What do you think?
Rate this book
Mergers and Acquisitions: Or, Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages
A compulsively readable behind-the-scenes memoir that takes readers inside the weddings section of the New York Times--the good, bad, and just plain weird--through the eyes of a young reporter just as she's falling in love herself.
Growing up in the south, where tradition reigns supreme, Cate Doty thought about weddings . . . a lot. She catered for them, she attended many, she imagined her own. So, when she moved to New York City in pursuit of love--and to write for The New York Times--she finds her natural home in the wedding section, a first step to her own happily-ever-after, surely. Soon Cate is thrown into the cutthroat world of the metropolitan society pages, experiencing the lengths couples go to have their announcements accepted and the lengths the writers go in fact-checking their stories; the surprising, status-signaling details that matter most to brides and grooms; and the politics of the paper at a time of vast cultural and industry changes.
Reporting weekly on couples whose relationships seem enviable--or eye-roll worthy--and dealing with WASPy grandparents and last-minute snafus, Cate is surrounded by love, or what we're told to believe is love. But when she starts to take the leap herself, she begins to ask her own questions about what it means to truly commit...
Warm, witty, and keenly observed, Mergers and Acquisitions is an enthralling dive into one of society's most esteemed institutions, its creators and subjects, and a young woman's coming-of-age.
Growing up in the south, where tradition reigns supreme, Cate Doty thought about weddings . . . a lot. She catered for them, she attended many, she imagined her own. So, when she moved to New York City in pursuit of love--and to write for The New York Times--she finds her natural home in the wedding section, a first step to her own happily-ever-after, surely. Soon Cate is thrown into the cutthroat world of the metropolitan society pages, experiencing the lengths couples go to have their announcements accepted and the lengths the writers go in fact-checking their stories; the surprising, status-signaling details that matter most to brides and grooms; and the politics of the paper at a time of vast cultural and industry changes.
Reporting weekly on couples whose relationships seem enviable--or eye-roll worthy--and dealing with WASPy grandparents and last-minute snafus, Cate is surrounded by love, or what we're told to believe is love. But when she starts to take the leap herself, she begins to ask her own questions about what it means to truly commit...
Warm, witty, and keenly observed, Mergers and Acquisitions is an enthralling dive into one of society's most esteemed institutions, its creators and subjects, and a young woman's coming-of-age.
356 pages, Hardcover
First published May 4, 2021
110 people are currently reading
2188 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews
May 17, 2021
This book does an excellent job of pitching the concept - I was 100% ready to dive in - but the end of the book left me feeling off. If the point had just been a gossip-y mag read, then fine. But the author tried to look more deeply at love. Unfortunately, she seemed to skip the prerequisite for deep thinking, which requires introspection, perspective, and maybe a little humility.
I do feel bad critiquing the book because it's basically the author's life (and she lived a very interesting one, and I am sure is a wonderful person). But there's a sort of false dichotomy that she constructs very early on between herself and the rest of the south (or moneyed elite, or the other people of interest that she reports on with breathless hints), and then of course, becomes one of the people who has her wedding in the NYTimes. When she describes her own actions, history, pedigree, etc., it's clear that she wants to be one of the 'elite', but then throughout the text she also makes fun of the 'elite', and it just doesn't come across well.
I also feel obligated to mention that, if you come from a family that literally owns slaves and then decide to get married on a former slave plantation, (and decide to write a memoir about your life where you publish this information) that probably requires a little more than a gloss that you're liberal and different because you had artsy parents. I really hope that she moved on from NYTimes wedding section to do "Neediest" work (i.e., writing about poor people) because she actually cared about them, and not because it was more important or more prestigious than the work than the wedding section. Despite a quick rundown on the rest of her life after deciding to get married, it doesn't really come across in the text why she made those decisions (even her decision to have her announcement in the NYTimes is unexamined), so all the reader is left with are speculations (like mine above).
I do feel bad critiquing the book because it's basically the author's life (and she lived a very interesting one, and I am sure is a wonderful person). But there's a sort of false dichotomy that she constructs very early on between herself and the rest of the south (or moneyed elite, or the other people of interest that she reports on with breathless hints), and then of course, becomes one of the people who has her wedding in the NYTimes. When she describes her own actions, history, pedigree, etc., it's clear that she wants to be one of the 'elite', but then throughout the text she also makes fun of the 'elite', and it just doesn't come across well.
I also feel obligated to mention that, if you come from a family that literally owns slaves and then decide to get married on a former slave plantation, (and decide to write a memoir about your life where you publish this information) that probably requires a little more than a gloss that you're liberal and different because you had artsy parents. I really hope that she moved on from NYTimes wedding section to do "Neediest" work (i.e., writing about poor people) because she actually cared about them, and not because it was more important or more prestigious than the work than the wedding section. Despite a quick rundown on the rest of her life after deciding to get married, it doesn't really come across in the text why she made those decisions (even her decision to have her announcement in the NYTimes is unexamined), so all the reader is left with are speculations (like mine above).
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 13, 2024
After graduating from college, Cate Doty moved to NYC and wrote for the wedding section of The New York Times. She worked on building her life in NY and learning about love.
While I enjoyed parts of Mergers and Acquisitions, it read as much more of a memoir than I expected. This is Cate’s post grad, coming of age story, and I would have preferred more content about her work or working for The NY Times.
