Hitched: The Go-Girl Guide to the First Year of Marriage

by Julia Bourland

If you're like most brides, you've spent more time pondering wedding favors and exotic honeymoon destinations than considering all the ways marriage will change your relationship. In The Go-Girl Guide to the First Year of Marriage, Julia Bourland provides the ultimate insider's guide to the joys, hopes, challenges, conflicting emotions, and endless compromises of the year that follows the "I do"s.
Drawing on dozens of interviews with newly married women, plus her own real-life experience, Bourland offers wise answers to crucial post-knot questions about sex, finances, friends, in-laws, and everything beyond,
• What to do when your libido soars (yay!) or sinks (eek!)
• How to keep important friendships -- and nourish new ones
• The pros and cons of name changing
• How to carve out personal space within marriage
• The best ways to divide household responsibilities
• How to start planning for your financial future
Candid, witty, and wise, HITCHED will steer you through the ups and occasional downs of newlywed life and set you on the path to a loving, happy, and secure future together.

Genres: Marriage, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2003

Reviews

[Douglas Lord · Rating 4 out of 5]

For this follow-up to The Go-Girl Guide : Surviving Your 20s with Savvy, Soul, and Style, Bourland conducted telephone interviews with 60 “straight-talking women” who recently tied the knot. Most were college educated, liberal, and living in urban areas, and this book will appeal to a similar, if not identical, demographic. Bourland presents their “cumulative wisdom and experience [to help] shed light on life with a husband.” To her credit, she takes a stand on issues; the result is mostly sound, healthy advice for women in the tone of an older sister or experienced girlfriend. Don’t diet before the ceremony, she advises; it will just drain your energy. And don’t hold off on sex before the wedding; it’s a good stress outlet. However, some questionable advice also rears its head, e.g., put the honeymoon on a credit card if you don’t have the cash because “some things in life are worth the interest.” Infinitely more useful than Jenny Lee’s I Do. I Did. Now What?!: Life After the Wedding Dress; also consider Susan K. Perry’s Loving In Flow: How The Happiest Couples Get And Stay That Way.

Find reviews of books for men at Books for Dudes, Books for Dudes, the online reader's advisory column for men from Library Journal. Copyright Library Journal.

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very fun and thought-provoking read. The author feels like a good friend and talks to you in a relatable way. The book contains her own experiences as well as those of the dozens of women she interviewed for the project. The perspective offered is very well-rounded because of all the research she did. Great tips are offered on engagement stress, wedding planning, the first year of marriage, and anniversary ideas. There were many things I identified with and it was nice to say, "Oh, so someone else felt the same way!" (like on things as struggling with the decision to change my last name, etc.)

[Meghan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my how I LOVE Julia Bourland!!! Her way of writing is so conversational, I felt like I was chatting with an old friend over coffee instead of reading a book.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! Any woman getting married NEEDS to read it immediately (if only for a laugh)! The advice is great and it helped me put things in perspective.

[Manintheboat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt better learning that not all women are elated when proposed to, that others also get overwhelmed and upset.