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Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Skokie Public Library.
Nov 05, 2018DPL_Graham rated this title 3.5 out of 5 stars
At the heart of “An American Marriage” is an old-school love triangle. The main characters are surrounded by mothers and fathers who have each come from unstable relationships: divorce, cheating, and love triangles of their own. With that setup, it is no wonder that the main stories love triangle is hard to watch and why the main characters all find themselves irrepressibly pulled towards unstable actions and conclusions. An “American Marriage” starts off with a bang! In the first 40 pages character are born, married, fight over families, and then Celestial’s husband Roy is sent to prison for 12 years for a crime he didn’t commit. While Roy is in prison Celestial grows into a relationship with Dre, Celestial’s perennial “Friend Zoned” childhood bestie. The consequences leads into ugliness on all sides. This is an easy read you can tear through in a few hours. The novel delivered entertaining reading and the characters and their decisions bounced through my mind afterwards – but my thoughts and feelings were of frustration at their unfeeling actions and lack of decisiveness. All of the main characters exhibit the ugly side of relationships and humanity and their string of bad decisions made them all very unsympathetic. Author Tayari Jones was inspired to write this novel thanks to a chance encounter in an Atlanta mall where she heard a couple arguing. The line that stuck with her was the female saying: “You know you wouldn't have waited on me for seven years. And he said, I don't know what you're talking about. This wouldn't have happened to you in the first place.” This small moment in time was the seed that fertilized the growth of “An American Marriage.” *An American Marriage is on the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence Longlist