No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce

Mlotek’s memoir begins with a strong premise: her 12-year relationship with her partner has not survived the first year of actual marriage. Alternating between reflection and personal history, the initial analysis of her breakup is rooted in Mlotek’s matriarchal line: her grandmother was married multiple times, and her mother worked as a marriage mediator and counselor; divorce was seemingly everywhere as she grew up. The details on her marriage’s breakup remain vague, however, and she finally admits that it feels like a special kinds of betrayal to divulge details after a relationship has finished—yet without those details, readers are left wondering what the problems were and how she understood it. Mlotek also details the social history of divorce and includes a distilled history of marriage and then adds stories from her friends and coworkers for modern context. An exploration of divorce in film and a review of other divorce memoirs extends for multiple chapters, reading like an annotated bibliography instead of an epiphany.