Review: The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory
Formats available: paperback, large print, ebook, audiobook
Series: Wedding Date #1
Pages: 304
Published by Berkley Books on January 30th 2018
Purchasing Info: Author's Website, Publisher's Website, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Bookshop.org
Goodreads

A groomsman and his last-minute guest are about to discover if a fake date can go the distance in a fun and flirty debut novel.

Agreeing to go to a wedding with a guy she gets stuck with in an elevator is something Alexa Monroe wouldn't normally do. But there's something about Drew Nichols that's too hard to resist.

On the eve of his ex's wedding festivities, Drew is minus a plus one. Until a power outage strands him with the perfect candidate for a fake girlfriend...

After Alexa and Drew have more fun than they ever thought possible, Drew has to fly back to Los Angeles and his job as a pediatric surgeon, and Alexa heads home to Berkeley, where she's the mayor's chief of staff. Too bad they can't stop thinking about the other...

They're just two high-powered professionals on a collision course toward the long distance dating disaster of the century--or closing the gap between what they think they need and what they truly want...

My Review:

This is a rom-com for readers who love rom-coms. It’s also a rom-com for readers who don’t necessarily gravitate to rom-coms. Like moi.

It begins with a meet-cute to end all meet-cutes. Drew and Alexa get stuck in an elevator together, at the fabulous Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. She’s there to catch up with a friend, and he’s there to be a groomsman at his ex’s wedding to one of his friends. Trapped in the elevator with Alexa’s purse-full of snacks and time to kill, they have a much better time together than either of them ever expected. So when Drew asks Alexa to be his “fake date” for the weekend at the wedding he’s attending as penance, she agrees.

And tries desperately not to overthink it.

Their fake date turns into an entire weekend. And it turns out to be anything but fake, even if neither of them is willing to admit it. But as they live in nearly opposite ends of the state (she’s in Berkeley, he’s in LA) they both figure that it’s a one-time fling.

Until it turns into the next weekend, and the next, and the next. And Alexa starts needing to figure out what it really is – while Drew tries to avoid thinking about what it really is.

They both went into this thing believing that it was short-term at best. But as that string of weekends turns into a couple of months, Alexa realizes that she’s in a relationship she hadn’t planned on, while Drew believes that whatever they have has to end sooner or later, because he always ends his relationships before they reach the commitment stage.

This time, it’s too late. It always has been.

Escape Rating A: I loved this one. I say that and I don’t normally like rom-coms. But The Wedding Date just worked for me, and I couldn’t put it down.

One reason that rom-coms don’t normally work for me is that there is so often a misunderstandammit somewhere in the pages. That the crisis is usually wrapped around a big secret that could have been revealed in a simple conversation that never happens.

This time, it felt like all the things that Drew and Alexa weren’t saying, and the reasons that they weren’t saying them, were organic to their relationship and their personalities, and not forced by the need for a crisis. I think we’ve all been there, where we feel that we’re deeper into a relationship than the other person, and are scared to mess up a good thing by pushing for too much too soon. And that usually that instinct means that if we push, the good thing will be over before its time.

As this was a relationship that began with a short shelf life, Alexa’s hesitation is not surprising at all. And Drew is completely blindsided. He never lets himself stick around for anything to develop into a relationship, so he’s unwilling to see that this time it’s happened before he has a chance to back out.

Part of what makes this story so much fun is how likeable both of the characters are. Drew is a pediatric surgeon, so he’s a doctor who works with children. And he’s both cute and caring about it. But Alexa is the character who really shines. She’s the Chief of Staff for the Mayor of Berkeley, and her job is fascinating, adrenaline-inducing, all-encompassing, extremely professional and headache-producing all in one. She loves it and it consumes her life until Drew steps into it. At the same time, she does not stop working or stop being professional or stop loving her job because she’s in a relationship. She does what we all do, she juggles, and she does it well. With a little help from a marvelous coterie of friends.

Another thing that makes this story a bit different is that Alexa is black and Drew is white. She does a really deft job of opening Drew’s, and the reader’s, eyes to some of the issues she faces everyday while never breaking the flow of the story or lecturing either him or the reader. The way that she gets Drew to see his privilege while explaining a program that she is working on at her job works on multiple levels. That he gets it without getting offensive or defensive is part of his character’s charm. That we get it too is part of the author’s charm.

If you’re looking for a book that will make you smile and just plain brighten your day (or even week!) The Wedding Date is a real treat! It’s every bit as delicious as the doughnuts that Alexa is addicted to – without the calories.

Reviewer’s Notes: First, I almost find it impossible to believe that this is the author’s first novel. It is completely polished and utterly marvelous from beginning to end. Second, while I don’t normally have a visual in my head for characters in books I’m reading, every once in a while, I do. For some reason, I kept seeing Drew as Justin Trudeau. It worked for me.

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