After I Do

As a contemporary romance novel, After I Do embraces a range of conventional tropes of the genre, most notably the “second chance” trope, which often features protagonists who find their way back to each other after a period of emotional distance. Often, such a couple might have been “in love a long time ago, but circumstances forced them apart” or they might already be “married and things haven’t been going too well” (Tuli, Nisha. “Romance Tropes: The Heartbeat of a Genre.” Dabble, 22 Apr. 2022). No matter the circumstances, the second chance trope offers the couple in question “another chance at love” (Tuli). In After I Do, Lauren Spencer and Ryan Cooper have been together for 11 years but find their romance waning and their marriage growing strained. They spend a year apart, but this separation ultimately leads them back to one another, given that the “happily ever after” conclusion is always guaranteed in traditional contemporary romances. Although the After I Do narrative abides by this promise, Reid toys with structure, language, perspective, and form in order to disrupt the many clichéd notions that typically limit the romance genre. In more traditional contemporary romance models, the female and male love interests will each narrate their own sections, but in After I Do, Lauren is the sole narrator, and this stylistic choice places subtextual emphasis on her personal growth as a woman, a lover, a sister, a daughter, and a wife.