Nope.. couldn't get pass the 20% mark. Sorry not for me. As someone who got married recently, I just disagree with many of the authors opinions and didn't find it interesting. I actually don't know what I was expecting from it, but it definitely wasn't this.

Cate Doty's Mergers and Acquisitions is thoroughly enjoyable and refreshingly different. What a fascinating insight into the world of New York weddings. A unique and intriguing read, would highly recommend!!

A former Times journalist recounting her adventures in New York as a writer for the weddings announcement section of The Times.

A story about love, life, journalism, and the deeply personal announcements of NY wealthy, elite, and Socialites.

A mildly interesting take on relationships and marriage from a relatively unknown ex-journalist for the New York Times.

Like most memoirs, it hooks you in with a quirky title and a catchy premise - weddings of New York's rich & famous - and ends up a rambling monologue of a person's life whom you have never met

This is why I don't read non fiction.
Fun, distracting while on holiday, but I'll stick to the love stories in my own life thanks

I love a good memoir, reading about someone’s life is always of interest to me.
I struggled with this book. The author’s recollections and life story was readable but wasn’t as gripping as I expected.
The storyline should have shown more of the romance and was perhaps not what I was hoping for!

Thank you to Cate Doty, Harper Collins and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

In Mergers and Acquisitions, Cate Doty takes readers on a journey. While the book primarily focuses on her time on the Weddings desk at The New York Times, she also shares insights about her own love story, her childhood, her family and the rest of her career.

First, I liked the behind-the-scenes look at the Times' Wedding section. I honestly couldn't believe the amount of fact-checking phone calls that went into each announcement. I also liked that the book had layers and how she weaved her own personal stories and reflections into each chapter.

However, don't go into this book thinking it's going to be all warm and fuzzy and wedding-related, as there's definitely a pragmatic undertone. Doty does mention more than once the cost of weddings and the fact many of her announcements ended in divorce. This also stretched to her portrayal of her own love story. For me, it was missing the tenderness I expected.

Thank you to Harper Collins Australia for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is the blurb that sells this book:
“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 started out by saying that I am enjoying this book. The tales of the author’s childhood are interesting. Maybe I like it because I know nothing of America other than what I read in books. Stories about families, the eccentricities, the viciousness, the kindness, the whole growing-up thing is like getting to know new people.
“A weird teenager who knew how to set the table for a state dinner, dreamed of fingertip veils, and had decided opinions on silver patterns?” Yes, that was her.

“… a wedding is hope. It is tradition, decorum, and a door into life itself.”
A wedding between the upper echelons of society was “a family merger … that consolidated social, political, and academic power between families.”

The author’s recap of her love life is tender, well-observed and feels authentic. By the end of her first real relationship, she feels that “they kept on being nice, like two old married people refusing to jump ship because of the kids.”

A chapter on wedding movies, dissecting them in the light of female autonomy and consideration of the anatomy of marriage is quite fun. Marriage and divorce statistics are analysed. However, the author feels that “the supremacy of the wedding and the fairy tale still exist, even if we’re on the fourth wave of feminism.”
Social media has democratized the announcement of marriages. The # now rules. She observes the much-married Salman Rushdie as saying “Girls want a wedding, they don’t want a marriage. If only you could have weddings without the marriage.”

The Vows column was a public portrayal of a relationship. “What was the thing that made them thrill to each other each dawn in the kitchen, unkempt with morning breath, or drew them back to center after a knock-down, drag-out fight that made the neighbors worried?” For marriage and weddings, this to the author was “the whole damn point”.

The dichotomy of reporting about people in the lowest of social strata while wearing cashmere. The author comments on social disparity and gender and race discrimination but does not apply this to her own coverage of stories.

The blurb may say something, but maybe this is a love letter to New York, an exploration of adult relationships and a real coming of age story.

The narrative is anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-discrimination, feminist, egalitarian, etc. And then reveals a history of privilege and then tries to prove their universality. She is not really who she presents. She may not take her Mayflower ancestors seriously, but it is important to her identity. This is demonstrated by the detail Doty goes into.

