For the Bride: A Novel

by Becca Grischow

From the author of I’ll Get Back To You, a sapphic enemies-to-lovers romance that follows a Type-A maid of honor setting out to do the most and a Type-B bridesmaid with her life only just put-together, who must put aside their animosity to plan the wedding of the summer

On the surface, Alice has her life together. She's got a job in music she loves; she's firmly sober; and she's grateful to be back in the good graces of her ex-girlfriend-once-best-friend-now-literal-only-friend Gin. Just in time, too, because Gin's getting married this summer! And Alice gets to be a bridesmaid.

If only the maid-of-honor wasn't Renee Type-A, the opposite of her in every way, and a long-time Alice-hater who's clung to her animosity like a leech. Every second Alice spends around Renee makes her feel like who she used to be, rather than the person she’s spent years trying to make herself into—and she doesn’t want to be reminded of her younger self any more than she wants to be thinking, more constantly than she wants to admit, about her hair, her lips, her wit.... No, Alice has her own stuff to figure out. She still loves music, but her career feels directionless. She’s grieving the loss of her father just a year ago, to alcohol. And then she finds out that her mother's started to date her father’s ex-bandmate, which sends her reeling…and with the wedding just around the corner, she doesn't want to bother Gin about any of it.

It's pure chance that Renee runs into Alice, just when she needs someone the most—and suddenly, everything shifts. Neither of them are what they assumed the other to be. Over the days and nights they’re spending helping Gin throw a DIY summer wedding of epic proportions, Alice and Renee discover that though they have nothing in common—that might be precisely what each of them need. Heartfelt and hopeful, For the Bride is a banter-filled sapphic romance with deep emotional resonance about found family, second chances, and finding love in the unexpected.

Genres: Romance, Lesbian, Queer, Contemporary, LGBT, Fiction, Adult

336 pages, Paperback

Expected publication June 2, 2026

Reviews

[Leonie · Rating 5 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️3/4 (4.75 stars, rounded up)

Did I finish this book in one big sitting, basically forgetting to eat or drink, because I was so hooked and just wanted to keep going?
Yess, I guess I really did.
So it’s no surprised now, when I say that I totally adored this book and its story.
I especially liked Alice and her character development and all her ups and downs throughout the book, as well as how the book portrayed the topic of grief. Though back to Alice, I gotta say that I thought she was somewhat unlikeable at the beginning though in a funny way and throughout the book, I totally changed my mind about her and really appreciated her growing and being more honest as well as her having her few struggles with staying sober. And I gotta say, I loved ho she always wrote notes to her dead dad in her notes app, it really was such an emotional and cute detail!!!
Moreover, I also adored the friendgroup and the way Reese was written as well!
I also think that the enemies to friends to lovers was soo well down!! And had a great pace too (which is surprising considering I usually complain about it being too fast once they get to the friend part). I even liked the little back and forth and how Alice struggled to express her feelings.
Besides that, I adored the writing. And as I mentioned, the pace of the book. I might even go as far as saying that I wish this would’ve been longer because I didn’t want to say goodbye to the characters just yet.
Overall though, I can only say that I totally recommend this. Especially if you like enemies to lovers romances with a (big) touch of wedding things and a really wonderful character development!

Thank you to Netgalley as well as the publisher for providing me with a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest and voluntarily given review.

[Sam’s Sapphic Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

My heart feels impossibly full after reading this. It felt like the type of rollercoaster that makes your heart leap in your chest and your stomach bottom out.

Alice has been through the trenches and back. With her father’s passing and her sobriety, the days are a struggle. She lost her friends due to her alcoholism, and she can’t get herself to see her mom much since her father died. We all have so many regrets from our past, things we wish we would’ve done different, and Alice is no different.

I was hooked from the minute I picked up this book. The grief tore me apart, the forgiveness made my heart full, and the love was by far the best part. Alice is perfect proof that you can find yourself again no matter what you’ve gone through.

I truly love when a book has a deeper meaning and a message. No matter the mistakes we make, they don’t define us. And if we choose to change and do better for ourselves, there will always be the ones we care about standing bedding us and cheering us on.

Bravo Becca Grischow, this one was incredible. When I can’t get myself to put the book down to even sleep, I know it’s a good one.

Thank you NetGalley and Viking Penguin for the ARC!