While I enjoyed parts of Mergers and Acquisitions, it read as much more of a memoir than I expected. This is Cate’s post grad, coming of age story, and I would have preferred more content about her work or working for The NY Times.
December 16, 2021
I was really excited about this one because the NYT wedding pages both seem like a dinosaur and a fascinating peek into what we apparently value as a society.
I was disappointed not so much by the peek into the inner workings of the office and interviews but of the content in-between. If you are expecting any sort of critical or historical look into the wedding pages at all you will be disappointed. Her discussions were superficial and focused mostly on the mechanics of the column—the interviews and famous people and the difficulties of asking people where they went to college. The title of the book has little relation to the contents.
I wrote this as I read the book so bear with.
The author is admittedly very privileged herself and regales us with tales of her days taking ballroom dancing and attending boarding school but still is quite snarky about the even wealthier people she mostly writes about.
This ended up being one of those memoirs where the author tells you a lot more about themselves and in a different light than they think. There is something off about how she writes that she doesn’t quite seem aware of.
She gives lip service to diversity (and the lack of it in the newsroom and the wedding column) but she falters in how she writes about people and things in her personal life. Why did she include a two page discussion of another employee’s transition and how it was handled when they weren’t direct coworkers and their only interaction was a brief comment over the sinks in the bathroom during an event? Why did she tell us one of her coworkers was gay and argued about tuna salad with his husband and muse about what their life must have been like in the 1980s? Why didn’t she ask him? If she felt like they weren’t close enough to do that then why not leave him out all together? What was the point? To show that she knew married gay people?
When she goes to NOLA in the wake of Katrina, she tells us that the NYT rented an “unrepentant” refurbished plantation for the reporters and that the women were to live in the “slave quarters” and the men in the “big house” and then talks more about how they have to sleep on air mattresses instead of how bizarre and wildly inappropriate it is to have rented the place in the first place. She tells us of a reporter who rather than sleep in the buildings pitched a tent in the yard. She guessed (and again, didn’t bother to ask now or then) that he did this because wanted to avoid the noise of sleeping en masse with his coworkers. Of course, I don’t know this person but maybe they didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in either the big house or the slave quarters on a plantation?! It seems a reasonable possibility—you would not have much choice if your employer rented the place and there was a shortage of housing after a natural disaster but you have to sleep somewhere. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be told by my employer that my options were to sleep in the living quarters of either the enslaved or their enslavers on the site of such atrocities. Actually, I can imagine. I’d be livid and would do anything I could not to sleep there and let people know how inappropriate this location was. This doesn’t appear to occur to the author.
They drive through ruined neighborhoods and she sees signs that say the name of the person who died there and rather than reflect on that she tells us the photographer they met up with was smelly and had slept on a cot for days at City Hall and needed a shower at the plantation more than she did.
She cheerily tells us that her boyfriend Michael grew up in “deep poverty” and gives examples of things she took for granted like gallons of milk and fresh garlic that he didn’t have growing up. She says that it took a while for him to share his past with her but rather then reflect why that might be, she informs us that she asked him “all the time” to tell her stories about the winters he spent in a cabin with no heat and “loved” hearing the stories of his impoverished childhood.
I truly don’t understand why he didn’t break up with her then and there; she sounds like a gleeful vulture picking at the carcass of his difficult childhood. She admits that it was hard for him to talk about and how hard he worked to “escape the clutches” of his father but still she seems to have pressed him for details and then gives us description of what his father wore to a black tie wedding the three of them attended (spoiler, it was not a tux) for no apparent reason beyond contrasting it with what she wore (a beaded cocktail dress) to illustrate how poor? out of touch? the man was. A chapter later we are regaled with a story about how much he weighs and how sweaty he is and how she walked in on him getting ready to leave for the wedding in a state of undress. We are also treated to description of his underpants which apparently were lacking the proper elasticity. Why? Is it supposed to be funny? It just comes across and mean spirited.
She starts working on the “neediest cases” stories where (in her examples) they share stories of deaf men who need a flashing doorbell but can’t afford it and a teenager who needs shoes so he can work and support his mother. She seems to regard them from a distance in a way that seems othering to me and then trots out that old troupe of how they they were poor but “loved well”. Ah yes, the poor. They are lacking shoes but “poverty and trauma aside” they have love! It seemed like a way to make herself feel better about the situations and avoiding any real deep thought about why we are living in a world where a child needs shoes so they can go out to work to support their family.
She tells us of a time when her boyfriend asked for a break from her after seeing Knocked Up and he was struck by a line about wondering how anyone could really like him and was “spiraling into the deepest depression of his life”. The line set off a lot of questions and concerns he had about his life and future and deeply unsettled him. She’s very annoyed and upset at his request and grants it but eventually they begin seeing each other regularly again despite seemingly nothing changing. Then she is able to get tickets to see Seth Rogan and Judd Apatow at an event and needles her boyfriend repeatedly about going with her, even admitting that she was being mean and unjust but persisting on asking him to go despite his clear disinterest and discomfort. She talks about how fun it was to watch her boyfriend “squirm” when she made him watch Seth Rogan on SNL that same week despite acknowledging he had real issues to deal with that this movie brought to a head. It was deeply uncomfortable to read how callus she was with the man she supposedly loved and was so offended when he asked for a break to work on his mental health. She pauses to tell us she doesn’t hold a grudge against Rogan or Apatow which, of course she wouldn’t? Why is she giving more thought to them and their feelings than her boyfriend?
