Reading Room Radio: Bouquet of Wedding Books

Nikki's review says "I do" to books of the wedding season, from guest list POV to the antics of the uninvited.

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Last First Kiss by Julian Winters

A Harlem Wedding by Tiffany L. Warren

The Shippers by Katherine Center

More Like Enemigas by Stephanie Hope

The Wedding Crasher by Mia Sosa

Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

Student Union by Julie Murphy

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

Only for the Week by Natasha Bishop

Created by the Podcast Team at the Harris County Public Library.
www.hcpl.net

Podcast Team Members include: Beth Krippel, John Harbaugh, Mary Mink, Dylan Smith, Sadina Shawver, Alinda Mac, John Schaffer, Jennifer Finch, Katelyn Helberg, Darcy Casavant, Darla Pruitt and Nancy Hu 

Transcript

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Welcome to Harris County Public Library's Reading Room Radio, where your to be red pile gets a little more exciting one micro podcast at a time. Weddings are beautiful, grandeur displays of love, but they can also be full of chaos and drama. As much as someone might plan ahead, there's always that one thing that can happen to ruin the whole day. How do you plan for something so catastrophic it didn't even cross your mind? The thought of chaos and drama is 100% the reason I will never skip a book with the wedding. Hi everyone, I'm Nikki from Collection Development, and this is about messy weddings. All of the following books feature a wedding and plenty of chaos as promised. They're told from point of views besides just the bride and groom, like the wedding planner, or even the whole guest list who were there for the quote unquote wedding of the century. I guarantee you'll find something that has a nice ring to it. In the wedding people, the main character has hit a rough patch in life. She heads to a Rhode Island inn to make a new plan for her life. What she didn't plan for was meeting a bride throwing her wedding at the very same inn. The bride also has carefully laid plans, which don't include Phoebe, but the two become confidants anyway. Despite the heavy tone of the book, the ending is funny and gives a look at different life experiences and how they can define us. The Shippers is a bit different. There's a wedding, but it's actually for someone besides our main character. While the book does open with the wedding for Jojo, you won't be able to imagine what happens at the ceremony. Honestly, Jojo Burton has never been good at love and romance. Every person she's been with seems to have one thing wrong and everything comes crashing down after that. When her sister gets married on a cruise ship, Jojo decides this is the best time to find someone for herself. With her family helping her find someone to fall for and make fall for her, there are plenty of shenanigans. Thank goodness she has her wingman, her best friend Cooper. A Harlem wedding can serve as your historical fiction fix. Set during the Harlem Renaissance, this is another dramatic wedding featuring the most famous black debutante Yolanda Du Bois and the poet County Cullen. Yes, that Yolanda Dubois, daughter of W. E. B. Dubois. In a pairing set up by her father, it's said to be the high society of the season with 3,000 guests, over ten bridesmaids, and a man named Langston Hughes as a groomsman. But as the wedding looms closer, it's clear to everyone that the bride and groom are both in love with someone else. Things continue to unravel for Yolandi, and only after separating herself from her family can she truly live her own life. What is wrong with you is different from every other book on this list. It's told from the point of view of the guest list. They're all headed to an island in Maine where a former flight attendant and a tech bro billionaire are said to be married. All the characters in this book were all a hot mess, but it made for a good old disorganized time. I think my favorite was the TikTok Rapin Wall Street Bro. This title is so crazy because not everyone with the POV is invited to the wedding and they're really just looking to get a glimpse of what's happening at this high-end celebration. I think it's worth it to note that this book is what some readers would call character-driven. There's a plot, but with all the different characters, it changes with each new voice. Only the overarching get to the island and witness the wedding is the same. There's so many other books with chaotic and crazy weddings. Last First Kiss by Julian Winters is another good one, and even better, it's told from the perspective of the wedding planner. He ends up planning the high-profile wedding of the year. The only downside? The bride's man of honor is someone he has a romantic history with. More Like Enigmas features Isabella attending her a strange cousin's wedding. While there, she runs into the girl who ruined her quintetta and learns a tumultuous secret that's sure to tear the family apart. Only for the week is messy from the start. Janelle is attending a wedding where her sister is the bride and the groom is her ex-boyfriend. All the while, she's also trying to do her maid of honor duties while her sister is being a bridezilla. Four aunties in a wedding is a crazy story about Mehdi and her four aunties who hire a bunch of family-run businesses to help out at her wedding. But what could the wedding photographer possibly mean when the bride overhears her talking about taking out a target at Medie's wedding? A storm of swords plot isn't about a wedding, but there is a completely wild scene nicknamed The Red Wedding that I guarantee you won't be able to forget anytime soon. In Mia Sosa's book The Wedding Crasher, the main character Salange crashes a wedding of strangers and agrees to be the groom's fake girlfriend. Yes, the groom. Our perfect storm from Carly Fortune starts with her main character being dumped by her fiance on the eve of her wedding with just a note. Her best friend, George, is there to help her heal from the heartbreak. And finally, the wedding week is a thriller that takes place during an eight-day Daisy wedding. The thing I love most about fictional weddings is you can find them anywhere in any genre, and they're in all cultures with all types of traditions and people. But once they get to be too much, you can pull out at no cost. The high stakes stay in the novel, and you're free to come back once you've calmed down and you're ready to say I do all over again.