There are many good things about "Love Marriage." The characterizations are strong and, on occasion, warm, funny, and sad at once. At the same time, I found myself getting annoyed with the main female character and her fiance at times and started skimming it towards the end. Bear in mind that I chose this book as something I wouldn't ordinarily read. It only went part of the way towards persuading me to try this kind of reading adventure in future.
I liked this book. It's gentle and engaging. It's divided into chapters that each represent a stand-alone story following the same formula but applying it to different contexts with differing results. It's not the kind of thing that keeps you up late at night - and that can be an advantage. The endings are happy, and the values represent the Japanese perspective of the high road to a fulfilling life. It's an empathetic and appealing collection of tales and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It's not a bad read - I certainly found it interesting enough to finish it pretty fast. All the same, I found some things about it rather incongruous. I've always said that you can judge a good author by how realistically they portray people of the opposite sex, and in this instance, I think the author didn't do a particularly good job. The concept is not unique, and although I think the author brings something new to the table and tells an interesting story, I will damn it with faint praise. Not bad. Could have been better.