A review by dianafraser17
My Best Friend's Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner

emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I received an ARC copy of "My Best Friend's Honeymoon" in exchange for an honest review. I loved "Mistakes Were Made" and "Something to Talk About" so was eagerly awaiting the latest. Unfortunately, MBFH wasn't it and repeated some of the "Cleat Cute" issues that also really bothered me.

Ginny and Elsie have been best friends since high school. Which is turns out wasn't that long ago: they're only 23. Elsie is in an earnest but toxic relationship, where her fiance proposed to her on stage at her graduation (yikes) and then proceeded to plan their entire wedding without her when she didn't want to do it (double yikes). But she's a chronic people pleaser and finally decides enough is enough. Meanwhile, he's purchased a non-refundable honeymoon to a fake island, so Elsie invites Ginny and off they go for a week.

I really appreciated that this book had thoughtful and kind fat representation, respectful nonbinary representation, and the sexy scenes were well-written, tantalizing, and felt honest for people engaging in certain kinks for the first time. All of this is needed more in the mainstream romance genre and I deeply appreciated how well Meryl Wilsner writes these. 

My issues with the book, unfortunately, were many and can be read in full here:

1. The pacing of this book is really fast or repetitive. See-sawing "will we/won't we" on the island and then "I have developed into a whole adult in a manner of 2 days or 3 weeks" is wildly unrealistic and annoying to read. The payoff is middling as a result. These kids (because they are) need to build community and discover themselves and that is a tremendous gift that takes TIME, which is the one thing these characters don't have available to them because it takes place largely over the course of 1.5 weeks with a little rift to stretch to 1 month.  I was taken aback when the book ended because it felt like we were just getting somewhere with the characters, albeit quickly.

2. These characters are really /young/ young adults which is less fun to read, honestly. It's messy and their circles are small and still pretty toxic and they haven't become themselves yet, but we also only get a quick glimpse of who they might become. They're so focused on who they were in high school still that it feels like this book could have been redesigned for YA and been more effective, if it weren't for the sex scenes. 

3. As someone who lived in Minnesota for 10 years, it's obvious the author didn't spend much time there before writing the book which felt lazy. Winters are "grey" and Ginny's eyes are "grey like the Minnesota January sky" which...no? January is so cold there can't be clouds, so it's bright blue and so sunny you need sunglasses. While it grinded my gears, not having a REAL setting for Ginny and Elsie meant there was no neighborhood to explore or acquaint yourself with - it was the hardware store and a fake island and Ginny's house, wherever it is. More setting would have made the characters feel more independent, at home, and built out their backstory beyond toxicity. "Cleat Cute" at least had cursory understanding of New Orleans as a city and places to help anchor the characters and their time. 

4. This book focused only on Ginny and Elsie, with little time spent with anyone else until it was time for them to grow, and even that was a single scene or two. Their networks are reduced to family, which, after living in the same city for more than 15 years, is deeply unrealistic and boring.

I was thinking of "Funny Story" by Emily Henry while reading this - which I loved - and how fundamentally different it is because it's about finding love and building a community for yourself over TIME. That book is set over less than a year but it's a really full and realistic year - ups and downs with her job, family relationships, friendship oops and yays, and time to fall for someone as a romantic partner. Ginny and Elsie don't have time to fall as romantic partners, just as friends who know a specific side of them. There's more there that they don't know about each other yet. Or maybe there isn't, but we never get the chance to see it.

5. As much as I wanted to like this friendship-to-lovers, the relationship is rather toxic and never really gets addressed. Pining for 10 years and never saying anything, just settling, but never trying to move on? Ignoring your friend's romantic feelings and then asking them for unclear hookups-to-longterm love? Eep! Finding out your friend didn't tell you something during your own crisis and was waiting a week or until they processed it and jumping on them in anger? No, thank you. While there are some scenes to call this out and share growth via therapist in the case of a side character, Ginny and Elsie's relationship is immature as a friendship and will begin that way for their love, which is tough to read as an "adultier adult" at 32. We all have romantic lessons to learn when we're young but the timeline is so short here, there's only so much progress to be made when their starting point is what it is. 3 weeks apart and they've both magically changed enough to start a relationship? NOPE. I know a Happily-Ever-After isn't always realistic but I always wish they were more so. 

Wilsner did a phenomenal job with "Mistakes Were Made" giving it time to breathe, consequences to navigate, and taboos to normalize. I am hoping for the next version of that to come soon, but regrettably, this book was not it for me. I hope it finds its readers!
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