I think this book has been promoted as one thing, but it is much more complex and reviews to date have not really engaged with the book as it is. It really does not engage in the probably banal nature of marital announcements. The author endows them with a significance that appeals to a particular groups of people.

At about halfway, I got tired of this book. Was it a memoir? Was it a commentary on social norms? I do not know and by the end did not care.

I was looking forward to reading this one but I must say I was a bit disappointed. I thought it might be funny, interesting and even entertaining but I found it annoying, not at all interesting and a bit boring.

It just didn't flow well for me and seemed more of a story of complaints and disappointments and I just skimmed through most of it as I just didn't find it at all compelling.

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.

**please note due to low rating I will not be leaving a public review for this book as I have not paid for it.**

Two stars.
The author is clearly a talented writ I wanted to hear more about the wedding stories and not Cates life.

This book is more a memoir of Cates life, rather than a tell all on the marriages she wrote about for the Times. I enjoyed the writing style of this quick & easy read. It was not what I expected based on the title but it was an interesting tale of Cate’s family & work life

Thanks @netgalley @catedoty & @harpercollinsaustralia for the ARC

This is a memoir of Cate Doty’s time at the New York Times, where she was a reporter for the wedding section.
Cate did not realise how cut throat those wedding announcements could be and what people would do to get into them.

This book was not what I expected, I thought the author would tell us more about the people who wanted there names in the wedding section and what they would do to get there but it was really about Cate’ own story about finding love and her very traditional upbringing.
It was enjoyable to read but could have been better if it had been more about the people who wanted to be in the wedding section.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this.

In Mergers and Acquisitions, Cate intertwines her professional experience with her personal experience, moving to New York for a doomed relationship, her breakup and her love story with her current husband.

Cate gives plenty of stories from her experiences throughout the book. While I thought that this would be more about weddings, it was more of a memoir of the ups and downs of her romantic life as well as her upbringing.

There are occasionally some interesting insights into the lives and marriages of privileged individuals, however, it was overall something I felt misleading due to the title and blurb.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this book for an honest review.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I started this book. The stories about wedding notices in The Times were interesting, but then the story of the author’s life took over the story. Whilst that was interesting, it took away from the story. But then when the author had all the red flags prior to the wedding she still went through with it, so I’m not sure what lessons about love in the end.

This book will be available on January 5, 2022.

I loved the absolute warmth of this book. Doty is a superb writer. I found it to be a really inclusive read. I so much wanted to know how things ended up with Doty and Michael as a couple.

Her descriptions of those couples she interviewed for the New York Times wedding announcements were captivating. You could tell that she was really interested in them as people.

There is a quote on page 166 where Doty acknowledged the criticisms of Times’ wedding announcements as being valid. That the couples are often getting credit for their parents’ achievements, etc. I wasn’t allowed to copy it as apparently it exceeded the word limit permitted for copying.

Cate Doty is named after her grandmother, Catherine on her mother's side of the family. The memoir she has written about her personal life and her work at the Times’ Society pages writing wedding announcements for the New York Times is wonderful. Her boss, Ira, is portrayed as a great character. I found him to be quite engrossing.

For obvious reasons, she changed the names and other identifying details of the brides, grooms, and their families. Her descriptions of the couples are sometimes poignant and very often amusing.

The New York Times didn’t make it easy for couples to get their wedding announcements printed and they didn't accept just anybody. The couple’s names, place of employment, economic status, etc all had to be proven with documentation or by fact checkers for the New York Times.

These were expensive weddings, all around the 40 thousand dollar or more mark in the early 2000s.

Cate in her early 20s would split entrees at restaurants with her buddy, saving most of her meagre money for desserts and wine. Good girl yourself, Cate, I thought!

Cate’s initial friendship with Michael, their fledgling relationship, their relationship issues and fractiousness, and finally their marriage form an interesting aspect running through this very engaging story. I loved the marriage proposal on the windswept Irish cliff. First I wondered if it was at the Cliffs of Moher, but then there was a reference to a ferry to the mainland so probably not. That she hated the engagement ring and made no bones about telling Michael so appealed to me. No schmaltz factor!

I rate this book highly and I recommend it to others.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.