Unfolding over the course of ten months and taking place entirely in the marriage counselor’s office, John Jay Osborn’s Listen to the Marriage is the story of a fractured couple in a moment of crisis, and of the person who tries to get them to see each other again.
Readers with relationship experience will find here the realistic issues of compromise, sacrifice, communication and also much that is new in terms of how to nurture a relationship ... Deeply engaging and insightful, this book is enthusiastically recommended for anyone who has ever been (or wishes to be) married.
Shows Osborn is still able to home in on the heart of a story and reveal its characters’ motivations ... a page turner, with the reader thrust into the characters’ most vulnerable moments, and it’s easy to read in a single sitting.
Uneven ... an admirable message, but therein lie both the advantages and the limits of the novel’s conceit—readers are told of the trials, tribulations, and hard-won victories of Steve and Gretchen’s marriage, but are not allowed to actually see and experience them ... At its best, this an emotionally intelligent and deeply felt consideration of the realities of marriage. But it is not consistently at its best.
