The Wedding People

This mines every single Hallmark, rom-com movie trope and throws it on the page. Daddy's little girl with the million dollar wedding that's on a bridezilla hair trigger, her bland, smiling fiancé still dealing with the death of his first wife, his surly tween daughter, the blue-collar best man hitting on anything that moves, along with the day drinking mother of the bride. The weeklong extravaganza collides head on into Phoebe Stone who is the sole guest at the posh Cornwall Inn that isn't part of the wedding and, if all goes to plan, won't be a part of the world either.

Phoebe's 12-year marriage has dissolved over Zoom. Her ex-husband has decided to shack up with Phoebe's work bestie which means she's forced to encounter them in her hastily fashioned office which also serves as the photocopier room and coffee station. Oh, and her cat has died. Determined to end her life, she instead finds new reserves of IDGAF, becomes Lila's maid of honour, and finally starts to say what she's thinking.

Now what if you take all of that seriously. (Let's not forget that Phoebe happens to be working on an academic paper that focuses on 19th century British novels concerning marriage) Here Espach imbues every single one of these characters, that could so easily be reduced to caricature and sneering pokes, with real human heart. They are fully realized people, a little ridiculous sure, but confused and hurt and just trying to catch up. I mean you can call Jane Eyre a romance too but it doesn't diminish the genius of Bronte's work a whit.

I loved the tension it created, and maybe it was just all in my head — but what does a more grounded story entail? Where does the author choose to end this particular type of book? How might this situation play out in the “real world” instead of within the constraints of a typical romance novel? What does a happy ending look like with clear eyed reasoning?

Maybe I'm overthinking it. The characters are a ton of fun, absolutely a blast to hang out with even as it all goes off the rails, and in the end I felt empathy for every one of them. A perfect summer read.