After her grandmother died she decides to throw her energies into her and Micheal’s relationship. She shares the story of her engagement where she is presented with a ring she finds too ugly to possibly wear. She tells him, he’s upset and she says she feels guilty about “wounding” him but is palpably ecstatic about not having to wear the ring he picked out.
How many red flags does the man need? When he “disappeared” right before the wedding I truly hoped he had made a run for it. Alas, he didn’t and she says they have a happy marriage.
We find out why she was fine with staying in a plantation—years later she gets married in what she describes in a throwaway as “the home of a long-dead president complete with slave quarters rebuilt for educational purposes” in a paragraph about her nerves and the weather on her wedding day.
This is much longer than I expected but in short, the glimpses of the actual work at the NYT wedding column are surprisingly brief and lack some details. What exactly are the questions so many people find too personal? I’m still not entirely clear. I think it’s questions about ancestors and education but she sort of glosses over it. The parts about her personal life were just wild. I doubt she wrote this to make herself look bad but I really found few parts where she seemed sympathetic. In the epilogue she talks about how her experiences with the “neediest” cases and NOLA made her move to the main desk to research and edit more serious news which is in sharp contrast to the shallow and almost flippant way she talked about those points of time in the body of her book. It’s puzzling and I don’t know what is the most accurate. Eventually she left the NYT and they seem happy enough in NC so good for her?
I was disappointed not so much by the peek into the inner workings of the office and interviews but of the content in-between. If you are expecting any sort of critical or historical look into the wedding pages at all you will be disappointed. Her discussions were superficial and focused mostly on the mechanics of the column—the interviews and famous people and the difficulties of asking people where they went to college. The title of the book has little relation to the contents.
I wrote this as I read the book so bear with.
The author is admittedly very privileged herself and regales us with tales of her days taking ballroom dancing and attending boarding school but still is quite snarky about the even wealthier people she mostly writes about.
This ended up being one of those memoirs where the author tells you a lot more about themselves and in a different light than they think. There is something off about how she writes that she doesn’t quite seem aware of.
She gives lip service to diversity (and the lack of it in the newsroom and the wedding column) but she falters in how she writes about people and things in her personal life. Why did she include a two page discussion of another employee’s transition and how it was handled when they weren’t direct coworkers and their only interaction was a brief comment over the sinks in the bathroom during an event? Why did she tell us one of her coworkers was gay and argued about tuna salad with his husband and muse about what their life must have been like in the 1980s? Why didn’t she ask him? If she felt like they weren’t close enough to do that then why not leave him out all together? What was the point? To show that she knew married gay people?
When she goes to NOLA in the wake of Katrina, she tells us that the NYT rented an “unrepentant” refurbished plantation for the reporters and that the women were to live in the “slave quarters” and the men in the “big house” and then talks more about how they have to sleep on air mattresses instead of how bizarre and wildly inappropriate it is to have rented the place in the first place. She tells us of a reporter who rather than sleep in the buildings pitched a tent in the yard. She guessed (and again, didn’t bother to ask now or then) that he did this because wanted to avoid the noise of sleeping en masse with his coworkers. Of course, I don’t know this person but maybe they didn’t feel comfortable sleeping in either the big house or the slave quarters on a plantation?! It seems a reasonable possibility—you would not have much choice if your employer rented the place and there was a shortage of housing after a natural disaster but you have to sleep somewhere. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be told by my employer that my options were to sleep in the living quarters of either the enslaved or their enslavers on the site of such atrocities. Actually, I can imagine. I’d be livid and would do anything I could not to sleep there and let people know how inappropriate this location was. This doesn’t appear to occur to the author.
They drive through ruined neighborhoods and she sees signs that say the name of the person who died there and rather than reflect on that she tells us the photographer they met up with was smelly and had slept on a cot for days at City Hall and needed a shower at the plantation more than she did.
She cheerily tells us that her boyfriend Michael grew up in “deep poverty” and gives examples of things she took for granted like gallons of milk and fresh garlic that he didn’t have growing up. She says that it took a while for him to share his past with her but rather then reflect why that might be, she informs us that she asked him “all the time” to tell her stories about the winters he spent in a cabin with no heat and “loved” hearing the stories of his impoverished childhood.
I truly don’t understand why he didn’t break up with her then and there; she sounds like a gleeful vulture picking at the carcass of his difficult childhood. She admits that it was hard for him to talk about and how hard he worked to “escape the clutches” of his father but still she seems to have pressed him for details and then gives us description of what his father wore to a black tie wedding the three of them attended (spoiler, it was not a tux) for no apparent reason beyond contrasting it with what she wore (a beaded cocktail dress) to illustrate how poor? out of touch? the man was. A chapter later we are regaled with a story about how much he weighs and how sweaty he is and how she walked in on him getting ready to leave for the wedding in a state of undress. We are also treated to description of his underpants which apparently were lacking the proper elasticity. Why? Is it supposed to be funny? It just comes across and mean spirited.
She starts working on the “neediest cases” stories where (in her examples) they share stories of deaf men who need a flashing doorbell but can’t afford it and a teenager who needs shoes so he can work and support his mother. She seems to regard them from a distance in a way that seems othering to me and then trots out that old troupe of how they they were poor but “loved well”. Ah yes, the poor. They are lacking shoes but “poverty and trauma aside” they have love! It seemed like a way to make herself feel better about the situations and avoiding any real deep thought about why we are living in a world where a child needs shoes so they can go out to work to support their family.
