurricane just happened to pass through, and dirty glasses everywhere from under the bed to one of my sock drawers.

This book had me laughing out loud and looking back on those first two years of marriage with amusement. Definitely a good read, whether you're married, engaged, dating, single, or simply desperate.

Jenny Lee rode the English major book publishing wagon, then jumped into the internet marketing bubble. And as that bubble was deflating, she got hitched, and took good notes on her life as a newlywed. The results are hilarious. In seven chapters (maybe a seven year itch sequel?), each titled for one of the marriage clauses ("for richer or poorer"; "in sickness and health"), Lee recounts the mostly petty, irrational (a.k.a. serious) but funny incidents that make up couplehood. The book opens as the Vera Wang wedding dress comes off and the $500 silk negligee stays on for a whopping span of 3 minutes. After 5 years of dating him and contemplating marriage, kids, and even real estate(!), they're hitched. Now what? A lot of laughing on the reader's part. Her physician husband is mostly oblivious to the things that set her off and the domestic duties she performs. She rents a parking garage for their car, yet unbeknownst to her, he spends 30-90 minutes sometimes circling the block like a vulture, waiting for an on-street space to open. Her husband thinks nothing of circling the block, but can't understand why she would want to go one hour out of the way to purchase a special lipstick. She freaks that he uses gobs of her extremely expensive shampoo, not realizing its cost; but maybe he has a sweet reason for using it. There are fights over Scrabble, orange soda, name changes (change? Hyphen? Slash?) and "what's for dinner?", but the love remains. I wouldn't be surprised to see some scriptwriters lifting incidents from this book for their sitcoms. Essentially this is a very funny owners manual that should be read by all newlyweds and their parents.

Okay, this is not a self-help book per se. I think some of my fellow reviewers have missed the mark. Lee doesn't set out to give us deep insight into what makes a marriage work. This book is about making us laugh. And Lee succeeds in spades. However, there is truth behind the laughs and that's where those of you looking for self-help here can find it. At its heart, this book stands for the proposition that marriage is a difficult undertaking of finding boundaries and making adjustments. However, laughter can make that process easier. Married people, keep your sense of humor or develop one quickly. That's the gem of self-help to be distilled from Lee's book.

Being brand new in the marriage world I have had no idea what's going on. I saw this book and thought the title was interesting so I picked it up.
I laughed out loud so much my husband thought I was going nuts. I can completely understand everything Jenny discusses. I can especially relate to "dating" other couples and wondering if they liked you as much as you like them. Will they call? Which couple is the 'guy' and which couple is the 'girl'? And her husband driving around for like 2 hours for a closer parking spot! I live in Arizona where parking is abundant, yet my husband insists on circling around until we find the "perfect" spot. Usually, I can do what needed to be done and home before he even parks!
This book is clever, smart and totally relatable. I would suggest giving this to a bride-to-be so they can at least get a little glimpse into life after the dress - even if they don't take it to heart until six or seven months after they've been married and wonder what they were thinking.

Think sex and the city finally getting hitched. Great, humorous 20-30 something reading for newlyweds - Jenny lee is amazing with her witty writing and articulate anecdotes as she writes in a way as if she is talking to you over a latte and Starbucks lemon bar. I laughed almost every 6 pages! The book is PERFECT for a pre wedding gift...I even catch my fiance reading my copy as I am away...he loves the writing as well. Totally funny, totally witty..so worth the reading. MUST BUY!

I was excited to read this, but was very disappointed. Being a newlywed myself, married to a doctor and being korean-american, I thought there would be a lot to relate to. For most of the book she drones on about what a cool New Yorker she was and her endless self-satisfied stories (which are not that funny but take forever to tell). She doesn't share any enlightened information, and reveals almost nothing about herself (i.e. what she does, etc.) What is her job anyway? Hope writing isn't her day job. She says she's so busy, but doing what? It was a waste of time--the only reason I kept reading was in hopes that there was a point to all this. There isn't.

I thought her book was insensitive and terrible, especially the chapter she dedicates to "playing poor" with her husband (trying to make it through the weekend without going to Starbucks too often). And then she has the nerve to complain when her husband (who earns the family income) uses her $100+ bottle of shampoo. Please! She should be sent to the third world, where she can learn about how much REAL women struggle to feed their families and survive a world that does not respect them. This book is not about marriage and unconditional love for another - it's about selfish, ridiculous behavior that only spoiled first worlders could imagine.

While it was a fun book to read, it was not at all what I thought it would be. I was looking for a book to help me with my nerves about my own wedding. The book jacket promises; how to meet other couples, cleaning compromises, and other mysteries solved. I really didn't see what mysteries it solved, nor to it answer any of the other promises. Like I said before it was fun to read, its short and quick, but does it answer any questions, I didn't think so. I also read The Conscious Bride by Sheryl Nissinen. When I looked at it the first couple of times I thought it was a book trying to talk you out of getting married, not so. It really makes you think about different aspects of your engagement and relationship, now that was a helpful book!