Customer Reviews

Life After Yes: A Novel

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a truly awful book. The writing is amateurish, worse than a lot of romantic novels. I was looking for a relaxing, but decently written read. This was just painful. Do yourself a favor and avoid it. For someone who advertises her academic credentials so blatantly, this author does not appear to have the vaguest understanding of what good writing is. She attempts to go for some sort of Kafkaesque dream sequence in the first chapter. It is just a meandering, meaningless bunch of gibberish aspiring to be something literary. Ugh.

The time has come ... (I keep hearing, in my head, "the walrus said, to talk of many things...") But the time has come. It's here. Life After Yes debuts today and I whole-heartedly encourage you to order it. It's been such a pleasure and an honor to live this process a little bit, vicariously, through Aidan. I read snippets of the book as she revised it, listening to Coldplay, at Starbucks. I saw the cover before it was final. And, finally, last week I got to hold it in my hands. And read it. And revel in it.

Life After Yes is, first and foremost, an absolute pleasure to read. I gulped it down in two sittings. Aidan's characters are human and likeable, despite their real and visible flaws. The dialog is real, the descriptions of New York vivid, the particular moment in life recognizable to all who've been through it.

But Life After Yes also dares to ask some big questions. The book is, in my view, about two main things: about the ways that loss echoes through our lives, crippling and humbling us in ways we cannot anticipate, and about the various crutches and devices we use to keep ourselves from embracing life, from saying, wholeheartedly, YES.

The book's protagonist, Quinn, lives in the shadow of her father's unexpected death on 9/11. This is particularly poignant because any reader of Aidan's blog knows that she lost her father very recently. It gives me shivers to think that Aidan wrote this novel before her father was sick, as though her subconscious was prodding her to work through this particular life passage in advance of needing its wisdom. Quinn's fiance, Sage, also struggles with a deep loss. The way that Quinn and Sage and others around them (in particular, each of their mothers) reckon with the ramifications of these deaths forms the beating heart of the book.

Quinn's story is also about the myriad ways that we hide from true and honest engagement in our lives. Aidan explores thoughtfully all the various tools that people use to numb themselves, to avoid really looking at the core of who they are and what they have chosen. There is alcohol, there is empty flirtation and sex, there is betrayal, there is plain old denial. We watch Quinn realize the futility of all of these crutches, and ultimately we see the beauty and joy that is possible when we overcome the human instinct to hide from ourselves. Part of this process for Quinn is also about letting go of her need to follow the yellow brick road, the path of great adulation and achievement. I relate to this keenly, and particularly loved the passage where Quinn begins to trust her inner compass:

Something clicks. I've spent my whole life stockpiling reasons - for why I should go to law school, or become a litigator, or become a wife. Maybe some things don't need justification to be right. Maybe instinct is the best measure.

There are other themes in Life After Yes. Quinn's maturation into herself is integral to the plot, and we watch her dreams of how her life would be confront the reality of how it actually is with results that are sometimes bitter, sometimes beautiful. Life After Yes is also a love letter to New York, and Aidan's abiding love of the city she grew up in and still calls home radiates from every page. The law firm where Quinn works illustrates the alternative universe some professions inhabit, where a very different morality passes for normal and where people are so good at their facades that they can lose sight of their actual selves.

I loved Life After Yes. This book is fun to read and also full of provocative questions and lingering meaning. I can't imagine a more compelling combination. I am proud of my friend and very honored to have been able to read this book. I heartily encourage you to do so as well.

First of all, I got the book because I was kind of excited for a book about post-marriage. But this is all pre-marriage. Probably my fault for not reading the back of the cover carefully. Yeah, I pretty much bought the book because of the pretty picture on the front and the fact it's chick lit.

It was not a happy book, though. I was reading it and wondering if the author had someone killed in the 9/11 attacks. It was the traditional sappy love story chick lit but then there were these gloomy references to 9/11 in there and how the main character's father was killed in the attacks. (Ironically, despite this, the main character thinks it's absolutely horrible that another family keeps the memory of someone killed tragically alive). Maybe the 9/11 references were there to add gravitas but it just didn't work. This is not the type of book one reads for profound meaning.

Another thing that didn't work for me was the fact that the main character turned out to be...well, a pretty horrible person after all, a hypocrite, among other vices. I was kind of liking her for a while, but then realized she was selfish and inconsiderate and not someone I should've been rooting for. I had to finish the book to realize how few redeeming qualities she had.

Charming princes? Check. A worthy heroine? Fail. A funny book? Fail. A profound book? Fail.

To be fair, it wasn't a bad book. There are worse ways to spend your time. It just wasn't funny or meaningful or really that interesting. I probably would've liked it more if the the heroine wasn't so personally flawed. Or if her love interests weren't so perfect. A flawed woman needs a flawed man. As a reader, I felt cheated when I finished the book and realized I'd been rooting for a witch the whole time.