She tells us of a time when her boyfriend asked for a break from her after seeing Knocked Up and he was struck by a line about wondering how anyone could really like him and was “spiraling into the deepest depression of his life”. The line set off a lot of questions and concerns he had about his life and future and deeply unsettled him. She’s very annoyed and upset at his request and grants it but eventually they begin seeing each other regularly again despite seemingly nothing changing. Then she is able to get tickets to see Seth Rogan and Judd Apatow at an event and needles her boyfriend repeatedly about going with her, even admitting that she was being mean and unjust but persisting on asking him to go despite his clear disinterest and discomfort. She talks about how fun it was to watch her boyfriend “squirm” when she made him watch Seth Rogan on SNL that same week despite acknowledging he had real issues to deal with that this movie brought to a head. It was deeply uncomfortable to read how callus she was with the man she supposedly loved and was so offended when he asked for a break to work on his mental health. She pauses to tell us she doesn’t hold a grudge against Rogan or Apatow which, of course she wouldn’t? Why is she giving more thought to them and their feelings than her boyfriend?
After her grandmother died she decides to throw her energies into her and Micheal’s relationship. She shares the story of her engagement where she is presented with a ring she finds too ugly to possibly wear. She tells him, he’s upset and she says she feels guilty about “wounding” him but is palpably ecstatic about not having to wear the ring he picked out.
How many red flags does the man need? When he “disappeared” right before the wedding I truly hoped he had made a run for it. Alas, he didn’t and she says they have a happy marriage.
We find out why she was fine with staying in a plantation—years later she gets married in what she describes in a throwaway as “the home of a long-dead president complete with slave quarters rebuilt for educational purposes” in a paragraph about her nerves and the weather on her wedding day.
This is much longer than I expected but in short, the glimpses of the actual work at the NYT wedding column are surprisingly brief and lack some details. What exactly are the questions so many people find too personal? I’m still not entirely clear. I think it’s questions about ancestors and education but she sort of glosses over it. The parts about her personal life were just wild. I doubt she wrote this to make herself look bad but I really found few parts where she seemed sympathetic. In the epilogue she talks about how her experiences with the “neediest” cases and NOLA made her move to the main desk to research and edit more serious news which is in sharp contrast to the shallow and almost flippant way she talked about those points of time in the body of her book. It’s puzzling and I don’t know what is the most accurate. Eventually she left the NYT and they seem happy enough in NC so good for her?
August 18, 2021
This woman is an insufferable asshole.
April 6, 2021
MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS: OR, EVERYTHING I KNOW ABOUT LOVE I LEARNED ON THE WEDDING PAGES
BY CATE DOTY
Cate named after her beloved grandmother Catherine on her mother's side of the family has written an exquisite memoir about her personal life and her work at the Society pages writing wedding announcements for the New York Times, newspaper. Who knew how hard it was to get your wedding announcement printed in the New York Times. Her boss Ira seemed like a nice man to work for and Cate worked well under him. This book is a memoir about real events and real conversations that she had with the brides and grooms whose wedding announcements were published in the New York Times. In her memoir, Cate has implicitly stated that she changed the names and identifying details of the brides, grooms, their families and that she also changed the names and some of the identifying details of her friend's and family and those of whom she worked with at the New York Times. This is annoying because why write a memoir where for purposes of this review and other's who read the book if her whole family's names are different and also her now husband and daughter's names are different. How do I know her Boss's name was really Ira or if the man she married has been correct or changed? I don't even know at this point if she was truly named after her maternal grandmother. I can see changing the names and identifying details about the brides, grooms and their families names to protect her from getting sued but I can't see the point of changing the names of her friend's and family especially if she has written a memoir which she discloses her personal life. For that I am deducting one star which I feel is generous of me considering...
She sure freely supplies plenty of gossip about the "more difficult" and regular brides, grooms and their families. Just not their names but she comes up with some pretty descriptive personality traits and aliases for them named by her. Enough about that.
The New York Times is one of the most widely read newspaper written today and back when Cate was working there doing the Wedding Announcements in the Society section. I don't think that she learned any state secrets or government classified documents. I am being facetious. The New York Times did have hurdles to jump through to get your wedding announcement printed in the Times and they didn't just accept anybody. Your name, place of employment, economic status and lineage all had to be proven with documentation or fact checker's for the New York Times. She did let slip that Bono's manager might have gotten his wedding announcement in the Times while she handled it.
This tell all really doesn't identify anybody in the book for what she has disclosed. I thought that there were facts that contradicted each other. They are all backed up by footnotes so it is a bit confusing. In one section she writes that an average wedding was thirty-four thousand dollars and in a later chapter saying forty something thousand. She states that the average Manhattan bride spends $3,400 on her wedding dress. I can't imagine spending thirty-four thousand dollars on a wedding today much less forty something thousand, even today. Cate got her wedding dress from Target after working in an industry like she was. Go figure. Still an interesting read even though her name and her families could be totally fictitious and no I won't be googling to find out.
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
Thank you to Net Galley, Cate Doty and Penguin Group Putnam-G.P. Putnam's Sons for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.
