I don’t know why I expected The Wedding People to be kind of insufferable. Maybe it’s because I heard that a bunch of people really liked it, and sometimes that sets the bar too high. Maybe it’s the color scheme on the jacket. Whatever the reason, I went into the book thinking, “All of these characters are going to be pretentious and annoying and I’m going to struggle with this book.”
I love when I’m wrong in that direction, and a book turns out better than I expect.
(If you’re really really trying to avoid spoilers for this book, maybe skip this post)
A major theme in this book is characters being honest with themselves. Phoebe unknowingly walks into a wedding where people are definitely not being honest. However, Phoebe has nothing left to lose, so she can just lay all of her cards on the table. We find out what brought Phoebe to this breaking point, and then watch her start to put herself back together. But if Phoebe is going to care about her life, where does she go? Can she continue to be honest and take chances, or does she go back to the places and patterns that she’s familiar with?
Though the story itself isn’t super lighthearted (it deals with a number of heavy topics), it’s a delight to watch Phoebe’s character development. I haven’t read/watched either of these, but it feels like Stella getting her groove back or Elizabeth eating and praying and loving her way back to life.
Another thing I loved about the story is that it wasn’t blatantly obvious to me where it was going. Granted, I am not the best judge of plot twists, because I don’t look for road signs, I enjoy the scenery. When I caught on to where the story was headed, I wondered how the author could pull it off without it turning into something very unlikable.
It was all delicately and masterfully handled. I got to root for all of the characters. It could very well have gone a different way. The Wedding People was a super engrossing read, and it brought me back to some of Emily Giffin’s earlier books. A little salacious, with real, flawed characters, and just a great story.
I love it when I’m wrong.