This book is beautifully written; heartbreaking and true. Through the story of one couple fractured by a system in which a black man can be both innocent and imprisoned, An American Marriage explores ideas of justice, loyalty, and commitment

This is such a compelling book! I can definitely see why Oprah made it her newest book club pick (I'm definitely learning to take her advice when it comes to books, although I requested it before that happened.)

This book is all about bad luck and bad timing. It's clear that Roy isn't guilty of the crime he's convicted for (and there's no last minute reveal that he was guilty the whole time). The suspense comes from what will happen once Roy is released---will he get his life back? 

I've heard people say that this is a slow book but I didn't feel that way at all. I was invested immediately and I wanted everything to work out for everyone, even though there wasn't a way to make every character happy. 

An American Marriage is an absolute masterpiece. Highly recommended.

With most novels and stories that I enjoy in a deep down kind of way, a level of enjoyment that is tough to describe, there is a particular element which has resonated with me on a personal level; however, when I think of An American Marriage, there is no way to distinguish any one theme or character because I felt like I was inside the story from the very beginning.

"Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again."

Jones's prose is completely captivating, the story powerfully compelling; I had no idea how quickly I would read through this novel but, once I began, I could not stop. Roy Hamilton and Celestial Davenport have been married for less than two years when Roy is convicted of a crime he did not commit, then sentenced to twelve years in prison.

"You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan."

This novel is not about an unjust conviction, a prison sentence, or an affair; instead, it is about unspoken expectations, idealization and fearful wondering during extended absence, and our roles and responsibilities as individuals, sometimes spouses, to one another.

"Marriage is like grafting a limb onto a tree trunk. You have the limb, freshly sliced, dripping sap, and smelling of springtime, and then you have the mother tree stripped of her protective bark, gouged and ready to receive this new addition [...]. Even now, all these years later, there’s something not quite natural about the tree, even in its amazing two-tone glory."

Due to my own personal experiences with the subject matter, I feel confident in stating that this novel resonated with me more than it will with most readers; numerous passages have been highlighted and there were times when I had to put the book down, sit back, and reflect on what I'd read.

"Would anybody who knew me then recognize me today? Innocent or not, prison changes you, makes you into a convict. Striding across the parking lot, I actually shook my head like a wet dog to get these thoughts out of my mind. I reminded myself that the point was that I was walking out the door. Front door, back door. Same difference."

Having acknowledged a very personal connection, I must also admit that I will wholeheartedly recommend this one to nearly every reader I know; An American Marriage will likely become one of my favorite books of the year.

{My Thoughts}
What Worked For Me
A Dark Look at the American South – An American Marriage opens with a certain level of foreboding. Married just over a year, Roy and Celestial travel from their home in Atlanta to visit his parents in rural Louisiana, with Celestial feeling decidedly uneasy about the trip. This young couple would seem to have it all, budding careers, a beautiful home and plans to start a family. But less than 24-hours later, Roy has been arrested and charged with the rape of a white woman, despite the fact that he was with Celestial in their motel room when the rape occurred. Celestial’s word, Roy’s testimony, none of it matters against the word of his accuser in a small Southern courtroom. Roy is sentenced to 12 years in prison. Sadly, this outcome is not shocking or the real focus of An American Marriage.

What Is Right? – The heart of this book is the struggle for this couple to hold onto a young marriage that hasn’t been around long enough to stand the test of time. At first Roy tells Celestial not to wait for him, but of course she’s not willing to abandon him. As the months and years go on, it gets harder for them both. Roy clings tighter. Celestial pushes back. Is it wrong for her to give up hope? Is it right for him to demand her love even as he pushes away? What is right in an utterly wrong situation?

Alternating Perspectives – Jones used the alternate perspectives of Roy, Celestial, and Andre (friend to both) to bring An American Marriage to life. It took all three to see the full picture. I loved the voice of Roy. His words carried the weary weight of his time in prison, along with love for his parents, and for Celestial. As the story approached its climax Roy’s thoughts bounced between lucidity and desperation.

“Sometimes I wonder if she would know me now. Would anybody who knew me then recognize me today? Innocent or not, prison changes you, makes you into a convict.”

In some ways Celestial had the most difficult role of all. Living on the outside, her life went on, even as she tried to wait for the man she’d married.