#MergersandAcquisitions #CateDoty #PenguinGroupPutnamGPPutnam'sSons
BY CATE DOTY
Cate named after her beloved grandmother Catherine on her mother's side of the family has written an exquisite memoir about her personal life and her work at the Society pages writing wedding announcements for the New York Times, newspaper. Who knew how hard it was to get your wedding announcement printed in the New York Times. Her boss Ira seemed like a nice man to work for and Cate worked well under him. This book is a memoir about real events and real conversations that she had with the brides and grooms whose wedding announcements were published in the New York Times. In her memoir, Cate has implicitly stated that she changed the names and identifying details of the brides, grooms, their families and that she also changed the names and some of the identifying details of her friend's and family and those of whom she worked with at the New York Times. This is annoying because why write a memoir where for purposes of this review and other's who read the book if her whole family's names are different and also her now husband and daughter's names are different. How do I know her Boss's name was really Ira or if the man she married has been correct or changed? I don't even know at this point if she was truly named after her maternal grandmother. I can see changing the names and identifying details about the brides, grooms and their families names to protect her from getting sued but I can't see the point of changing the names of her friend's and family especially if she has written a memoir which she discloses her personal life. For that I am deducting one star which I feel is generous of me considering...
She sure freely supplies plenty of gossip about the "more difficult" and regular brides, grooms and their families. Just not their names but she comes up with some pretty descriptive personality traits and aliases for them named by her. Enough about that.
The New York Times is one of the most widely read newspaper written today and back when Cate was working there doing the Wedding Announcements in the Society section. I don't think that she learned any state secrets or government classified documents. I am being facetious. The New York Times did have hurdles to jump through to get your wedding announcement printed in the Times and they didn't just accept anybody. Your name, place of employment, economic status and lineage all had to be proven with documentation or fact checker's for the New York Times. She did let slip that Bono's manager might have gotten his wedding announcement in the Times while she handled it.
This tell all really doesn't identify anybody in the book for what she has disclosed. I thought that there were facts that contradicted each other. They are all backed up by footnotes so it is a bit confusing. In one section she writes that an average wedding was thirty-four thousand dollars and in a later chapter saying forty something thousand. She states that the average Manhattan bride spends $3,400 on her wedding dress. I can't imagine spending thirty-four thousand dollars on a wedding today much less forty something thousand, even today. Cate got her wedding dress from Target after working in an industry like she was. Go figure. Still an interesting read even though her name and her families could be totally fictitious and no I won't be googling to find out.
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
Thank you to Net Galley, Cate Doty and Penguin Group Putnam-G.P. Putnam's Sons for generously providing me with my ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.
#MergersandAcquisitions #CateDoty #PenguinGroupPutnamGPPutnam'sSons
June 29, 2021
I hate read this book through the end - when the author bitched about her engagement ring. As many people on Goodreads already identified, don’t judge a book by its deceptive marketing. As a devout (and long term) NYT Weddings pages planning a wedding, I really expected to enjoy this book. Not at all.
Read
January 7, 2022I initially felt like Mergers & Acquisitions by Cate Doty was one of those "I can't look away" books, but sadly that feeling faded by the halfway point.
Billed as "A compulsively readable behind-the-scenes memoir that takes readers inside the weddings section of the New York Times--the good, bad, and just plain weird--through the eyes of a young reporter just as she's falling in love herself," I'd say this memoir veers more heavily into Doty's personal life and musings on love than behind-the-scenes at the Times. While there were some anecdotes from her job, including some examples of the couples she'd interview, the focus really seemed to be on Doty's own romantic life.
Further editing may have yielded a better book, as some parts felt rocky or left me with questions. For instance, there's a comment about her getting married "at the home of a long-dead American president, complete with slave quarters rebuilt for educational purposes" that, without explication, felt flippant at best. (Especially after acknowledging that her family has "records of enslaved people being sold from one member of (her) family to another.")
For someone who's spent years "learning" about love, I was disappointed by her comment that after having been married, she now prefers the company of her other long-partnered friends (guess if you were Doty's friend and don't have a long-term partner, too bad for you. Never mind that some people don't want a long-term partner, some people haven't found the right one yet, some people's partners have tragically died, etc.).
Perhaps had I known going in how much of the book would be about the author and her relationship, I'd have been more receptive to that content. As is, the first part of Mergers & Acquisitions pulled me in, but there wasn't enough to really sustain my interest. (While I finished the book, I sort of wish I'd skipped the second half as the first half was much more suited to my liking.)
Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for a free e-arc of this title for review.
Billed as "A compulsively readable behind-the-scenes memoir that takes readers inside the weddings section of the New York Times--the good, bad, and just plain weird--through the eyes of a young reporter just as she's falling in love herself," I'd say this memoir veers more heavily into Doty's personal life and musings on love than behind-the-scenes at the Times. While there were some anecdotes from her job, including some examples of the couples she'd interview, the focus really seemed to be on Doty's own romantic life.
Further editing may have yielded a better book, as some parts felt rocky or left me with questions. For instance, there's a comment about her getting married "at the home of a long-dead American president, complete with slave quarters rebuilt for educational purposes" that, without explication, felt flippant at best. (Especially after acknowledging that her family has "records of enslaved people being sold from one member of (her) family to another.")
