THE WEDDING DATE by Jasmine Guillory
THE WEDDING DATE by Jasmine Guillory
This is the first book in Jasmine Guillory’s WEDDING DATE series but it was actually my second of her books, having read THE PROPOSAL a few years back. At the time, I didn’t know THE PROPOSAL was part of this series, and as is common with many romance series, each novel can stand on its own. With PARTY OF TWO (the fifth book in the series) about to be released, I wanted to read Guillory’s other books, and I decided to start where I should have long ago!
[for those of you who want a 10,000 foot view of this story, this is a meet cute + fake relationship + one-night-stand-turns-into-more romance novel; my full review is below!]
This book opens with a perfect “meet cute” — Alexa and Drew find themselves stuck in an elevator. I love a good elevator moment (let’s not forget that scene from THE HATING GAME) so this story started out strong for me. And there were so many aspects of this romance that I really enjoyed. Both Alexa and Drew have demanding, high-powered jobs (she is the Mayor’s chief of staff and he is pediatric surgeon) and they live in different cities, leading to some real world tension in the arc of their relationship. I appreciated the realness of this and how the romance is not the ONLY thing propelling this story along—we also have Alexa championing a social justice initiative in her city, an arts-based rehabilitation program for juveniles. I was OBSESSED, to say the least, about Alexa’s passion for her job and this initiative.
I also appreciated getting to read about Drew and Alexa navigating the world as an interracial couple. Drew had never dated a Black woman before and more often than not, in the social events he brought her to, Alexa was the only Black person in the room. With that, came micro-aggressions targeted at her and a real glimpse into what it is like to be a Black woman in America today. From these moments, we see Drew recognize how his perceptions of the world are steeped in privilege. I’ve learned a lot on my own journey towards unlearning racist notions and becoming anti-racist, and one of those lessons is that we can learn invaluable things from books that aren’t race-centered. I highly recommend Jasmine Guillory’s books not only to read Black stories and experience Black joy (like falling in love), but to also see how even amidst these stories of love and triumph in one’s career, the realities of the racism in this country do not go away.
I also immensely appreciated that Guillory did not shy away from addressing body image and self-consciousness, something I think a lot of women struggle with and yearn to see represented in romance. Because we had dual POVs in this story, we were able to hear Alexa’s inner thoughts of self-doubt about her body (very real thoughts I know I can relate to) and Drew’s contrasting inner thoughts. I really appreciated how the love they had for each other wasn’t surface level, despite how quickly their relationship began.
A few things I didn’t love: I felt this was a little too “insta-love,” which isn’t one of my favorite tropes. The initial attraction between Alexa and Drew is intense, which doesn’t bother me per se, but the fact that they flew back and forth every single weekend to be with each other (I HOPE THEY HAVE FREQUENT FLYER POINTS) seemed a little bit unrealistic. Having been in a long-distance relationship before, I think there could have been a way of creating conflict in the novel with the distance between them. I’m also not a huge fan of the closed door romance scenes here, but this is just a personal preference! Overall, I really liked this book and will continue reading this series!