“My husband’s ghost showed itself in the guise of other men, almost always young, haircuts Easter fresh year-round. They didn’t always share his physical attributes; no, they were as diverse as humanity. But I recognized them by the ambition that clung to their skins like a spicy cologne, the slight breeze of power that stirred the air, and finally, a mourning that left my mouth tasting of ash.”

An Exquisite Ending – That’s about all I can say. Just know it left me feeling exactly as it should have, satisfied and saddened.

What Didn’t
Letters – The only part of An American Marriage that didn’t work for me was the large section of the book (20%) that was told in the form of letters. These were primarily between Roy and Celestial during his time in prison, and for me they became extremely tedious. I found Roy’s letters especially long-winded and preachy. I wish the author could have delivered the same information and feeling in in some other way.

{The Final Assessment}
While I can’t quite give An American Marriage a perfect rating, I nonetheless highly recommend this book. The examination of a young marriage put to the test under the most trying of circumstances felt both important and real. The author did not sugarcoat or play favoritism with any of her characters. Instead she placed them in a heartbreaking situation and tackled it with amazing honesty. Grade: B+

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher (via NetGalley) in exchange for my honest review.

Roy and Celestial are a newly married black couple and are still in the blissful honeymoon stage for the most part. Their careers are going well and they’ve recently decided to start a family. However, their lives and marriage are forever changed when Roy is arrested for and subsequently convicted of raping a white woman – a crime he did not commit. He is sentenced to twelve years in prison. Can his marriage to Celestial endure a twelve year separation? Should it be expected to? Celestial tries her best to wait it out, but ultimately decides she cannot stay. Then things get complicated when Roy is released after only serving five years of his sentence.

The author explores not only how Roy is affected by his time in prison but how everyone in his life is affected as well. She brings the unfortunate mass incarceration epidemic we have in this country down to the micro level. Roy was an up and coming business man full of optimism before he was falsely convicted. Then his life was basically destroyed and his cheery optimism and ambition stomped out of him by the system.

Tayari Jones’s prose is beautiful and her characters are richly drawn. The depth of this story is amazing. There is so much to think about and so many questions to ask of oneself while reading. Because of that, I think this book would make an excellent book club selection. I know that it’s still early but I’m certain that An American Marriage will make my best reads of 2018 list.

Where to start in unpacking this book. First of all, it was excellent.

I did not read the synopsis of this book before I read it, and I suggest that you do not either. Just trust me, this is worth it. This is my first Tayari Jones book, and it won’t be my last.

There are so many layers and messages that this book offers. Obviously, per the title, it is about marriage. How do you sustain a marriage while one person is estranged, and is away for longer than the two of you have been married? This book is also about family, what makes a family, how do these ties bind you to the past and the present.

One of the things that made this book so powerful was the way the author told the story. It is told through a combination of first person accounts, and letters written between the characters while the husband is away. You never get an omniscient and unbiased view of the characters, you are left to make your own assumptions and judgements.

The plot of the book moves along and never gets boring. Because of the first-person accounts, and some going back and forth in time, it fills in the gaps of the story and keeps you interested.

This was a really smart, engaging, enlightening, heart-wrenching story. If you are looking for a well written book that will make you think, then this is your read. Also, without giving too much away, this is an important story to tell. It deals with race and how people are unfairly treated and judged. Always important story to tell, but even more so today.

I rated this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads.

Full disclosure: I received this eARC from NetGalley for a fair and honest review. (Thanks NetGalley!)

The question of what marriage means, what it binds you to and entitles you to, is probably the most fundamental one at issue in Tayari Jones' An American Marriage. It's not the only one, though. The book follows Roy and Celestial, a young black couple married about a year and a half when we first meet them. Their future seems so bright: he's a promising marketing executive, she's an artist beginning to find success with her doll-making. They're thinking about having a baby soon when they leave their home in Atlanta and drive to rural Louisiana to spend the weekend with Roy's parents. Celestial has a bad feeling, but they write it off to nerves. It is the first night they're there that their whole world changes.

Roy is accused of raping a white woman, and even though he's innocent, he's sentenced to 12 years. They immediately appeal, but of course appeals take time, and while that process is ongoing Roy's continued imprisonment leaves both of them uprooted. After five years, the appeal is ultimately successful, but that time has left both Roy and Celestial different people, and they can't just pick up where they left off.

