Interested in a detailed summary with read-alikes?? Check out my Annotation of this book.
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Title: The Wedding Date
Category/Type: Adult Fiction
Genre: Romance
Subgenre: n/a
Publication Date: January 30, 2018
Number of Pages: 310 pages of text; 2 pages of acknowledgements (at the front of the book)
Series (if applicable): This book is part of a five book series following various side characters from The Wedding Date; more info can be found on the author’s website.
Content warnings (SLIGHT SPOILER): Toxic relationships, racism, juvenile incarceration, discussions of severe childhood illness, descriptions of sex on the page.
Summary: A happily-ever-after hangs in the balance when a fake date between two people from different worlds begins to turn into something more.
Berkeley mayoral assistant Alexa is excited about a new city project and even more excited to meet her sister at a San Francisco hotel for champagne and snacks. Pediatrician Drew, who doesn’t do relationships, is visiting the same hotel from LA, for the wedding of his ex-girlfriend. Drew doesn’t have a date to the wedding and is desperate when an elevator malfunction traps him and Alexa together. Would this smart, charming, and beautiful woman be willing to pretend to date Drew for a weekend? Alexa isn’t sure what gets into her but she takes Drew up on the fake date offer and the couple winds up spending a steamy weekend together. One steamy weekend turns into more as the couple begins traveling back and forth between San Francisco and LA to see each other. But how long before Alexa’s time with Drew is up? Can Drew overcome his commitment to no commitment for this one-of-a-kind girl?
Wither overdone humor and tropes and two-dimensional characters, Guillory presents readers with a Romance where nothing is unexpected and little is done to break the mould.
PERSONAL THOUGHTS
WARNING: May contain spoilers
This was a fun and steamy read. I definitely didn't feel like it was anything spectacular but it was easy to get through and kept me engaged. I considered giving it a low rating, but in fairness it did make me laugh and think and almost tear up at the end so I think it deserves at least 3 stars.
It was helpful to see some of the racism black women face when dating white men and the impact it can have, as well as better ways for white people to act in these situations. I liked that Alexa was flawed and readers got good insight into her thought processes. While the book does give readers hints of Drew's perspective, he still seemed to come across as one dimensional and just a "dude." I had the feeling that Alexa could do better than him.
While side characters are key in Romances, I felt like the ones here were flat. Their importance to the leads was understandable but I wasn't particularly invested in them, even when they were given backstories. They seemed like filler, which is disappointing because this book is the first in a five-book series but I don't have a lot of interest in following them through the other books. Perhaps this was just supposed to be a teaser, but it didn't really work for me.
One thing I really appreciated about the this book was that safe sex was worked into each love scene (of which there are approximately 1 million) via the use of condoms. Though I did consistently wonder if straight people really have that much sex and had to keep reminding myself that this is a fictionalized romance so the author could allow readers to dream a bit. But seriously, Drew and Alexa basically have sex constantly when they're together.
Overall this book gets a shrug from me. It wasn’t bad and I’m not upset I read it but it was far from great.
Final resting place: I’m actually undecided on whether or not this will end up in my personal library long term. I found it to be “meh” which doesn’t often warrant an addition to my shelves. It will hang around for a while though because the copy I picked for free from a Little Free Library has something spilled on it so I’d like to rebind it to practice my skills.
WHAT I’M READING NOW
My annotations and reviews are always running a bit (or more) behind what I’m actually reading so here’s a little bit of a teaser, if you will, for reviews to come.
Book of Night by Holly Black