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Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage
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About This Book
An illuminating, poignant, and savagely funny examination of modern marriage from Ask Polly advice columnist Heather Havrilesky If falling in love is the peak of human experience, then marriage is the slow descent down that mountain, on a trail built from conflict, compromise, and nagging doubts. Considering the limited economic advantages to marriage, the deluge of other mate options a swipe away, and the fact that almost half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce anyway, why do so many of us still chain ourselves to one human being for life? In Foreverland, Heather Havrilesky illustrates the delights, aggravations, and sublime calamities of her marriage over the span of fifteen years, charting an unpredictable course from meeting her one true love to slowly learning just how much energy is required to keep that love aflame. This refreshingly honest portrait of a marriage reveals that our relationships are not simply "happy" or "unhappy," but something much murkier--at once unsavory, taxing, and deeply satisfying. With tales of fumbled proposals, harrowing suburban migrations, external temptations, and the bewildering insults of growing older, Foreverland is a work of rare candor and insight. Havrilesky traces a path from daydreaming about forever for the first time to understanding what a tedious, glorious drag forever can be.
Reviews
"Heather Havrilesky's new memoir, Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage, is a wise, witty, profane, even profound, meditation on her 15-year marriage ..."
"Havrilesky honestly serves up her own flaws for the reader's perusal ..."
"Most of all, it is a state not to be taken for granted."
"The sweeping statements Havrilesky throws into the mix, such as 'marriage is a spectacle, and everyone is invited to watch,' are more like hypotheticals drawn from her life about to be explored, rather than declarations of iron laws ..."
"This seemingly one-sided bargain is worth noting because it is typical of the relationship at the very center of the story, a marriage between a neurotic perfectionist and a formidably patient man with much to criticize about him ..."
"But for every complaint...there are some exquisitely simple moments of recognition ..."
"a tender book, full of touching descriptions of falling and staying in love, even in the face of the profound frustrations that inevitably spring from prolonged interpersonal contact ..."
"The truth is much more interesting."
"Perhaps because of her day job as a dispenser of wise counsel, Ms."
"No matter the joke or metaphor, palpable within each story is her love for her family...and the friends who've helped her along the way."
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