Synopsis from the Publisher:
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...
Review:
I'm baaack! It has been a long... what, week? Month? Year? All of those things. I went through a pretty down-phase for a while where I wasn't doing anything creative, and that includes reading what I've been wanting to read. But I feel like I've gotten a second wind so hopefully I'll be reading more romances and posting my thoughts here and on my Instagram! So let's get to it.
Full disclosure, it took me a while to finish The Wedding Date. I've been so excited to read it, as I've heard good things, but once I started I got about 4 chapters in and then set it aside and dove into other books, mostly from the true crime/horror genres, so clearly my heart wasn't in people looking for love. I finally picked up The Wedding Date again and finished with some major disappointment. Jasmine Gulliory is a talented writer. I enjoyed her writing style enough that I fully plan on checking out some of her other novels, however... .The Wedding Date was not for me.
I really loved the premise. The fake dating to true love trope is one of my favorites and I loved the diversity that was represented. Drew is a pediatric surgeon and Alexa the Mayor's Chief of Staff. Both characters are clearly successful with some well meaning and loyal friends. After their chance meeting in an elevator, Drew invites Alexa to be his date at his ex-girlfriend's wedding - I still find it so odd when exes invite one another to their weddings... - and from there they hit it off. However, Drew is located in L.A. and Alexa in San Francisco, so they attempt to do the long distance thing, flying to see one another on the weekends.
I think my disappointment stems from the redundancy of the plot. It's essentially Drew and Alexa flying to see one another, having a lot of sex and deciding what to eat. They're both a little confused about what they are to one another but neither of them feel comfortable bringing it up. Instead, Alexa assumes the relationship will run its course because it's casual and fun and Drew, while he feels possessive and jealous of other men who talk to Alexa, continually tells himself and his best friend that she's not his girl and he keeps thinking he ought to end things before Alexa ends up hating him. So we have two successful, intelligent main characters who instead feel buckets of insecurity and have no clue how to communicate with one another.
Instead, they avoid having meaningful conversations and focus on the physicality of their relationship. After Alexa talks to a few of Drew's ex-girlfriends at a party, all of whom are kind women who are still friends with him, she ignores Drew and then fights with him at the party about how he can't seem to have a relationship last more than a couple of months. It was a pretty cringe-worthy scene. Honestly, reading these two interact was like reading a relationship between two insecure high schoolers. It was hard for me to imagine how they fell in love when it really felt like they didn't know each other very well at all beyond their sexual chemistry.
Rating: 2/5
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