For someone who's spent years "learning" about love, I was disappointed by her comment that after having been married, she now prefers the company of her other long-partnered friends (guess if you were Doty's friend and don't have a long-term partner, too bad for you. Never mind that some people don't want a long-term partner, some people haven't found the right one yet, some people's partners have tragically died, etc.).
Perhaps had I known going in how much of the book would be about the author and her relationship, I'd have been more receptive to that content. As is, the first part of Mergers & Acquisitions pulled me in, but there wasn't enough to really sustain my interest. (While I finished the book, I sort of wish I'd skipped the second half as the first half was much more suited to my liking.)
Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for a free e-arc of this title for review.
May 5, 2021
The “Wedding’s” section (now called “Love”) of the New York Times has always been my favorite read on Sundays. The first place I’d turn to when I read the print version of the paper, and now the first place on line I go to. Where else can you see the parade of mostly white, mostly affluent couples as they fix their love forever in true New York Times fashion. Cate Doty - once an editor at the Times - has written a book, “Mergers and Acquisitions: Or Everything I Know About Love I Learned on the Wedding Pages”.
From the title, I assumed - incorrectly as I found out - the book would be an interesting dish about the paper and the weddings it covered. Instead, it’s mostly a memoir of Cate and her life, relatives, and friends. Now, Cate has led an interesting life (and is an excellent writer) but I think the book is being marketed wrong. It should be sold as a memoir of a young woman’s experiences and loves in New York City. A woman who happens to write for the New York Times in various sections. Maybe I would have bought the book, maybe I wouldn’t have. I happen to like memoirs, and as I wrote above, Cate Doty is a good writer. But every time she’d go into the topic - the Weddings section - she’d leave it to write about her personal life.
Actually, I’m not dissing Cate’s book, I just wish the marketing of the book was more on point.
From the title, I assumed - incorrectly as I found out - the book would be an interesting dish about the paper and the weddings it covered. Instead, it’s mostly a memoir of Cate and her life, relatives, and friends. Now, Cate has led an interesting life (and is an excellent writer) but I think the book is being marketed wrong. It should be sold as a memoir of a young woman’s experiences and loves in New York City. A woman who happens to write for the New York Times in various sections. Maybe I would have bought the book, maybe I wouldn’t have. I happen to like memoirs, and as I wrote above, Cate Doty is a good writer. But every time she’d go into the topic - the Weddings section - she’d leave it to write about her personal life.
Actually, I’m not dissing Cate’s book, I just wish the marketing of the book was more on point.
September 10, 2021
As someone who relished the “Weddings” section and made sport of reading it with my mother back in the 1980s and 90s, I found this book disappointing. Doty used the fact that she wrote for the New York Times “Weddings” section as an excuse to write a memoir of her unremarkable love life and marriage. Don’t get me wrong; everyone’s love story is interesting to the main characters and those who know them. (If I wrote a memoir of my love life and marriage, she would be bored.) The tidbits of her recollections from her NYT days were underwhelming, and she does little to tie the few stories from the newspaper together with her own story.
July 10, 2021
I don’t think I can finish this. So poorly written. I can not believe this person actually wrote for the New York Times. Misuse of prepositions, misplaced commas, incomplete sentences… I felt like it was written by a sixth grader pretending to be a twenty something which entirely interfered with her credibility. She was all over the map in terms of directionality and yet I felt no connection with any stop she made. I didn’t find her particularly likeable, funny, or warm all of which she tried hard to be. I’d really like my money back.
September 14, 2021
Not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't this thinly disguised memoir about her "special" love story.
Author seems petty/immature and made sure to want to cuss, brag about herself and mention sleeping with her boyfriend when possible. The last 100 pages were B.O.R.I.N.G(!) so I tried to read a few sentences from each remaining page to see if I could gain further insight into the Wedding section of the NYTimes. It's not until the last chapter that I realize her post at the NY Times occurred 16 yrs ago and 4 hrs of my life will never be recovered.
Author seems petty/immature and made sure to want to cuss, brag about herself and mention sleeping with her boyfriend when possible. The last 100 pages were B.O.R.I.N.G(!) so I tried to read a few sentences from each remaining page to see if I could gain further insight into the Wedding section of the NYTimes. It's not until the last chapter that I realize her post at the NY Times occurred 16 yrs ago and 4 hrs of my life will never be recovered.
June 11, 2021
what a disappointment. The cover way oversold this book. She seemed to learn nothing and honestly, her life is pretty boring. I bought this in hardcover while on vacation, it was i the local writers section of a lovely bookshop in Greenville SC. I should have chosen anything else. it was a waste.
June 12, 2021
This was poorly written, both chronologically and stylistically.
December 2, 2023
On audiobook. I just wanted a short entertaining read. Note to author….not everyone who picks up your book is doing so because they want to know the insider’s version of how to get into the NYT weddings pages. Sheesh.
May 21, 2021
2.5 stars rounded up. Marketed as an insiders look at the infamous wedding announcements of the New York Times by a reporter who wrote them, the hook for this book was very enticing. Unfortunately, there’s also a memoir somewhat awkwardly grafted on here and (sadly) it adds little to the central premise of a behind-the-scenes look at the semi-secret selection process for the Times “Weddings/Celebrations” section.
If you’re looking for a short but incisive cultural critique of the NYTimes wedding announcements, you may enjoy the now-defunct Grantland’s “Matrimonial Moneyball” article. https://grantland.com/features/matrim...
