I don’t really like listening to romance audiobooks, but The Wedding Date was so charming I listened to this for hours.
Alexa and Drew have a meet cute – trapped together in an elevator where they share Alexa’s cheese and crackers and Drew tells her about the wedding from Hell he is attending alone that weekend. They laugh and flirt. He invites her to be his date. She agrees. It’s a one weekend thing. She lives in the Bay Area. He lives in LA. They both have demanding careers.
That one weekend thing keeps going for several weekends. As they get to know each other as real people, things get complicated and messy. It was supposed to be an easy breezy thing and they have no foundation for talking to each other about their relationship. Drew doesn’t know how to have a relationship at all because he has always ended it after a month or two, so that he won’t have to deal with conflict. We don’t know as much about Alexa’s romantic past, but she keeps comparing her short, curvy African American self with all the tall, skinny blonds in Drew’s life.
Recently, in a conversation with fellow Cannonballer Lisa Bee, we touched on the not talking about feelings trope in Romance. I theorized that lack of communication was a way to keep the lovers apart without making one of them a bad person. It’s a common device and can be tremendously irritating. It gets used here too and opinions will differ on where it falls on the annoying/tolerable spectrum. I was fine with it because I found it rooted in relatable issues. Drew and Alexa start off as one thing and then don’t handle the transition well when they become something else. As she takes Alexa and Drew on the path to their HEA, Guillory shows us why they fall in love, how they fall in love, and all the insecurities that keep them from exposing their vulnerabilities to one another. I thought it was a lovely book and one I will reread.
I must admit that my favorite character was Drew’s best friend, Carlos. Fortunately, Guillory’s next book features Carlos. I can’t wait. Her website shows a September 4 release date. A mere two weeks before my birthday. In case you were wondering.
I felt like I was unfairly more critical of Alexa’s behavior than Drew’s. Maybe because guy that is afraid of commitment and can’t talk about it is such a common trope? At one point I thought I was dating it, but turns out, he was fine committing long term to other people. But I really got annoyed with Alexa for ending things when he made a joke in response to her text about if he was seeing other people. Maybe it’s because I would have made a similar response because I don’t like to share feelings, but more due to the vulnerability issues than fear of commitment.
I also feel like this book needs to come with a warning: have good food on hand while reading this because it will make you hungry.
I was ok with it because I’m the one who is constantly parsing words in my mind and will suddenly bring something up at the wrong time because I just can’t anymore. Yeah, I’m single.
I haven’t read a lot of romance in the last 10 years or so but this book seems delightful, thanks for the review, it made me want to read this book!
I hope you do! And I hope you enjoy it.