[Larareads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this book! The characters were amazing and even though at first I didn't understand why Renee was acting the way she did at the beginning and didn't really like her at about 60% everything is explained and I got to love both MCs so much! The soft moments between them were sooo cute!!!
It actually amazed me how the author handled grief so thoughtfully in this book. The little notes that Alice was writing to her father made me cry a couple of times.

One thing that really bothered me and why I can't rate this book any higher is the third act break up. I just thought that a little communication would have handled everything and there wouldn't have been any point to them staying apart.

In the end, I really loved the book and the characters and I'm really looking forward to read more from this author!

[Kat Reads Skulls · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

Loved:
The emotional rollercoaster this took me on. I’ll be honest, I didn’t like many of the main characters until around 30% in, but when we started getting the context behind their decisions I couldn’t put it down. I read this in about 5 hours and don’t regret it. This whole group embodies chaos, in a deeply understanding but still messy way that made me cry more than once.

For the main romance, I loved that they took their time coming to respect each other and then fall in love. No insta love here, natural progression. The level of respect and understanding they had at the end felt organic and real. They’re both a mess but they’re each other’s mess.

Overall, this was an emotional journey about love, forgiveness, and the reality of mistakes. I’m hunting down this author’s other book as soon as possible!

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for the ARC! All opinions expressed are my own. 🖤

[Emory McC · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did not expect to happy cry through the entire final third of this.

Alice felt so real. Her relationship with grief and how that impacted her relationship with her mother and friends really impacted me.

The romantic tension! The tiny bridesmaid rivalry with her and Renee made everything so juicy.

Truly such an unexpected five star read. Need to read everything Becca Grischow writes.

Beyond the contents of the book I cannot stress enough how much I hate the cover. Not at all indicative of the vibe.


Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC!

[Demetri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come for the Wedding Chaos, Stay for the Flooded Yard, the Burned Hair, and the Existential Repair Work
“For the Bride” begins as a sparkling enemies-to-lovers setup and deepens into a warmer, sadder, smarter novel about sobriety, memory, and the logistics of becoming a person again
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | April 3rd, 2026


The Outpost at dusk – less a setting than an emotional vessel, the hilltop house glows here as inheritance, grief, desire, and future life gather in the same evening air.

A wedding is a ruthless instrument. It turns private fantasies into public logistics, makes taste look like evidence, and reveals what people really mean when they say love. In Becca Grischow’s “For the Bride,” it also becomes a sobriety test, a grief chamber, a class argument, and a highly effective way of forcing one woman to stop misreading her own life. This is not just a sapphic bridesmaid romance in which old antagonism thaws into desire, though it is certainly that, and often with genuine comic snap. It is a novel about a woman who has mistaken the worst version of herself for the truest one, and who must learn, under bridal-pressure conditions, that those are not the same thing.

The premise is easy to pitch and slightly deceptive about how much weight the novel can actually bear. Alice Pierce, sober now and working in Chicago audio, is pulled back into the orbit of her ex-girlfriend Gin Bennett when Gin asks her to be a bridesmaid. Also in the wedding party is Renee Roberts, a planner by temperament and profession, with old reasons to distrust Alice and new reasons to find her exasperating. Around them spins the usual wedding machinery – engagement dinner, bridal shower, bachelorette trip, décor debates, spreadsheets, in-laws, rehearsal logistics, and a ceremony date approaching at punishing speed. Then a flood wipes out the original venue, and the wedding relocates to Galena, Illinois, to the hilltop house called the Outpost, once owned by Alice’s dead father and his band. By then the novel has quietly revealed that the wedding is not its deepest subject at all. The wedding is the pressure cooker. The subject is the self Alice has built out of shame.

Grischow can absolutely run a set piece, and she does not waste that skill. She knows how to make panic funny without draining it of embarrassment. She can stage a chain reaction with precision: a wine stain on a white dress at the engagement party, the bridesmaid questionnaire from hell, Palm Springs heat that turns everyone into a slightly worse version of herself, the bar sequence in which the bride’s hair catches fire. She understands the social mechanics by which one mishap becomes everybody’s problem, and she can write group-chat chaos without embalming it in fake internet slang. The book wants to entertain. More importantly, it knows how.


What begins as a wine-stained bridal emergency becomes an image of exposure, care, and the comic intimacy by which catastrophe first turns into attachment.

