Celestial and Roy have been a little over a year when it happens. They leave Atlanta and drive to rural Louisiana to visit Roy's parents. That night at the motel, Roy helps a woman in another room get ice and walks her safely to her room. The couple go to sleep only to be awakened by the door crashing in and police pulling them from bed. The woman who Roy helped has accused him of raping her. Despite Roy's protests and Celestial's protestation that he had been in their room, Roy is arrested, quickly tried and sent to prison for twelve years.

At first Celestial goes to visit him but she stops after a year or two. She is running her own business where she makes dolls to order, and her friendship with Andre next door has deepened into a romantic relationship. She and Andre had been friends since they were small children and Andre introduced Roy to her. By the time Roy's appeal is granted, he has served five years and Andre and Celestial are engaged.

What is a marriage? Roy believes that since Celestial has not yet filed divorce papers, that they are still married and will be. He goes home to his father who tells him that it he wants his wife, he needs to go get her. Roy takes off for Atlanta and there he pleads his case to Celestial. Who will she pick going forward?

This book has gotten many awards. It was a National Book Award longlist selection and both a New York Times and Washington Post notable book. It was also an Oprah's Book Club selection. It questions what love and marriage are and what we owe those we fall in love with in our youth. It poses a dilemma that most can relate to and will question what they would do in the same situation. This book is recommended for readers of literary and women's fiction.

This was the best book that I have read in the last 10 years. Tayari Jones is incredible. I am looking forward to seeing what's next for her.

It has been a few years since I read An American Marriage, but I remember it vividly. What a beautiful story. I loved the beauty expressed in the heartbreak. I would recommend this novel to anyone needing a breathtakingly real view of Black love and marriage.

I hoped reading this story as a married Millennial would make this literary fiction I could enjoy. Instead, I ended up dnfing the book a bit more than mid-way through. I don't hate read & I disliked these characters too much to carry on.

An American Marriage lives up to every bit of hype surrounding it; a heartbreaking depiction of how racism seeps into every aspect of American life, including the ever-sacred institution of marriage, and the very real, everyday impacts it has on those who live it.

This book is about a newlywed couple, Celestial and Ray, and the struggle that ensues after Ray is arrested and wrongfully convicted of a crime. It is a roller coaster of emotions as Celestial moves on with her life and then Ray is released from prison early and wants to come home and pick up where they left off. The multiple narrators enhanced the story and created a way for the reader to see their differing perspectives.

An American Marriage is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, written for the times we live in. Newlywed Roy is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit; an event that plays out daily in American courtrooms where black males find justice almost impossible to find. Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder and Celeste finds comfort elsewhere. Heartbreaking.

4.5 stars. I really enjoyed the writing in this book. I found the characters (especially Celestial) frustrating at times, but they were all flawed humans and as such, came across as believable and fully fleshed out. I never stopped caring about them. As an Atlanta native, I enjoyed the references to places around the city, but I wonder if readers not familiar with the city get much from them.

A wonderful study of naturally flawed human beings dealing with marriage in today's complex and challenging world. You'll question the premise of 'till death do you part. Recommended for bookclubs

I'm not sure why I never sent a review of this. It is one of my favourite books of the last 5 years and I regularly recommend it to patrons and on the library's social media.

This is a book about a married couple who has to face the hardships when one of them lands themselves into jail. This was a raw and brutal look at the effects of being away from each other for a long time and what can happen in that time period.

I think this would be a good book for those who like to be introspective about marriage and analyze more of the "what went wrong".

I finished An American Marriage a few weeks ago and still find myself thinking about it. A timely, moving book that I would happily thrust into the hands of anyone.

This story was sobering. I felt wrecked entering into a fictional story that you know represents a version of a brutal and unjust reality for too many black neighbors in our country. It's a must-read, and prompts a desire for radical change. Jones crafted an engrossing story that is impossible to forget.

An Oprah Book Club pick. I didn't love it. I had some trouble really caring about some of the characters. It lacks some character development.