I do want to mention that I appreciate what the author is trying to do in the newspaper-focused sections of the book. I look forward to seeing what she writes next. If you are interested in this topic, I urge you to check out some of the more positive reviews. This wasn’t quite the book for me but as always, ymmv.
If you’re looking for a short but incisive cultural critique of the NYTimes wedding announcements, you may enjoy the now-defunct Grantland’s “Matrimonial Moneyball” article. https://grantland.com/features/matrim...
I do want to mention that I appreciate what the author is trying to do in the newspaper-focused sections of the book. I look forward to seeing what she writes next. If you are interested in this topic, I urge you to check out some of the more positive reviews. This wasn’t quite the book for me but as always, ymmv.
October 26, 2021
Mergers & Acquisitions is billed as an inside scoop at the New York Times’ Wedding pages from a former staff columnist. The premise implied in the title and promised in the cover flap are that the weddings behind these coveted annoucements are about more than just love; these unions represent power couples making determinations around merging their lives where lineage and vast fortunes are at stake.
A behind the scenes peek at the marriages of the rich and famous? I thought, “sign me up! This is going to be a ride!” However, this is much more a personal memoir of the author and less about the individuals she chronicled for the Times. Doty’s personal life is mundane and unremarkable and that’s fine, but I don’t think her life experiences merit a book. At approximately age 25, she met a guy at work who she thought was a dork and subsequently fell in love with (or maybe settled for??) and ultimately marries. She tells their story in excruciating detail. The parts where she actually writes about her experience as a journalist or even more pertinent to the title, the couples of the Times wedding announcements, I enjoyed. Doty occasionally has interesting insights into the lives and marriages of these privileged individuals; I just don’t think enough time is dedicated to that content and her title and cover blurb felt misleading.
Based on other reviews, it seems that others felt similarly.
A behind the scenes peek at the marriages of the rich and famous? I thought, “sign me up! This is going to be a ride!” However, this is much more a personal memoir of the author and less about the individuals she chronicled for the Times. Doty’s personal life is mundane and unremarkable and that’s fine, but I don’t think her life experiences merit a book. At approximately age 25, she met a guy at work who she thought was a dork and subsequently fell in love with (or maybe settled for??) and ultimately marries. She tells their story in excruciating detail. The parts where she actually writes about her experience as a journalist or even more pertinent to the title, the couples of the Times wedding announcements, I enjoyed. Doty occasionally has interesting insights into the lives and marriages of these privileged individuals; I just don’t think enough time is dedicated to that content and her title and cover blurb felt misleading.
Based on other reviews, it seems that others felt similarly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 2, 2021
Cate Doty knows love and weddings. She wrote for the New York Times Weddings section for multiple years and saw the good, the bad, and the just plain weird of weddings. In Mergers and Acquisitions, Doty interweaves her professional experience with her personal experience - moving to New York for a doomed relationship, her subsequent breakup, and her love story (not without its bumps!) with her current husband.
If you love weddings and love, you might like this book. Doty writes well and gives plenty of interesting anecdotes from her experience. I do wish there had been a bit more NYT wedding content - it felt like the book tilted more towards the memoir side in the second half. However, I did enjoy the read, and I appreciated seeing the ups and downs of her love life, as well as the lessons she learned. 3.5 stars.
Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
If you love weddings and love, you might like this book. Doty writes well and gives plenty of interesting anecdotes from her experience. I do wish there had been a bit more NYT wedding content - it felt like the book tilted more towards the memoir side in the second half. However, I did enjoy the read, and I appreciated seeing the ups and downs of her love life, as well as the lessons she learned. 3.5 stars.
Thank you to G.P. Putnam's Sons for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
July 1, 2021
The NYT stories are not as juicy as the description lets on and even those are few and far between. This book was a little like listening to a friend tell their life’s story, but not necessarily in a good way.
January 21, 2022
I enjoyed this book so much. Many of you know that I’m not really a fan of memoirs, however in recent years, I’ve been able to establish that it’s more the type of memoir, rather than the form itself. In short, I hate misery memoirs, particularly the ones that detail the many ways in which the author’s parents ruined their lives. I far prefer the more topic driven ones, such as this, where the memoir is woven into another sort of story, with some social and political history thrown in, whilst still maintaining a light and entertaining read. When an actual writer also writes that memoir, then I’m all for it. Mergers and Acquisitions is exactly this sort of book. Entertaining, well written, interesting, reflective, and above all (possibly most importantly) very funny.
I would never for the life of me have thought that so much research and fact checking went into writing up a wedding announcement. I have a journalism degree, so the ins and outs of the industry are not foreign to me, but even so, for a few lines announcing a wedding, there was a heck of a lot involved! I thoroughly enjoyed this peek into the inner hub of The New York Times and following Cate’s career progression. Her own story of love and weddings was skilfully interwoven into the narrative about the wedding pages whilst also reflecting upon weddings within American society and what they symbolise as a construct separate from the marriage that is to come once the wedding is done.
Stand out moments from the book for me include the first ‘unofficial’ date with her own husband – very funny – and I was deeply moved by the telling of her maternal grandparents’ love story under the shadow of her grandmother’s demise and passing to dementia. You don’t have to be famous or damaged to write a memoir, but you do have to be a good writer and have something interesting to say – Cate Doty checks both these boxes!
Highly recommended for those seeking an entertaining read on a fresh topic.
