The Amateur Marriage by Anne Tyler (2004, Paperback, Reprint)

Even though this is my first novel of Anne Tyler, I started enjoying read Anne Tyler’s novel because I had learnt a lot about marriage during reading this novel. This is a novel which talked about a long relationship of a family which had stand for thirty years. When Michael and Pauline first meet each other, then they were falling in love. Because they loved, so they married. They have many disagrees with each other during their marriage, so they fought a lot. They have three children who were growing up in a fighting family. They were often to see their parents’ fights. They were keeping fight, fight and fight and make each other miserable very often. That is very hard for readers, such as me, to see their love any more in their marriage. This family has been changed suddenly when their oldest children left their family. This novel mentioned the true fact of marriage. When I was reading this novel, I had thinking about it is not a very easy thing to control a family. Also it is kind of sad to read when their oldest daughter left their family, because I think it is a high point of this novel and their family is not going well any more. Even though they were fight a lot, they did not really realize what is going on with their family and they did not honestly see their marriage. When their oldest daughter left home, then they suddenly found out their family was not going better any more. I had learnt something about family and marriage from their Michael and Pauline’s marriage.

This is a great book, by an excellent author, you should really read her books! Anne Tyler's books are very hard to put down!

"The Amature Marriage" by Anne Tyler, the so-called "Pyrex realist" (Publishers Weekly), is a hard book to review. The book is interesting, effective, and evocative. However, I found the book terribly unpleasant to read.

The book begins at the onset of World War II in a family-owned grocery store where two young people meet by chance. Michael lives in the close-knit Polish neighborhood where the store is located, and Pauline is from another neighborhood, and, it seems, another world. The two marry quickly as so many couples do during times of war. What follows is a marriage full of conflict as the quiet, repressed Michael struggles with the emotional, romantic Pauline.

I hated this book because it was so stressful to read. But, that does mean that the Tyler wrote an amazing book. So, I've rated the book as average: not the below average that reflects my reaction or the good which reflects the quality of the book. Perhaps you are intrigued enough to read the book yourself?