I accrued some library fines on this book and I’m sending my apology out to the universe for the person behind me in the holds list who is delayed in getting this copy in their hands. That’s what happens when you get six books on interlibrary loan over three days (after none arriving for three weeks), your social calendar gets very full, and you can’t renew this new book (published January 30, 2018 y’all). But I’m also quite glad that I embraced the fines and kept the book.
I try to be more mindful in my reading and one area that I still don’t give enough attention to is making sure I’m reading book written by people of color and those featuring them. This book is both, and for that reason is a slam dunk for me as it is in a favorite genre – romance – and is perfect for the Read Harder Challenge task 10: read a romance novel by or about a person of color. Done and done. And it is good to boot.
The Wedding Date* has been on my radar for a few months, ever since Roxane Gay gave it a rave review on Twitter back in September. If Roxane is about it, and it is diverse Romance? I’m on it.
https://twitter.com/rgay/status/910729468452462592?lang=en
She’s spot on, it is charming and its characters are great. However, our opinion diverges on star rating. I’m rounding up to a 4 from a 3.5 because this is Guillory’s debut and the craft of her writing is there, but there’s some first go hiccups (over-reliance on certain phrases for example).
The Wedding Date is the story of Alexa and Drew who meet in an elevator during a quick blackout and each experience a bit of well placed lust. Drew jumps on instinct and asks Alexa to be his date to a wedding he is in that weekend, his ex’s wedding (oh yes, good old Romancelandia drama). Alexa says yes and we are off to the races of these two flirting and eventually getting together. A single weekend turns into trading back and forth as they live in opposite ends of California, which leads to misunderstandings and emotions developing that neither is ready for or really expecting.
Guillory built herself some very believable and nuanced characters. Each has their strengths, each has their weaknesses, and they don’t necessarily solve the others, they have to work on whatever this relationship is at any given time. The secondary characters serve to fill in the yelling of the reader at the main pair (why are you saying that? Why AREN’T you saying that?!), and are well drawn and interesting on their own (Carlos follow up! Please!!). We also don’t suffer instalove, the relationship builds over several months and they talk about issues that exist in our contemporary world, the gross men, the legitimate concern Alexa would feel about not knowing if she will be the only black person at a given social event, the bureaucratic layers associated with getting social aid if our public servants have managed to get it provided in the first place.
This is a good one folks; it has meat on its bone and sexy bassline. Get on it!
*While very different from the movie The Wedding Date it should be noted that the movie is available for rental on Amazon Prime for those interested, ::cough:: narfna ::cough::
I just finished this as well! I too would say it’s a 3.5 Star book. There’s a lot of good, and I’ll definitely read more by her there’s room to grow as an author. Also second the Carlos follow up!
Yay! I’m so glad you finished it and liked it. The author said she worked hard to make the romance believable and to write characters she’d hang out with. ? This is my next book on the docket after I finish Second Grave on the Right.
I clearly need to move this higher up on my TBR list, but it’s going to have to wait a week or two, there are a LOT of romances coming out this upcoming Tuesday that I want to get through first.
HAHAHA, omg I almost spat my water when I saw you snuck my username in there at the end. HAHA. How might you have guessed I wanted to watch The Wedding Date after reading this? HA! I didn’t know it was on Amazon Prime, though! Yay. So now I can watch it!
I was going to use this for my Read Harder Challenge as well, but then the publisher went and sent me an ARC and I read it in the tail end of 2017 so it doesn’t count.
I, too, rated this 3.5 stars. It was really fun and enjoyable, but I feel like there’s a lot of room for her to grow as an author as well.