Any more than that about the plot probably reveals more than would be preferable...this is a book that's best to savor as it reveals itself to you (and usually I'm pretty pro-spoiler, but this does really feel like an exception). The truth is that there's not a lot of "plot" per se, but there's enough, and the work that Jones does with character and the way she uses those characters to poke at our understanding of powerful themes like marriage, and family more broadly, are brilliant. The instinct to find a "good guy" and a "bad guy", when two people are in conflict, is so strong, but Jones refuses us that easy perspective. They're both the bad guy. They're both the good guy. They're both people who've spent the last five years suffering, and trying to deal with that suffering, in their own ways.

While there is a lot to really like here and this is definitely a good book, I'll be honest: it never quite crossed that line from good into great for me. I got more out of pondering it after I finished it than I got out of reading it, if that makes sense. And also, I had a small qualm with a writing choice Jones made: while the book is primarily told from the perspectives of Roy and Celestial, there's a third person who also gets point-of-view chapters. This person is important to the narrative and it wasn't that those portions were inferior or anything, but I would have preferred that the focus remained on the central couple exclusively. That being said, this is still a book that is well-worth your time and energy, and I'd recommend it to all readers.

This is the type of book that sticks with you, and makes you rethink your opinions. Days after finishing it, I wasn't sure if I could review it because I am still turning over in my mind exactly what happened and how I should react to it. The title itself, An American Marriage, could refer to multiple themes present in the book. At the novel's core is the marriage between Roy and Celestial, and what makes it specifically American. It could be that they are both black, and Roy ends up in prison, wrongfully convicted, and this is the case for many black families across America. Another option is that Roy and Celestial were married such a short time, which reflects the broader aspects of typical American marriages, that they don't necessarily last long.

The novel splits between Celestial's and Roy's perspective, with Andre, Celestial's best friend, coming in sometimes. One of the strongest portions of the novel is the letters between Celestial and Roy while Roy is in prison. While oftentimes in epistolary novels, the letters can feel fake and contain far too much information to feel like real people are writing the letters, but not these. In the entire novel, these letters are the best example we have of how Celestial and Roy feel about each other.

The characters aren't exactly likable. As a reader I wanted them to make different decisions, be more communicative, etc. But that's one of the things that has stuck with me. What drives the characters to act out in such ways? It also forces the reader to come to terms with how intimately prison life affects people, even those wrongfully convicted. All in all, this is a great American novel.

What are the ties that bind two very different people together? It definitely wasn't love at first sigh for Roy and Celestial. But they eventually did fall in love and plan a life together. Until Roy was wrongfully accused of raping an older white woman and sentenced to twelve years in jail.

A heartrending story of the deep south where social injustices still exist and families love deeply and unreservedly. A haunting story of love, ambition and passion that will leave you reeling by it's sheer intensity.

I will never forget the day that my friend S.C. asked if I'd ever read Tayari Jones. "She's an Atlanta author; I think you'd like her." Of course, I hadn't read her, so I started with her debut, Leaving Atlanta, an emotionally gripping, attention grabbing tale about the Atlanta Child Murders. I moved on to The Untelling, which was so good that I couldn't WAIT until Silver Sparrow was released. I snatched it up on the day of publication and so happily handed it over to Ms. Jones for her to sign it when she came to Atlanta. It remains my favorite of her novels.

But it has been YEARS since she published a full novel, and one misses the good words when there is such a dearth in black fiction. I was overjoyed to hear she had begun working on a new novel, and it took some time, but I want to offer my thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy because I just couldn't wait one more second to dig into this book!

As I always say, I love when I open a book and I am instantly transported into that world, that time. I feel like a fly on the wall, listening to characters talk, watching the action, interpreting and rationalizing. The beginning chapters of this book set the scene-- Celestial and Roy, newly married, in that 'newly married' kind of bliss, still sort of figuring each other out and trying to manage the in-law relationship as well. On a trip to visit Roy's parents, they decide to stay at a hotel instead of a room at the house where they'd normally stay. Roy has special plans, he wants to show Celestial a special spot.

I can't help but think that if Roy hadn't been so ambitious with his plans, the story would have a different ending. But it doesn't. Even in the New South, old thinking exists. A claim against a black man, true or not, can send that man's life into a tailspin. Celestial finds herself alone-- not a divorcee and not a widow. A married woman whose husband is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, who is expected to be locked away for quite some time.

