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A review by bookph1le
For the Love of Friends by Sara Goodman Confino
3.0
This was a cute, light read with some genuine feeling, and I really enjoyed it. Minor spoilers ahead.
One of the things I most appreciated about it was that Lily was kind of a self-absorbed jerk. She had a right to be angry and hurt about some of the stuff the Bridezillas demanded of her, but her actions with the blog was not right. I was glad to see the book call her out on this. It was a complicated set of circumstances, and I felt the book did a nice job of portraying that, balancing Lily's need to apologize while also giving her the chance to talk about the slights she had a right to talk about. Real life is complicated like that, and I enjoyed seeing that reflected in this book. Too frequently I read books in which there aren't any actual stakes tied to the main character's actions, so I was glad this book resisted that approach.
I also appreciated that, while this book does contain a lot of the tropes of this particular genre--and let me be clear, I don't have any problems with that because I read books like this with certain expectations--I like how it also wasn't afraid to invert some of those tropes.
I was a little disappointed in Alex because I thought his behavior was slightly underhanded.
Before I close this, I also want to mention how much I'd like to see more books like this, tackling what weddings are like when you're not the bride or the groom. Some of what happens in the book may seem outlandish to people who don't have experiences with being bridesmaids, but a lot of it resonated with me. People getting married really do need to give some serious consideration to what they're asking of the people standing up in their wedding and ensure they aren't crossing any boundaries. One thing I didn't agree with in the book was Lily saying she'd do whatever Caryn wanted her to do, because I don't think ANY bride has the right to demand that her bridesmaids physically alter themselves in order to meet some specific vision of what the bride wants her wedding photos to look like. That's well beyond the realm of self-absorbed and into the land of toxicity. In my opinion, the American obsession with excessive weddings is ripe for the plundering, so while I'd definitely read more books in the vein of this one, I'd also like to see some heavier works tackling the topic of the American wedding industrial complex.
This is an author I plan to keep an eye on.
One of the things I most appreciated about it was that Lily was kind of a self-absorbed jerk. She had a right to be angry and hurt about some of the stuff the Bridezillas demanded of her, but her actions with the blog was not right. I was glad to see the book call her out on this. It was a complicated set of circumstances, and I felt the book did a nice job of portraying that, balancing Lily's need to apologize while also giving her the chance to talk about the slights she had a right to talk about. Real life is complicated like that, and I enjoyed seeing that reflected in this book. Too frequently I read books in which there aren't any actual stakes tied to the main character's actions, so I was glad this book resisted that approach.
I also appreciated that, while this book does contain a lot of the tropes of this particular genre--and let me be clear, I don't have any problems with that because I read books like this with certain expectations--I like how it also wasn't afraid to invert some of those tropes.
I was a little disappointed in Alex because I thought his behavior was slightly underhanded.
Before I close this, I also want to mention how much I'd like to see more books like this, tackling what weddings are like when you're not the bride or the groom. Some of what happens in the book may seem outlandish to people who don't have experiences with being bridesmaids, but a lot of it resonated with me. People getting married really do need to give some serious consideration to what they're asking of the people standing up in their wedding and ensure they aren't crossing any boundaries. One thing I didn't agree with in the book was Lily saying she'd do whatever Caryn wanted her to do, because I don't think ANY bride has the right to demand that her bridesmaids physically alter themselves in order to meet some specific vision of what the bride wants her wedding photos to look like. That's well beyond the realm of self-absorbed and into the land of toxicity. In my opinion, the American obsession with excessive weddings is ripe for the plundering, so while I'd definitely read more books in the vein of this one, I'd also like to see some heavier works tackling the topic of the American wedding industrial complex.
This is an author I plan to keep an eye on.