The Wedding Date (The Wedding Date #1)

I reread this for a book club and I only finished it because I don’t like disappointing my club members. It was even worse than I remembered.

I thought it was just okay the first time I read it. Then I read the godawful “The Proposal” and I realized many of my problems with this book has to do with Jasmine Guillory’s writing style. This book feels like a first draft that was slapped together the night before it was due. The plot is nonexistent. The dialogue makes me full-body cringe. The characters are beyond unlikable. Drew is an insecure neurotic the book keeps insisting is a smooth ladies’ man. He’s a horrible doctor, friend and boyfriend. Alexa is dumber than a dead goldfish. In one scene, she leaves for a booty call and takes her underpants off BEFORE getting on the plane, rather than waiting until she lands and arrives at Drew’s house. Speaking of, get ready to read a lot of poorly described and gratuitous sex scenes. Their “romance” is really just them being horny for each other.

I’m all for light, fluffy reads. “The Unhoneymooners,” for example, is genuinely one of the funniest romances I’ve read this year. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and there aren’t any wild or crazy stakes. It’s just a couple on a Hawaiian vacation discovering they like each other. This book has none of that. There’s nothing fun about! It’s 320-plus pages of anxiety and stress. You can’t sit back and enjoy the story because the writing is such a turn off and the neurotic characters are constantly making stupid, infuriating decisions.

I’d also like to point out that this book DOES try to tackle important themes like racism and privilege. And it completely fumbles it! In one scene, Drew tells Alexa that two of his buddies will be in attendance at a party they’ll be attending. The only reason he’s telling her about them is because they’re black. Alexa has nothing in common with these men. They are just bros Drew practices basketball with. But he gives her this shallow heads up because all black people know each other, am I right? This is the WRONG lesson to teach.

This is the absolute last time I waste my energy on anything by Jasmine Guillory. My blood pressure can’t take it anymore.

Alexa is the chief of staff for the mayor of San Francisco; Drew is a pediatric surgeon in L.A. Sparks fly when they’re trapped in an elevator together, and Drew invites Alexa to be his date for a weekend wedding. She’s looking to break out of a dating slump and agrees to go; they end up having a wonderful time and a long distance romance begins. But as they grow closer, will either of them admit that it’s more than just a fling?

I will say two good things and one criticism about the book. The first good thing: it is a joy to read, like sipping hot chocolate, warm and sweet and goes down easy. In this tumultuous time we’re living in, that goes a LONG way; it is pure comfort reading. The writing is funny and effortless. I never wanted to stop reading, and I felt satisfied when it was done.

The second good thing is how much I enjoyed reading a book with two professionally accomplished leads. They both have challenging careers, and they both care about their work and are good at it. We see both of them in professional settings, thinking about their work, stressing about things that matter. Alexa is trying to fund an arts program for at-risk teenagers, and Drew has a kid who’s not recovering well after surgery. They also both have broad social circles filled with interesting, good people. I really enjoyed reading a book in which the characters are essentially all role models. Alexa in particular is a well drawn character, with relatable insecurities and a sharp, funny way of looking at the world. Drew is a bit more generic, but he’s still a good guy.

And this brings me to the criticism — there isn’t any real conflict. Drew is commitment phobic, and tends to dump women after a few months; and Alexa is worried about getting attached to him. But this doesn’t ever go anywhere. I always find it irritating when the big conflict of the book could be resolved if either character would just talk to the other one. What’s a little stranger is that there is potential for real conflict here. Alexa is black and Drew is white, and beyond that, Ms. Mallory does talk about the white privilege that Drew enjoys, and there is one instance where he makes a somewhat uninformed remark about her youth program. I’m curious why she didn’t build more conflict around that — not around racial issues, particularly; I liked that they were inter-racial. But why not build conflict that is more original and specific to who these people are, and the work they do? At one point Ms. Mallory mentions in passing that they have to learn how to adapt to two difficult and challenging careers; that is also an interesting conflict, rarely explored, and these are two characters who could handle it.

There’s part of me that enjoyed a book in which nothing bad happens, but it also was a little odd that this is a book in which nothing much happens: two attractive, likable, accomplished people meet, fall in love, and…. the end, basically!

All that being said — it was warm, and sweet, and comforting, and funny, and I’m on board for all of that. A good read that deserves to be read.

(And P.S. just to back up what Roxane Gay said in her 5-star review: it is very funny how much they ate. I guess since they weren’t fighting, and they couldn’t have sex ALL the time, they needed something else to do, so they ate constantly — donuts, waffles, burgers, burritos, more donuts, more donuts. It was kind of hysterical.)

Cliched, boring, predictable plot lurches from one soft porn love scene to the next. I was looking for something light and easy and entertaining, but I couldn’t even finish this one.

Saw this on a buzz feed article about fun summer reads and it being a great rom-com style book. It wasn’t.
The two characters were mildly interesting, but their “relationship development” was a span of 2 months of weekend sex trips. It only bothered me because in the “sample” and even the build up of the wedding, there was such promise of a cute story, but then you got past their first hookup and it was like the author didn’t know what else to do besides have them bone down for 75% of the book.
Also, the text fighting and juvenile fighting packed depth and believability to the romatic notion that these two characters would be together.

After getting stuck in an elevator together, Alexa agrees to be Drew’s plus one to the wedding of his ex-girlfriend. But, what starts out as a fake relationship turns into something real when the weekend is over and they can’t stop thinking about each other… Will their new long distance relationship work out, or will they get in their own way (like they always do…)?

It’s rare that romance books get mainstream coverage, so my interest was definitely piqued when I saw The Wedding Date popping up everywhere – and I couldn’t resist when I spotted that it was just 1.99 on Kindle. A feel-good, heartwarming read that I couldn’t put down, this book starts out with a sweet meet-cute and then throws adorable and sexy moment after adorable and sexy moment at you, until you’re as in love with these characters as they are with each other.

It’s so much easier to get into a romance novel, for me, if the characters have other interests other than each other – and that couldn’t be more the case here. Alexa is the mayor’s chief of staff working on the biggest and most meaningful project of her life, whilst Drew is a paediatric surgeon, and both have a cast of friends and family with whom they have relationships that I was equally invested in as I was in the romance.

My other favourite part of the book is they way that it weaved in discussion of racism, and the realities of being a black woman dating a white guy, who has mostly white friends. They way they both deal with that situation really adds another level to their story, and felt very real to me. I really can’t wait for Jasmine’s next book, which is coming out later this year, featuring a character we’ve already met…

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