Told through first-person narratives by Roy, Celestial, and Andre, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones stretches readers’ ideas of love, betrayal, truth, and heartbreak. Jones captured my attention immediately beginning with Roy’s narration. The first line is “there are two kinds of people in the world, those who leave home, and those who don’t. I am a proud member of the first category.”
We quickly learn that Roy has grown up in the small Louisiana town of Eloe. Roy tells us “home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch.” Having grown up in a small Arkansas town only ten miles north of Louisiana, I identify with Roy’s philosophy of leaving home and launching. Roy goes on to say, “I’m not talking bad about Eloe. For one, Eloe may be in Louisiana, not a state brimming with opportunity, but it is located in America, and if you’re going to be black and struggling, the United States is probably the best place to do it.”
Roy explains that he has been lucky; his parents are hardworking and have provided him with a home, clothing, food, and education. He describes his advantages this way: “I had my own bathroom. When I outgrew my shoes, I never waited for new ones. While I have received financial aid, my parents did their part to send me to college.”
Roy describes meeting Celestial when they were both college students. Andre, another of the narrators, in fact, introduces Celestial and Roy. However, the two do not cross paths again until they have both graduated from college and are in NYC. Celestial is in graduate school seeking an art degree; Roy is in NYC on a business trip. Often such meetings feel contrived; this one though is natural. Roy and his fellow business associates happen into a restaurant where Celestial is working as a waitress while she goes to graduate school.
Roy pursues Celestial and persuades her to marry him. They marry and live in Atlanta in the home where Celestial grew up. Her parents have moved to a much larger home. Interestingly enough, Celestial’s father deeds the house to Celestial alone, despite the fact that his daughter is married to Roy. Celestial tells Roy it doesn’t matter because the house is theirs together, not hers alone.
Roy’s job is going well. He encourages Celestial to quit her job and follow her dream of making fancy dolls to sell as art objects: poupées. Roy suggests the name. The two have a lovely home, a loving relationship, and a bright future. What could go wrong?
Readers quickly find that much can go wrong. As much as Roy and Celestial love one another, they also argue and disagree about a number of things. Celestial is mistrustful of Roy. Is her mistrust unfounded? Then Roy is accused of the unthinkable, of raping a stranger, a woman in the same motel where Roy and Celestial are staying when they go to Eloe to visit Roy’s parents.
Andre, the boy next door, also tells his version of the story. He and Celestial have known each other their whole lives; they are like brother and sister. Or are they?
Jones pulls readers into the story by telling it through three characters’ eyes, but also including details from Roy’s early life and his parents as well as Celestial’s early life and her parents. Roy and Celestial come from entirely different backgrounds. Roy has never wanted for anything, but he has not enjoyed the luxury that Celestial’s parents have given her. Andre, too, is like Celestial, a man of privilege.
I could pull many, many lines from the story. The three below give readers an idea of the beauty of the language that Jones conveys:
"My father has this alpha-omega way about him, like he was here before you showed up and he would be sitting in the same recliner after you left."
"Olive brought me into this world and trained me up to be the man I recognized as myself. But Celestial was the portal to the rest of my life, the shiny door to the next level."
"But that night in the Piney Woods, I believed that our marriage was a fine-spun tapestry, fragile but fixable. We tore it often and mended it, always with a silken thread, lovely but sure to give way."
Tayari Jones has published three previous novels: Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, and Silver Sparrow. She has also written for Tin House, The Believer, The New York Times, and Callaloo. Jones has received praise from a number of sources including Oprah Winfrey who chose An American Marriage as an Oprah Book Club selection in 2018.
Barack Obama wrote of An American Marriage that “one of my favorite parts of summer is deciding what to read when things slow down just a bit, whether it’s on a vacation with family or just a quiet afternoon . . . An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is a moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” Other reviewers use words like haunting, beautifully written, compelling, and tense.

Learn more about Tayari Jones and her work, visit her Web site: http://www.tayarijones.com/.
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Wow! This book is so engaging and well-written. The characters felt so realistic and were so easy to care about. I can't imagine anyone not liking this book.

This novel is incredibly beautiful and incredibly heartbreaking, and I absolutely loved it. I will never stop recommending this book.

Not a fan... It may be a good fit for other readers but it just did not capture and hold my interest.

This is a quick read that brings you right into the character's minds through three different character's perspectives. The internal monologues are also broken up by correspondence between the characters which is a stand in for dialogue once one of the characters is wrongfully imprisoned for rape. I had to suspend disbelief a little bit for this book because I know that such a small number of people accused of rape and sexual abuse are tried, let along convicted and serve an appropriate amount of time for their crimes. So the fact that someone was actually convicted while we knew him to be innocent seemed like a stretch. But I also know black men are unfairly and disproportionately stopped, arrested and convicted, and given longer sentences, etc. I actually wished there was a little bit more about the prison industrial complex. But, given the fact that the character in question was an educated professional, I supposed his case doesn't fit the school to prison pipeline narrative. Nonetheless it was interesting to read about how this tragic turn of events affected the lives of the incarcerated man, his wife, and her best friend turned lover. You're rooting for the marriage throughout, though the end isn't quite as satisfying as you want, Nor is it very challenging or unexpected. I think the end could have been more impactful.

Unparalleled narration of a tragically underrepresented story. Every word captures your heart and are left wanting more by the time you turn the last page.