Weddings Toasts I'll Never Give
Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give is a memoir about marriage. It was inspired by the success of her "Modern Love" column in The New York Times, "The Wedding Toast I’ll Never Give," which the paper named one of its most-read stories of 2015. The book was released on May 16, 2017, by W. W. Norton & Company.
In the book, Calhoun presents seven personal essays, framed as "toasts", that discuss topics such as infidelity, existential anxiety, fighting in rental cars, and the "soulmates" ideal.
Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give was praised in pre-publication reviews. Publishers Weekly called it "A humorous, realistic, and loving look at marriage....Each essay mixes components of memoir and self-help, drawing on insight from Calhoun’s own marriage as well as the wise thoughts of clergymen and lessons learned from long-married couples." Library Journal said, "Alternating between hilarious personal anecdote and sobering professional insight, this memoir conveys perhaps the simplest lesson ever given about learning to make a marriage last: just don’t get divorced. Her other great contribution to the literature on marital happiness might be her explanation of why fights in cars are the worst: you cannot storm off." The book received blurbs from Molly Ringwald, Susannah Cahalan, Karen Abbott, Phillip Lopate, Carlene Bauer, Davy Rothbart, Leah Carroll, Kathryn Hahn, Gretchen Rubin, Emma Straub, and Rebecca Traister.
Reviews in the New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, and elsewhere, were overall positive. The New York Times "Modern Love" column published the first serial excerpt on April 23, 2017, as "To Stay Married, Embrace Change." The book was featured on Today. In the "By the Book" column of The New York Times Book Review, Tom Hanks replied to the question "What was the last book that made you laugh?" with: "Ada Calhoun’s Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give. I mean, underlining and yellow marker bust-out laughs."