But “For the Bride” becomes fully itself when it stops relying on premise and starts pressing harder on interpretation. Alice does not lack memory. She lacks proportion. She can tell you what happened; what she cannot do, for most of the novel, is sort those facts without turning every bad one into proof of essence. She treats kindness as pity, desire as threat, history as verdict. She takes damage for destiny. That is the novel’s sharpest insight. Shame here is not just an emotion. It is a reading method.

That is why Renee matters. Not simply because she sees through Alice, though of course she does. The more important thing is that she interrupts Alice’s method of reading. The romance is built, very cleverly, not only on chemistry, banter, or opposites-attract friction, but on reinterpretation. The great late turn of the novel is the redefinition of “Classic Alice.” For much of the book, Alice collapses “Classic Alice” into “Blackout Alice,” as if the drunk, selfish, chaotic self were the definitive one and every other self merely camouflage. Grischow slowly proves otherwise. “Classic Alice” turns out to mean the funny, musically unruly, socially reckless but alive self that existed before addiction and shame flattened her into her own cautionary tale. That shift does not erase the damage Alice caused. It does something better. It changes what counts as representative.


Parked outside Tweedy’s, the truck becomes a threshold image – relapse on one side, reprieve on the other, with rain and neon blurring loneliness into the possibility of being found.

The Outpost is where all the novel’s strands are forced to use the same wiring. In weaker hands, the house would have remained a soft-focus symbol of grief, glowing dutifully whenever the plot needed emotional depth. Grischow gives it harder work. The Outpost is memory, yes, but it is also property law, appraisal value, studio infrastructure, inheritance, possible income, possible vocation, and the site where grief, money, labor, and desire all have to share plumbing. Without it, the novel might have split into several thinner books: a wedding comedy, a dead-father novel, a sobriety novel, a queer romance, a story about artistic legitimacy. The house keeps them all in the same room.

One of Grischow’s smartest moves is to make administration feel sensual. “For the Bride” understands that care often arrives looking bureaucratic: surveys, schedules, place cards, rental decisions, thrift runs, centerpiece assembly, flooded-yard triage, backup plans, and somebody having the sense to ask whether the dance floor has a rain option. The novel knows that logistical labor is not a break from feeling. It is one of feeling’s clearest forms. Better still, it knows that competence can be erotic. The pull between Alice and Renee is not only verbal or temperamental. It is also made of whiteboards, checklists, thrift-store reconnaissance, and the entirely plausible fact that watching someone be excellent at one thing can make you want to kiss her for reasons that have nothing to do with mystery.

The prose earns a great deal of this. Grischow’s sentences move the way social embarrassment moves: joke, flinch, self-rebuke, then one more joke before the feeling can settle. Alice’s first-person voice is quick, funny, prickly, and perpetually half a beat away from turning on itself. Plenty of contemporary comic fiction can do speed; less of it can do recoil. Grischow can. She lets humor survive without pretending humor solves anything. The result is a voice that can carry wedding farce and addiction fallout in the same book without making either feel imported from a different tonal universe. Alice’s running notes to her dead father could have become a mere device, a sentimental pressure-release valve. Instead they become one of the novel’s crucial forms: letters to someone who cannot answer, which is to say letters that force Alice to hear herself.

The structure is more deliberate than the novel’s summer-bright sheen first suggests. The countdown to the wedding provides obvious momentum, but the deeper motion is recursive. Scenes are not simply followed by consequences; they are reread. A joke returns with a different charge. A label changes meaning. A humiliating anecdote hardens, then loosens. “Classic Alice” is not just a late good line. It is a structural correction that sends the reader back through earlier scenes with altered understanding. The same is true of the house, the band, the mother, and even the wedding itself. By the time the epilogue arrives, the novel has quietly shifted from asking whether Alice deserves love to asking what kind of life she is capable of building once she stops treating her past as a sentence.

The dead-father material is what keeps the book from floating off on charm alone. Ricky Pierce is not polished into lovable-ruin legend. He was gifted, charismatic, adored, and in the long process of destroying himself. More importantly, Grischow traces the damage outward. His addiction is not only Alice’s wound or a dramatic paternal tragedy. It is also the wear-down of a marriage, the exhaustion of a band, the emotional climate of a house, and the shape of a mother’s loneliness. One of the novel’s most adult recognitions comes when Alice finally understands that being the child of damage is not the same as being the only one damaged by it. That matters. It keeps grief from becoming proprietary and gives the mother, especially, a harder and sadder dignity than books of this kind always grant the surviving parent.