There are a few other dynamics that add to the dramatic tension and held my rapt attention. Roy's family structure, for one. Celestial and Roy's relationship for another. I felt that it wasn't strong enough to endure this kind of challenge and pressure. They'd only lived the blissful, dreamy part of love together. They hadn't been through the trial and tribulation of having to live apart, yet committed to one another. And as much as Roy expected Celestial to be 'ride or die' for him, I also felt, through the pages, her slipping away from him, unable to give him the loyalty he longed for and felt, whether or not it was wrong, that he deserved.

Holy drama, and scandal and tension, Batman. At a certain point, things come to an emotional and physical head and I really wondered how things were going to settle out. I think one of my favorite parts of the book is the letters. They let the story play out, in the words of Roy and Celeste, even though they couldn't be in the same room. Ms. Jones recently shared a piece about how technology can affect and script communication between characters; sometimes a novel has to be set in a time and a place that makes communication difficult. At one point in the book, there's no way for one character to contact the other, leading one to walk right into a trap, per se... the tension that that situation built was palpable and effective.

I think this book has multiple levels and conversation/talking points. Its many facets and depths would be great for a book club discussion. Ms. Jones did a fantastic job with this novel. Like Silver Sparrow, I can see myself reading it again and again, just for the initial enjoyment I felt at reading her words.

This author will be taking this book on tour and I can't wait to see her in Atlanta on February 9th!

An American marriage was an amazing story about a young newlywed couple just starting to live the American dream when the unthinkable happens. Roy and Celeste are deeply in love and out of town to visit family. When a woman staying at the hotel they are staying at is raped, she thinks Roy is the rapist. Although Roy was with Celeste all night they can’t convince a jury it wasn’t him. Roy goes to prison for a crime he didn’t commit and Celeste is left trying to make a life for herself.

There are so many gripping aspects of this story that I need to point out this realistic look at what incarceration does to a marriage, family, and a career, even if the person incarcerated is innocent. The fact that Roy and Celeste are African American lends even more to this tale of the stigma of incarceration and it’s damning effects.

After meeting the characters and seeing their fate sealed, we are privy to their thoughts and correspondence through intimate letters while Roy is locked up. The letters lay bare this couple’s struggles to stay in love and stay realistic about how hard it is for each of them. This alternate format had me turning pages at a furious pace as we learn so many secrets this couple had.

The book doesn’t stay in letter format for too long. The story mains stays with two main POVs, that of Celeste and Roy with a few chapters in Celeste’s childhood friend Andre’s POV. Andre helps Celeste move forward while Roy is locked up, but he has an ulterior motive. He is deeply in love with Celeste and always has been.

The author has created a complex situation with amazingly realistic feeling characters. Celeste is fiercely independent and has a strong well-to-do supportive family to back her up. Roy was raised by his mother and her husband big Roy who adopted Roy when he was a child. He is very driven and has worked very hard to provide a good life for Celeste and himself. Andre was a good friend to Roy and Celeste and even introduced them. It was easy to become invested in the characters as they all have flaws but are so passionate about what they want.

There were so many unfortunate things in this story, but the true crime is the stealing of a young man’s life in the name of justice without real proof. Their marriage and Roy’s big career plans get destroyed while Roy is locked up. The wheels of justice turn so slowly for Roy and eventually he is found innocent and is released, but by then his whole world has changed. All the characters in this story change and grow throughout this ordeal, even the parents are affected, showing just how far out people are affected by incarceration.

This was such an eye opening book about how fast a life can be completely changed. Some of it was sad to read but I think the author left the characters in the perfect place. Right where they needed to be. I highly recommend this heart-wrenching yet beautifully told story.

After reading this, I'm left wondering what the author's purpose was. There is so much going on that "An American Marriage" just seems to simple. Honestly, I wish she had delved a bit deeper into the dynamics of marriage. That is the central theme of the novel, but it's glossed over and buried beneath the letters the POVs of the various characters. I think this novel is more of a testament to love and all of its hardships as opposed to marriage, or specifically an American marriage. And I still don't understand why that is specified. How is an American marriage different from other marriages? I loved the characters, but I felt that the main male characters needed a bit more depth.

This was one of my most anticipated winter reads as I'm so drawn to stories about innocent people in prison. While I usually read non-fiction stories involving this topic I couldn't wait to see how it was explored by Jones in this fictional story. I'll admit I had a little bit of a hard time getting into the flow of the story in the beginning and I think that was due to the writing style and possibly the character's voices. We are initially introduced to Roy and Celestial in the first year of their marriage with occasional backstory of how they met interspersed. The narrative switches perspectives between both Roy and Celestial so we get to "hear" from both of them. The glimpses we get of their  marriage were intriguing because I found myself wondering if perhaps Roy was more invested in the marriage than Celestial. 

