Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for an ARC of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.
This book is very straightforward in its plot, its characters, its highs, and its lows. This is not a bad thing necessarily, as I purposely picked this to read instead of something else I was already reading since I needed something “easy” to get through, and this book is very much what you see is what you get. I enjoyed it a lot overall, but I can also see where some of the negative reviews are coming from.
Pros: the characters are CHARACTERS – meaning it is fun to see them interact, I think they all have great personalities, and people are described for a reason, not just filler. This was inspired by true stories and from reading it I could definitely see where that was coming from. Nothing felt too drawn out overall, and I enjoyed seeing how things developed.
Cons: Maybe it was just me, but some of the interactions between the main character and her surrounding people when describing/working at these weddings felt mean. Like, I understand they are describing over-the-top weddings for people who have sickening amounts of money, but they are still people? Especially when I remember it was based on true stories (to some extent) it made me kind of uneasy how mean some of the interactions were about the guests/clients. The constant play into traditional gender roles bothered me too, but I will chalk that up to plying into being stereotypically southern.
Overall, it was an easy read (finished in a few hours over the course of a day) and it was fun. Nothing too life altering but I really enjoyed the epiphanies that the main character had – I can see those being very useful for some of the people who might read this book. I can see myself getting this book for some friends but I don’t see myself picking it up again soon. 3.5/5