Billed as a 'divorce memoir,' this book is thankfully NOT a treatise on how the author finally 'found' herself after this moment of reckoning. True: Mlotek briefly--beautifully--shares glimpses into her personal history, but as a cultural critic her writing is far more engaging. From discussing legal history, to famous figures, to popular media, Mlotek clearly demonstrates that she's an essayist for our times.

I am a sucker for memoir of ordinary life and for any criticism of the institution of marriage. So, I do feel a little biased but I also appreciated Mlotek's particular story, her style of short chapters and her inclusion of so many inspirations and references. (Everyone *should* see "An Unmarried Woman") I had to keep stopping to write things down and I look forward to reading some of the books she quoted that I was not yet familiar with. I think this is a great addition to the literature on divorce but again I'm biased (though neither divorced nor the child of divorce).

Without succumbing to the allure of heteropessimism, Mlotek makes a good case for the protection of a woman's independence and sense of self against a world that would at every step love to crush her.

Haley's analysis of divorce through film is a highlight of the book. When she talks about the length of her marriage in connection to her perspective on relationships, it becomes a signature of her writing. Passages in the book also provide short breaths and a heartfelt throughline. I wish that Haley would have delved more into how her parents relationship and her grandparents relationships impacted her.