In the Outpost living room, grief briefly turns anarchic and domestic, as toilet-paper streamers remake mourning into laughter, ritual, and familial release.

The novel’s boldest achievement, then, is not simply that it delivers a convincing queer romance, though it does. It is that it binds romance to work, money, inheritance, arts precarity, and the social afterlife of self-destruction. Alice’s freedom to pursue unpaid audio work is not pure courage. It rests partly on money she did not earn. Renee’s resentment is not mere uptightness. It is shaped by layoffs, rent, the humiliations of trying to remain near the arts while survival keeps moving the goalposts, and the maddening sight of somebody else being able to “follow her dream” with a safety net. Desire does not erase the money problem. The novel lets that tension stay alive, which is one reason the romance feels earned rather than aerated.

Where Grischow overplays her hand is mostly in emphasis. Now and then she stages an excellent scene and then adds an explanatory line or two, as if worried the reader may not fully trust the feeling without a gentle interpretive nudge. Some secondary figures are more useful than equally dense. Chrissy is often delightful and sometimes genuinely moving, but there are moments when she functions first as comic propulsion. The Bhats, similarly, are likable and necessary but not always as textured as the central trio. These are real costs. They do not undo the book’s strengths, but they do keep it from the level of total artistic inevitability that its best scenes briefly promise.

Still, I landed at 86/100, which makes this a strong 4-star novel for me: funny, emotionally persuasive, structurally smarter than it first appears, and unusually alert to the ways love gets entangled with labor, money, reputation, and the practical business of staying alive. That rating reflects both its accomplishment and its slight unevenness. The book is not operating at the level of sentence-by-sentence astonishment, and it occasionally explains what it has already shown. But it is doing something harder than breezy romantic competence. It is building a love story out of misinterpretation, and then making that love story answerable to grief, class, addiction, and the ugly persistence of social memory.


Once flooded plans are rerouted to Galena, the house becomes newly legible – no longer only a site of loss, but a place where improvisation, labor, and love can make beauty under pressure.

What stays with me most is not the kiss first, though the kiss is excellent. It is the house. The porch swing. The dusty studio. The creak of a floorboard that sounds like the start of a song. The way the book refuses the false choice between shrine and sale, between grief and use. By the end, the Outpost is not merely a symbol of loss or a repository of old feeling. It becomes infrastructure. A place where what has been damaged can still be made useful. A place where the dead are neither exorcised nor bronzed, but folded into the work of making something next. Some books treat healing as escape. Grischow is after something harder, and much truer: the possibility that the old house still groans, the old board still lights up, and the old room, against all expectation, can still take a mic check.


Five thumbnail attempts test how distance, window glow, and negative space might make the Outpost feel less like scenery than like an emotional instrument.


The underdrawing fixes the house, the hill, and the breathing room around them before color is asked to carry grief, memory, and possibility.


In grayscale, the problem becomes pure structure: how much dusk the page can hold before the windows begin to do the work of refuge.


The first transparent washes let the house emerge through weather rather than detail, with warmth held back until the image earns it.


The palette study translates the cover’s greens, pinks, and warm lights into a quieter tonal system fit for dusk, mourning, tenderness, and renewal.


The border studies test how cattails, porch-swing rhythms, fairy lights, and old-house trim can frame the image without prettifying it into mere decoration.

All watercolor illustrations by Demetris Papadimitropoulos.

[Kellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

For The Bride centers on a relatable (but perhaps flawed… maybe) main character, capturing the experience of grief with a mix of humor and quiet emotional weight. The tone feels authentic, sometimes funny, sometimes tender, and occasionally raw without becoming overwhelming.

The pacing is steady and engaging, and the friend group stands out as especially believable, marked by sharp humor and genuine care beneath their teasing. The story reflects on the necessity of facing difficult, often frightening moments in life, while also emphasizing the importance of appreciating the “golden moments” along the way. Another fun, but emotional, read from this author.

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC and the opportunity to read this book!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to get an arc for this release and it was so fun!! The perfect romcom enemies to lovers romp with quite a lot of discussion on sobriety, alcoholism, and addiction as well as what it means to show up for yourself, your friends, and those you love.

I didn’t realize it dealt very heavily with the recent loss of Alice’s dad, and I read this while dealing with a very serious health scare with my own dad, which I don’t advise doing. So I don’t know if I would say trigger warning, but just something to be aware of going into this.