I would never for the life of me have thought that so much research and fact checking went into writing up a wedding announcement. I have a journalism degree, so the ins and outs of the industry are not foreign to me, but even so, for a few lines announcing a wedding, there was a heck of a lot involved! I thoroughly enjoyed this peek into the inner hub of The New York Times and following Cate’s career progression. Her own story of love and weddings was skilfully interwoven into the narrative about the wedding pages whilst also reflecting upon weddings within American society and what they symbolise as a construct separate from the marriage that is to come once the wedding is done.
Stand out moments from the book for me include the first ‘unofficial’ date with her own husband – very funny – and I was deeply moved by the telling of her maternal grandparents’ love story under the shadow of her grandmother’s demise and passing to dementia. You don’t have to be famous or damaged to write a memoir, but you do have to be a good writer and have something interesting to say – Cate Doty checks both these boxes!
Highly recommended for those seeking an entertaining read on a fresh topic.
September 9, 2021
According to other reviews most people thought this book was just fine? I really liked it! I put writing for the NYT as one of those glamorous jobs that probably isn't worth the stress but is fun to daydream about, so Cate's story of writing the wedding announcements for the old-monied and fabulous was a fun time. I also liked that she wove her personal narrative into the story, making quips about writing about these sometimes-happy-sometimes-doomed couples as she navigated her own love affair(s). I wouldn't put it in the "lifechanging" category, but I had fun reading it - especially after slogging through some other books the last few weeks.
May 15, 2021
I thought the book's primary focus would be about weddings that are featured in the New York Times. However, I felt it was more of a memoir about the author's ups and downs in her romantic life as well as her upbringing. I did enjoy the "behind the scenes" work involved with the publication of a wedding announcement( the fact checking, how differently brides and grooms reacted to the inquiries) . I would have preferred more funny, quirky, gossipy stories about the couples featured in the wedding section.
I did like how the author followed up at the end on the status of the marriages of many of the couples whose wedding announcements she had written.
I did like how the author followed up at the end on the status of the marriages of many of the couples whose wedding announcements she had written.
July 25, 2021
Pretentious, judgmental and dismissive. The author took a job which requires kow-towing to celebs and then writes a book dismissing their lifestyles because she was raised by school teachers and she has a superior world view!! The only folks who made her list of desirables were the rich and famous and a few folks who could be shown as quirky or off-beat. Every page Ms. Doty tried to show herself as a regular Joe but at the same time noting which hotel in Hungary has the best hors 'd oeuvres and espousing her superior political beliefs. Didn't make it past the 5th chapter.
June 5, 2021
I read a good portion of this book and was distracted by the political statements about the people who spent money on weddings when other people are having big problems and don’t have money to solve them and many other aspects of her job at the New York Times. She even described 2 gay men as “white males” which I found objectionable because it is painting them with a negative broad brush of a current overly used term. I got tired of the political statements and stopped reading the book.
July 8, 2021
Author's personal life wasn't interesting enough to be covered in that much detail. It should have focused more on the people she wrote about in her career.
January 2, 2026
I see shades of myself as a writer in this book in a way that’s mostly fun but kind of annoying at the same time. I’m not sure the whole thing always hangs together super well, to be honest. And even though I don’t think the author wants this work to be super heavy and serious, it doesn’t tend to dig in deep enough in a way that is not very exciting. It’s kind of like when your friend comes back from studying abroad and brimming with tales that don’t resonate very deeply with anyone else. All that said, Doty is witty and I was entertained enough that I would read her next book.
June 28, 2021
When I first picked this one up, I expected a lot of fluff and was weirdly surprised that I liked it even more because it didn’t have all that. There was the expected details of interviews with high society and lots of laughs came out of those parts. I loved the personal story that was woven throughout and the creative substitute names given to those bride and grooms included. A refreshingly solid story!
June 9, 2022
3.75 rounded up - strong start and middle but the last section ended up being more personal than I thought. Which was bad or not good by any means just unexpected! And I expected more announcement stories in that section
July 18, 2022
This is mostly a memoir with the Vows pages as a supporting character, versus the deep dive into the Vows gossip that I was hoping for. And even the central love story wasn’t exactly super romantic. But I guess it was real?
June 13, 2021
This was such an interesting concept, and it intrigued me from the moment I read the synopsis in the bookstore. I just wish it had even MORE stories from the Weddings pages, but I love that it intertwined those stories with the author’s own love story.
May 29, 2021
I've made it halfway through and have hardly read anything about the wedding pages in the NYT. This book is not what it advertises itself to be. It's a memoir of the author's life, specifically her love life. And in those few pages when she does refer to the wedding pages she's quick to remind us (over and over) that these people's lives were built on the backs of slaves, that they didn't do meaningful work, etc. She's cynical and opinionated and makes a lot of conjectures about other people’s lives - often as a way to be funny, but sometimes just because. Fine. But not what i was expecting in this book. I only continue reading because it's the only book I brought on vacation.
Later - I finished. Once I adjusted my expectations I enjoyed the book more. She is a good writer and it’s set in NYC which is fun. Just know it’s a good writer telling her own story - and she happened to work at the Times.
Later - I finished. Once I adjusted my expectations I enjoyed the book more. She is a good writer and it’s set in NYC which is fun. Just know it’s a good writer telling her own story - and she happened to work at the Times.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 141 reviews