Title: The Wedding Date
(The Wedding Date #1)
Author: Jasmine Guillory
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Format: Paperback
Length: 314 pages
Publisher: Berkley Books
Publish Date: January 30, 2018
Setting: San Francisco & Los Angeles, CA

Sex (off screen), Teen Arrests (off screen),
Drinking

Black, Latinx

I freaking finished this in a day pretty much, and yet I’ve been sitting on the review for some reason. Well I think the reason is because I feel like this book was really personal to me surprisingly, that I wasn’t expecting it to remind me of the early stages of my own relationship. Of course, not everything was exactly like my relationship, but there were some parts where I was like “oh my gosh, that was so me!” or “wow, that was so him!” and I just couldn’t help but chuckle. I’m going to try to write this now, so let’s see what ends up coming out, shall we?

• Would I have been bold enough to be a stranger’s wedding date for the weekend? If I just met him in the elevator?
• Ugh I want to work for the government like Alexa does.
• Drew sounds like a hottie for some reason, but also just like my husband.
• Oh snap, I’m gonna have some feelings, aren’t I?

Privilege

It wasn’t a super huge talking point in this novel, but it was something that Alexa had to bring to Drew’s attention. It really dealt with how black kids are treated when they do something wrong versus white kids. Even Drew had to admit that whenever he did stupid stuff as a kid, he never had a true negative punishment that affected his future or anything like that, whereas the reason why Alexa is so passionate about making sure that Berkeley has an arts program for at-risk youth is because she doesn’t want a school to prison pipeline happening like there already is.

I’m glad that while Drew may not have understood it in the beginning, he didn’t fight her on how that’s not privilege, or that maybe he just wasn’t as naughty as those other kids or whatever kind of excuse people like to throw around these days, but he did his best to understand where she was coming from, and just support her and what she was trying to do. That, I felt, was pretty decent of him. It wasn’t amazing, because that’s what people should do, but it was nice to see that in a book without so much pushback from someone that is sexually involved with another person.

Do one night stands ever end as a one night stand?

Okay, based on the blurb, we all know that they are going to start developing feelings. The more people have sex with one another, that just seems bound to happen unless there are rules ahead of time. But even then – and I could even bring up The Kiss Quotient as an example – having sex with someone multiple times can lead to feelings. It’s just something that will end up happening more often than not. I mean, I’ve experienced that myself, and guess freaking what? I married the dude. Totally wasn’t into it for the marriage aspect, but once the feelings started happening on both ends, that ended up being endgame. I’d honestly love to see a one night stand thing just be that, but then would it really be considered a romance novel? Who knows?

Guilt being turned into something productive

Alexa’s reasoning for wanting the arts program for at-risk youth was because of what happened in her family when she was a child. She felt guilty because the person that was involved in it… well she was just mean to that person during that time. While one could say that maybe her actions weren’t pure because she felt guilty about the past, I personally disagree. She saw the benefits of implementing that kind of program for at-risk youth, and saw someone’s life turn around for the better, someone in her own family. Why wouldn’t she want other youth to have that kind of opportunity so they won’t end up in prison or turn to drugs and gangs? Why can’t she use that personal experience as her reasoning for fighting so hard for this program? That’s just me.

Do I feel like there was true character development in this novel? Probably not. Yes, Alexa and Drew had to figure out how to actually tell each other their feelings while navigating what this “thing” was between them, and honestly all the drama stemmed because they didn’t know how to have a conversation about it like adults. That was really it. I feel like whatever kind of development they did have was either at the very end, or in between the last chapter and the epilogue, meaning we don’t get to see it and experience it. We just have to take their word on it. That’s okay in some books, like these cute rom-com stories that aren’t heavy in topics. So in all honesty, I’m okay that there wasn’t any major character development because that’s not what I was looking for. I will say that Drew did a great job at learning about his privilege and not being a jerk about it, you know? I mean, he was still a major jerk to Carlos, who was actually a super great friend to him and I would have loved to have a best friend like Carlos, but I don’t think Drew really realized it until much later.

So yeah I felt like I was kind of walking through memory lane when I was reading this, both good and bad. I was feeling it when Alexa and Drew got into it about privilege for a bit, and I was feeling it when they had that miscommunication about whether Drew was sleeping with anyone else. Drew seems to be a natural joker when he’s nervous or not expecting someone to ask him a certain question, which is JUST like my husband and I got so angry at that but I had to remember that, that’s just his personality. I just REALLY wanted them to tell each other their true feelings because it was so obvious that this was going to be more than just a sex agreement, you know? But anyway, I was just so into it and I kept reading it and didn’t want to put it down.

I was super jealous at how much sex these two were having though. Like I thought you both had busy jobs! Just kidding, just kidding. I liked that they had a healthy sex life, you know? No body shaming or anything. Drew always had a condom without asking. They learned each other’s nuances (not just in the bedroom but also just in general). It was a cute story and I had a little smile on my face reading through most of it.

Everything worked out for me. The pacing was okay for the most part, and I’m glad that Guillory didn’t spend a lot of time on minor events that didn’t move the plot forward. I think she did a pretty good job with this one. The prose was basic but worked out for me as well. I don’t have any issues with it.

• Should all books have some super detailed character development in order for it to be considered a good book?

I think that was really all I wanted to say about that part.

Okay I’m not going to lie. This took me the entire freaking work day to write this because I was in between doing other things. BUT I finally wrote my thoughts down to the best of my ability, and I’m happy about it. So, yeah. I personally liked this one a lot because of the emotions it brought out in me. I personally was happy to see Alexa and Drew have this relationship and I felt like I could see myself in Alexa. I would love to be her when I grow up – graduating from law school and being the Chief of Staff for either a Mayor or something like that. I’d rather be the Chief of Staff than the actual person, you know? But that’s just me.

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