Customer Reviews

Undoing I Do: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really enjoyed "Undoing I Do", because of the great balance between the story, the prose, and the applicable real-life lessons about marriage, family, and childhood.
Myself a child of divorced parents, this book provided a unique and moving perspective of a difficult subject. But most of all, it was great fun to read! Recommended to me by family, but I would recommend it also to friends, and I have!

This is Chicago-based Anastasia Royal's first novel.

When I learned that a friend from 30 years ago had transformed her thoughts and feelings from her own divorce into something others may share, I picked up a copy out of loyalty. I was richly rewarded.

Royal's work has a poignant immediacy which cuts deep into one's own thoughts and memories. Listening to Royal's description of the anticipation, excitement, joy, troubles and eventual grounding of Claire McCloud's love affair with her husband, and Claire's sense of its impact on their two children, chilled me with moment-to-moment fascination. It hurt to recognize oneself in some of the actions and words of Claire's receding spouse, or to hear echoes of women I knew and relationships I had before marriage. That shows how Royal's unflinching Claire finds enough to write about herself (the novel proceeds in brief journal-like entries), her kids and her struggle for anyone who has been close to, in, or fled from, a committed relationship to identify.

Frankly, I think all husbands should read this book. I admit my wife was a bit surprised to see me toting this title around. But on finishing it I recommended it to her as I recommend it to you.

Royal's voice in Claire will help you hear things you may have been missing.

Stumbled across this book in the bookstore after Christmas. I was excited to hear places named around Chicago since I am from the North Shore. This book is engaging and of course I couldnt put it down. If you are getting a divorce it does touch some emotional roller coasters couples face.

I loved this book- it was a beautiful mosaic of the dissolution of marriage and the ultimate redemption of the main character, Claire.
Recommended for book groups- good discussion material.

I just got the book in the mail earlier, and due to its inticing and exotic nature I have just finished it. Beautiful poetry, language, and music came together to make a very vivid account of a woman's journey through love and loss. Fantastic.

V

I recommend this book to both men and women - it is a candid and engaging story about love and divorce and the main character Claire is such a hilarious and fun person to read about. The chapters are short and juicy, you could read a couple each night (although I didn't want to put it down).

This tale about divorce sails on some of the most beautifully crafted paragraphs and sentences I've ever read.

Anastasia Royal's novel is like a collection of sonnets, woven together in one glimmering piece. It's Royal's storytelling that will keep you enjoying it until the end, though there's not much of a story told. The book has interesting ways of using flashbacks and flashfowards to recall the events before, during and after the heroine's marriage ended. Most of the book deals with the main character Claire, and how much of a Snow White-esque victim she is, of a cruel, coldhearted and uncaring ex-husband. This is the book's biggest flaw.

Undoing I Do lets you know from the start that Claire knew her husband for only 28 days before getting married, almost as an excuse as to why she didn't suspect her husband to be so incredibly selfish and cruel. The husband, Tobin, has little character development, he's just the unappeasable villain, unfairly treating his wife horribly, for absolutely no apparent reason.

To be sure, this book has many wonderful gems in it. Claire is full of interesting quirks, and full of though-provoking insights. Bursting with unique word-play and metaphors, the author has a freedom in her style that defies convention, in favor of artistry. Still, Claire's sugary-sweet perfection can get a little eye-rolling---she's an impossibly beautiful and talented artist/piano player/vegatarian/singer/speaker of three languages, who even brushes her teeth in the up-and-down dentist-recommended motion, instead of the typical side-to-side fashion. Come on.

It's this perfection, that makes the idea of her ex-husband's unending cruelty toward her---for no discernable reason at that---comepletely unbelievable. She's a physical marvel, even after having children. She repays abuse with undying love and adoration, and can play classical pieces by composers like Bach from memory. Who could possibly leave, let alone abuse, such a treasure as that?

But the strength of this book isn't in "what happens" so much as in exploring the wonderful mind and memories of Claire, who narrates this story. The joy of this tale is Claire, who says something beautiful, funny, insightful, or just downright amazing, in almost every page. Many people will be able to relate to the things she says about divorce, and even find comfort in just how much insight she has into the pain and frustration divorce brings. And at the heart of this, is Claire's touching plight to find the strength to continue living, while making the best life she can for her children. This book is not about the destination, but the ride. It's like a safari through an enchanted, beautiful world of prose.

I highly recommend this book.

I've just returned from an extraordinary trip, in well-crafted prose/poem form, called "Undoing I Do." Anastasia Royal's vivid verbal images are certain to linger in your mind a long time. I think most people could relate to the protagonist's goal of figuring out why a seemingly promising situation has gone so very wrong and coping with the fallout, whether the reader compares the puzzle to something in their own or another's life journey and whether an undoing happened in a marriage or another experience. I cried at the end, and many parts made me laugh or reflect. Along the way, the novel offers not only relationship advice but informative tips like lipstick usage and a simple ice cream recipe. I would give more than two thumbs-up if I had that many hands!

An excellent book to show the depths and insanity of staying in a troubled marriage and then a divorce from hell. Told from the depths of hell that cannot be imagined unless you have lived it. I couldn't put the book down until it was done. I suddenly have someone else who did many of the same dumb things in a marriage and a divorce. The story verifies that we all make mistakes, can laugh and cry at the same time, yet live to tell the story. If you don't understand/laugh/cry with this book, it may be because you haven't lived it. And may you never.

Thank you, Anastasia Royal, for a very moving book.

This was an amazing debut....I almost didn't pick it up because the cover design screams "Chick Lit," but it's not even close to that genre. I am reading it as slow as possible to make it last as long as possible. It's well written, concise, thoughtful, and poetic.