Life After Yes tells the story of young Manhattan attorney Quinn, affianced but afflicted about whether or not her life can withstand the structure of marriage. Hers are the problems of privilege, but no less real or distressing to Quinn because of it. Rattled after losing her father on September 11th she lives her life on the third rail, full of destructive habits that she's forced to confront as she considers bringing another person into her life for good.

I was happy to discover within the first few pages that the strong narrative voice I've grown to love on Aidan's blog comes through clearly in her fiction writing as well. She works clever metaphors into tiny places, and her hallmark affection for alliteration (and assonance?) is subtle but ever-present. In addition to quick and flitting nature of her writing, the plot had much to offer as well.

It was the glimpse into experiences I never had myself that brought me the most enjoyment from this book. My own foray into marriage was not nearly so fraught with drama, reluctance, or fear. But I know that for many brides this is precisely their experience. So walking in Quinn's shoes for 340 pages gave me insight into an experience about which I'd previously known very little. Her story may be fiction, but her story is also true.

Quinn's losses became mine. Her fears became mine. Her mistakes caused me to feel shame and her successes caused me to feel pride. Aidan lifts the outer layers of external perfection from her heroine and carefully reveals a creature who is initially less - but ultimately more - enviable than you thought she was based on her exterior.

If the novel deserves any criticism at all it would be that it left me wanting more. Aidan's deft descriptions paint rich and colorful pictures. In several scenes I wished for longer, uninterrupted passages that would allow me to really soak up the settings before commencing with the next plot point. The narrative didn't feel rushed, necessarily, but there is an eagerness to it that in some ways augments the agitation Quinn feels, but also occasionally left me needing to pause for a breath. I hope that in her sophomore effort (which I understand is in the works!) Aidan takes her time and allows the characters and readers just a bit more space to get settled in before being ushered through the story.

The final chapter brings a tidy-but-not-trite resolution to a character who struggles to settle on a trajectory that suits her. I finished the book feeling optimistic about Quinn's future, but confident that she still had room to wander. Life After Yes is a truly enjoyable read, marked by honesty, humor, vulnerability, and strength.

This novel is not as trite as one might expect. I figured I was getting into a typical "wedding story," but found myself following a woman on her journey to self-actualization, all the while dealing with real emotions and conflict.

Interesting novel, but kind of slow going.... I usually read a book in 2-3 days. Couldn't get into this one, it wasn't as catching as I was hoping it would be. However, still a good novel. Lot's of great quotes!

Life After Yes is thought proviking debut novel by Aidan Donnelley Rowley. The story opens with the main character, Prudence "Quinn" O'Malley and a dream she has right after saying "yes" to a marriage proposal from her long time boyfriend, Sage. I love this story as I felt that Quinn, while flawed, was someone I could relate to. The setting of the book is New York City, just after 9/11 where Quinn lost her father with whom she was very close. Both Quinn and Sage have high powered successful careers, and Quinn has a slight addiction to her BlackBerry.

Quinn is working through so many different emotions, grief from losing her father, left over feelings from a past relationship, and a fear of committment. She is definately a flawed character but that didn't keep me from liking her or from cheering her on while she worked through her demons as she got closer to the the time to say "I do".

I got just enough teases about the "ex" (also her first) to wonder if Quinn was making a mistake by marrying Sage. But Sage does seem to have the patience of a saint as he supports Quinn while she works through her issues and lets go of her childhood love and is ready to move onto her adult life and relationships.

I highly reccommend "Life After Yes". It was a beautifully told story of a flawed character that makes the reader think about their own past mistakes.

I didn't know what to expect with this, but I'm always excited to read a debut. And-- quite simply-- I thought this was smashing! It had that perfect combo of characters that were truly developed enough for you to actually really "get" them, and a plot that actually moved and made you want to keep reading. I related to Quinn in a lot of ways, even though by her external circumstances, I thought I might have trouble doing so. This is a must-read for anyone facing those life transitions that sometimes come with doubt. It's one of those fabulous books that makes you think about it long after it's over, and to wonder how the characters are doing. WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend.

I wasn't initially sure what this book would hold for me, and whether I'd be able to relate to the high-powered world of NY lawyers. But Aidan Donnelley Rowley deftly reveals that Quinn, her protagonist, is ideal only on the surface; she is nuanced, flawed, complicated and--as a result--much more engaging underneath the facade. It is Quinn's imperfections and contradictions that lured me in and kept me reading. Though she could easily maintain the privileges accorded her by breeding and education, Quinn opts for depth and grapples with difficult questions about mortality, virtue, identity, and loyalty. I very much love the treatment of feminism in the book, in particular the idea that feminism is replete with contradictions (much like Quinn), and provides as many challenges as solutions.

Fans of her blog will recognize Aidan's rhythmic pose, as well as her ability to capture the complex sociological and psychological issues which underlie everyday life.

I really loved this book, and couldn't put the reviews I had read with the "pouffy" cover. Especially when trying to read on the Kindle, which I love:)
Great "mindful" chick-lit. You'll like it:)