A review by patelyne
Big Gay Wedding by Byron Lane

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Far outside New Orleans, Miss Chrissy runs the Polite Society Ranch. Before her husband passed on it was a functioning farm, but since it’s gotten a facelift and turned into a sanctuary for misfit animals and regular field trip venue.

Her son is coming for a visit, says they need to talk, and when he adds that he doesn’t have a return flight yet, she jumps to assume he’s moving back from LA to stay and run the farm for her. Instead he’s there to announce his engagement to Ezra.

While her reaction to Barrett’s (objectively awful) outing had not been as volatile as her late husband’s, it was not any more supportive and she’s made it clear she “doesn’t accept the gay thing” and hoped it would all go away 
So you can imagine how this reveal went down (and how strained their relationship has been)

Still, she wants her son to stick around longer, so she agrees to have Ezra come down and meet him. Soon Ezra’s force of nature mother, silent father and frankly terrifying sister join them and before you know it there’s going to be a wedding in the farm in less than two weeks. 
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Going in I had expected this was going to be a book about a fun wedding in an unexpected place, and for the first half the book I kept thinking this was Not It. Homophobia and bigotry are a big theme - even more so at the start - BUT as the story continued, the wedding was more in focus. And what a wedding it was. 

Overall though, this story is just as much about the broken complicated relationship between a mother and her son. Throughout the book I had many unkind thoughts about Chrissy. It wasn’t until she had some eye opening revelations about herself and the people she surrounded herself with that any of that changed. And things didn’t get magically all better, but there was So Much Growth. 

(And yes, I totally cried by the end)

Thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt Books for the ARC
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