As the story progressed, I began to like it even more, especially when Roy was unjustly convicted...it was tragic and I can't imagine how that would affect not just Roy and Celestial but their marriage and their extended families. Everyone was traumatized. I'm going to be honest, once Roy went to prison and the story shifted to quite a lot of letter writing between the two as well as quite a bit of what felt like emotional examinations of everyone's feelings, the story took on a meandering pace for me. By the halfway point, I found my mind wandering and I started to skim many sections. For me, this can be my struggle with literary fiction...I love the story and really want to just get to it and find out what happens to Roy, who will Celestial ultimately choose, and what will become of their marriage...instead the narratives meander to the distant past and to details of their everyday living that I just struggled staying interested in.

As the story neared the end, I'm not sure I fully connected with the ending but I will say Roy's character...his fate and his future...is what kept me reading and hoping things would turn around for him. This was a really well conceived storyline that shed light on how our justice system can and does ruin lives. Unfortunately, I didn't love it like I expected to and finished feeling pretty middle of the road.

An American Marriage begins by introducing readers to newlyweds Roy and Celestial, who come from totally different backgrounds. While Celestial was born into a family that had built itself up to a place of success and respectability in the suburbs of Atlanta, Roy’s story is much more humble. The two are married for a short eighteen months when Roy is arrested for a crime he did not commit while he and Celestial are in Louisiana visiting Roy’s parents. He is sentenced to twelve years in prison, and his and Celestial’s lives are torn apart and their marriage left hanging in the balance.

An American Marriage is my first experience with reading Tayari Jones’s writing, and it won’t be my last. The narrative of the book is varied. During the time prior to Roy’s imprisonment and the time after his release, the book is broken into sections for first-person tellings by Roy, Celestial, and Andre, who is Roy’s friend from college, Celestial’s lifelong friend, and the man who first introduced the two. During Roy’s time in prison, the story is told through letters between him and Celestial. Jones’s decision to structure An American Marriage this way was an excellent one for several reasons. The first, and perhaps the most compelling, is the way that readers are able to understand each character’s point of view in a meaningful way throughout the book. This understanding left me torn, from beginning to end. In the beginning, the love and respect Roy and Celestial share is evident through their thoughts about their relationship and their feelings for one another. Once Roy is released from prison and the effects of his and Celestial’s time apart become apparent, I found this method to be even more powerful. With each character’s section, I found myself struggling with my own opinion of their situation and what I thought the outcome should be.

As much as I connected and empathized with the characters, however, I also felt the natural detachment from their thoughts that their experiences might naturally create. For example, Roy’s experiences while in prison are only told through his letters to Celestial, and after his release, he doesn’t allow himself to think about some of the things that occurred while he was inside except in bits and pieces, during brief moments when the thoughts slip in unnoticed. Celestial’s thoughts reflect her reserved personality, and their change from prior to Roy’s imprisonment to after show how her identity as a strong, independent woman shifts as a result of Roy’s arrest. As perhaps the most genuine and unfiltered of them all, Andre’s thoughts reveal that his behavior is authentic to his feelings, and his inability to accept responsibility for his own role in Roy and Celestial’s marital problems is a result of his naive belief in the power of love.

The sections of the book that are told through letters between Roy and Celestial also make a powerful statement. As the letters progress, readers begin to notice the growing distance between the two of them, and the letters demonstrate the struggle they experience as they try to connect emotionally without being able to be together physically. The issues they experience that tend to be typical for many newlyweds, such as issues with in-laws and differing ambitions, are exacerbated by Roy’s imprisonment, especially once readers discover details about a difficult choice they had to make soon after Roy’s sentencing that had a lasting effect on their relationship. By not allowing readers to know Roy’s and Celestial’s thoughts during this time and limiting them to the letters they write, Tayari Jones makes a powerful statement about the growing rift between them.

What makes this book even more powerful is that An American Marriage is about so much more than Roy and Celestial’s marriage. Jones has also created a powerful commentary on the issues facing young black men in America and the ways the American judicial system is stacked against them. Roy was innocent and lost everything as a result. Jones not only showed the effects of his imprisonment on his material possessions and relationships, but she also did an excellent job showing the effects that prison had on his mental state and personality, and the state of Louisiana did nothing to atone for his unfair conviction or the destruction of the life he knew as a result. Roy Hamilton is representative of a much larger population of Americans who are arrested and convicted unjustly, simply because of the color of their skin.

