I should have kept track of how many pizzas were consumed in this book. (Do not read this, or really any of Jasmine Guillory’s books, if you are hungry.)
This book was the perfect choice for a lazy Saturday afternoon. Theo and Maddie have a best friend in common (Alexa from Guillory’s first book, The Wedding Date) but have disliked each other from their first meeting. Maddie thinks Theo is a pompous, boring know-it-all who is dismissive of her job, and Theo thinks Maddie is judgmental, shallow, and mean. They somewhat accidentally enter into a hate-sex fling—which quickly turns into a secret-sex fling that means nothing and will end with the wedding, we swear—which of course then turns into a sweet summer fling that neither of them are willing to admit means more to them than they originally wanted. All the while, they are both in Alexa’s wedding party and have to see each other all the time, not telling Alexa a thing.
I liked Maddie and Theo throughout most of the book, but there were points where both of them acted like complete jackasses, but Guillory plays it that way on purpose, and their jackassery becomes part of the book. As a warning, this book hinges on what can be a terrible trope if not done well, and that’s the two main characters not communicating. In this case, though, it worked for me. Both of them are scared to admit to the other that they want the rules of their relationship to change, because neither of them wants to have it confirmed that the other doesn’t share their feelings. This leads to both of them pushing each other away at various points, but there was this moment towards the end where Maddie is remembering advice she gave to Alexa back in the first book, where she told her friend to just talk to Drew (her now-fiancé). She has this hilarious line where she’s basically like, I want to go hit myself in the head for telling her that, because opening up yourself like that is hard. It’s easier to just go along and hope sometimes, rather than open yourself up to rejection.
I thought the wedding backdrop worked well, and it wasn’t overdone or melodramatic. My only complaint wedding-wise is that I feel Guillory missed out not featuring some sort of bachelorette trip or situation, and I say this because she’s really good at writing scenes where friends just hang out and eat food, and there would have been a lot of that, I feel like, on any bachelorette party of Alexa’s.