Interesting look at the New York wedding industry but the book gets a little bit long in the middle.

I liked Cate Doty’s memoir of her years in the wedding pages! I found it informative and fun, though I was hoping she’d explore a bit more of the NYT culture and the snobbery of wedding selections.

As an avid reader of the wedding pages, I loved Mergers and Acquisitions - a behind-the-scene look at what Cate Doty's life was like writing them!

I really enjoyed this book! I loved how the author intertwined her own personal life with the stories she was telling in the wedding announcements of the New York Times. I was expecting a little more of New York Times content and a little less of her personal life, but it didn't significantly affect my opinion of the book overall.

I 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 how much of the book would be about the author and her relationship going in, 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.)

This was a really fun non-fiction book about this author, Cate, and her life as a wedding writer at the New York Times. This was a good balance between stories about couples she interviewed and also anecdotes from her personal life. I thought this was a really interesting insight into something I am not very familiar with, but for a lot of people, their wedding announcement is really important to them. I thought this was a really cool book and I liked learning all about the author because she was very relatable and not one of the celebrities she wrote about. It made me very curious who these people were that she had written about. It just seems like a very intense and fun job. Highly recommend if you want a fun and lively non-fiction book, but it is not all about weddings if that is what you are interested in.

This memoir (that doesn't feel like a memoir at all!) lets us peak inside the pages of the NY Times Wedding section. Cade researches the engaged couples (who knew they were so heavily vetted and researched? They have to even send proof of their dipolmas or proof of their bloodlines!) while finding herself in New York in her 20's. She is also exploring her identity and pursuing love on her own.

This fun story was light- it had some Bridget Jones vibes- and I loved the behind the scenes of a newspaper and it's famous column. This is the memoir I didn't know I needed! This book also reminded me of From the Corner of the Oval by Beck Dorey-Stein in tone and somewhat in content. So if you like that book (like I did), read this one. If you're looking for a memoir that's engaging but not mentally destructive, this book is for you. (Also, the cover is the best.) I hope this book gets all the love and attention it desires.

Thank you to Netgalley for the advance copy for review.

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.

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

I couldn't get into this at all. Something about it just seemed fake to me. I was left wondering why I was supposed to want to read this.

A fun and engaging memoir that I didn't know I wanted to read until I saw it on Netgalley. I like the look into the author's life and the stories about the wedding announcements.

Doty’s memoir is charming and informative. The former New York Times wedding columnist gives you a glimpse into the history behind weddings and the lengths people go to to get their announcement in the paper.

Dotted with anecdotes, this memoir also includes the story of her own relationships, beginning with her college boyfriend; they are interwoven between her time with the paper.

A fun, light and interesting read!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Read if you: Want a funny and moving memoir from the former writer of the NY Times wedding announcements.

This is SO charming, but not annoying so. There's plenty of snark, some sadness, and welcomed reflections on the rarified world of NY Times wedding/society announcements, but overall, a delightful and endearing read. If you love memoirs, but need a break from the dark and morose ones, try this one. Already one of my favorites 2021 books.

Librarians/booksellers: Those who love memoirs and/or anything wedding related will love this. Sweet but not saccharine.

Many thanks to G.P. Putnam's Sons and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this book. Cate Doty, writes marriage announcements in the New York Times. I loved her insight into getting the information she needs and just the way she writes and talks about the weddings and the details. I liked getting her background story in all of this too. I read this one pretty quickly, it's very entertaining and fun.

Thanks NetGalley for this ARC!

I loved this book. Written by the person that handles the marriage announcements in the New York Times, it’s an amazing read. I love the New York Times and I love weddings I love the wedding announcements so I was really interested in hearing in insiders view.