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is one of the most honest novels I have read. The characters are deeply flawed, and they make their fair share of mistakes. Sometimes they acknowledge those mistakes, and sometimes they do not, and they make readers wonder what they would do in their shoes. This is an excellent book with layers upon layers of profound commentary, and it would be well worth anyone’s time to read it.

I knew by reading the synapse of this book it could be really good or an epic fail. Luckily, it was definitely really good. It's beautifully written and i found myself re-reading certain sentences and paragraphs because it was so almost poetic. It reminded me a lot of The Mothers -- the culture, the protagonists and the love triangle.

I quite enjoyed this book about a man who is recently married, and then incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit. Can the marriage survive the long distance, and non-contact of his imprisonment? Should both parties ever believe they have a chance to recoup what they once had? All too often this happens, particularly to the African American men in our communities. Their ties to family are broken and may never recover. What does the rest of the family do? Wait? Move on? Can they? The characters in this book are so likable, you WANT things to turn out right for them. The system however is responsible NOT the people caught up in the system that ends up directing their future. Decisions are made that effect both people, and their marriage. Something that is happening all the time in our country and something that has to stop. Tayari Jones did an excellent job at character development. We care about the couple, the community, and calls us to seek change in the system that not only wrongfully imprisons people, but imprisons people's futures.
Thanks to Netgalley for an advanced copy for an honest review.

An American Marriage read like modern-day classic. I can see that this is a novel that will continue to influence readers for generations, if it gets the attention it deserves. Before I read this novel, I checked a few reviews on Goodreads, and one of them suggested reading this novel as blindly as possible. As soon as I read that, I stopped reading reviews and began reading the book. I think that is good advice. I think picking this one up without knowing too much information helps it to unfold organically, without any preconceived ideas. And while there were some aspects of the novel that seemed too coincidental at times, I found myself deeply enthralled by each page. I think it's a story I won't soon forget.

"An American Marriage" by Tayari Jones explores a marriage torn apart by a wrongful conviction. The novel is told in jail letters and from character perspectives, but the neutral narrator voice would've heightened the emotions to really capture what's involved when a black man goes to prison for a crime he didn't commit.

Roy and Celestial come off as a mismatched couple who originally met as students at Morehouse College and Spelman College (my alma mater) in Atlanta respectively but married years later after a chance reunion. While visiting Roy's parents in Louisiana, they stay in a hotel where they get in a fight. Roy goes to get ice to cool down and helps a white woman in her room. They hold a friendly conversation, then he leaves. But hours later, the police knock down the door to Roy and Celestial's room, charging him with rape of the white woman he had helped earlier. Roy spends five years in prison until his conviction is overturned. While Roy is in jail, Celestial becomes a famous doll maker and falls in love with their mutual friend, Andre. So when Roy gets out, he finds his wife in love with another man, and a disoriented confrontation ensues.

The story is interesting, but the way it's told took away from it a little. One example is the pivotal arrest scene, which is told after the fact, in Celestial's voice when a neutral narrator's voice could've brought the reader into the moment to feel the impact it would have throughout the story. The face-off between Roy and Celestial is told in their voices along with Andre's voice when again a neutral narrator voice could've provided all the sides in the moment. Roy's prison days were told in letters when maybe a few letters could be shared with day comparisons from a neutral narrator, e.g. a day with Roy in prison and that same day with Celestial outside. Overall, the story has the emotion, but it feels watered-down due to the writing style.

Damn, this book was good. It alternates perspectives across three characters, and it's ultimately a story about love. The love you feel at the beginning of a marriage. The love you feel when it's unrequited and then fulfilled. A fatherly love. The love of saying goodbye. Love that is lost.

This was about to be a 4-star book for me until the epilogue, which I felt really brought the book together and gave it a closure that I really appreciated. Jones has this incredible way with prose where she makes the most astute observations sometimes, and alternates them with language that is evocative yet compact.

<I>An American Marriage</I> is what I had hoped <I>The Course of Love</I> by Alain de Botton would be.

An American Marriage is gut-wrenching, with artful and beautiful writing. I loved it and was impressed over and over again by Jones' creativity. On top of all this, the story of black men and mass incarceration is incredibly relevant. I can't recommend it highly enough!