I loved seeing Alice’s journey as she realized she was worth the effort to get her health in order and that she was worth the effort to make herself a priority while dealing with so many major changes happening in her life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for the arc!

[jayden abel · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Possible Spoilers*

For the Bride is a heartfelt book about changing direction and accepting forgiveness. Becca Grischow struck a good balance between normalizing grief and recovery from addiction without dumping a fictional stranger’s trauma on the reader. I liked both main characters; Renee and Alice fit together nicely.

Alice is a likeable and messy character. Even though it inconveniences her, she drops everything to fix her friend's wedding. Her loyalty is admirable. Just because she’s got her life on track, doesn’t mean that her mistakes don’t have consequences. I liked that her alcoholism made her an incredibly hard person to be friends with. Her struggle and recovery felt real and rewarding. Blackout drunk, she was selfish and mean (hence her old nickname Blackout Alice). Now sober, the fear of reverting back to old habits controls her. Her story arc centers around forgiving Blackout Alice, embracing what her friends call Classic Alice (her goofy and wacky side), and accepting her imperfections.

Renee is interesting enough. I don’t know much about her, other than that she’s a struggling musical theater nerd. I liked her relationship with Alice. In the beginning she sees Alice as little more than a drunkard who hurt her friend. However, as Alice shows signs of responsibility and compassion, she corrects herself and helps her new friend find stable ground.

Alice and Renee are good for each other. Whether it’s remembering a coffee order, or watching a messy but passionate theater production together, they know what brings a smile to the other’s face. When Alice is spiraling and tempted to drink, Renee doesn’t hesitate in inviting her to spend the night. As someone who didn’t hang out with Alice during her blackout days, she provides perspective and (eventually) a judgment free zone. When Renee reveals that she got laid off, Alice helps with interviews and job hunting, even though her own life is in chaos. I did feel like their development felt out of order. I didn’t get why Alice suddenly had an interest in a (perceived) mean girl. All Renee does is slight her, but one look at her body in a swimsuit, and Alice is hot and sweaty. I liked how they slowly shared vulnerable information, and made the other feel more able to take on the world, but their beginning bemused me.

I don’t know, man, maybe I’m weird in thinking that dressing up as John Travolta in Grease to propose is unromantic. I feel like there are other ways to honor Renee’s love for the movie. There was also a lot of drinking and leaving Alice as the designated adult in charge. I’m not sure if the author was trying to show how oblivious Alice’s friends can be, or how fun bachelorette culture is for drinkers, but I found it contradictory to the book’s themes. Despite its oddities, if you’re looking for a wedding themed romcom with good growth and learned maturity, this book is for you.

Side note: Renee’s hair is described as “…so blond it’s almost white.” but the cover shows her with coppery brown hair. Just an avoidable inconsistency I noticed.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I will be posting this review on Goodreads and/or Tiktok and Instagram in early to mid March.

[Unpopmary · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 ⭐

For the Bride is a forced-proximity romance centered on Alice, who is still grieving her father’s death a year later while doing her best to stay sober and figure out what direction her life should take next. Everything shifts when her best friend–turned–ex-girlfriend–turned–only friend, Gin, asks her to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. The catch? Alice is forced to work alongside Renee, the other bridesmaid—her total opposite, and the embodiment of everything Alice is trying to leave behind. As the wedding approaches and they spend more time together, both women start realizing they might not be who the other assumed… and maybe they’re exactly what the other has been missing.

I went into this book really excited. The setting felt fresh, and the enemies-to-lovers marketing absolutely sold me. But as I started reading, I realized the tone leaned far more into angst than I’d anticipated (which I'm not a fan of), and the story unfolded in a way I hadn’t fully imagined. Even so, I sticked with it because I wanted to see where it would land.

Alice is a deeply layered character. She begins the story feeling unmoored, still trying to put herself back together. We see her confronting grief, fighting for her sobriety, and working hard to prove she’s no longer the person she used to be. While all of this felt realistic and well-intentioned, I struggled to fully connect with her early on... her emotional state felt overwhelming at times. At any rate, it made sense given her circumstances, and I was curious to see who she might become once she started finding her footing. Her growth unfolds gradually, especially through her evolving relationship with Renee and her renewed friendship with Gin.

Now, the romance didn’t fully win me over, mostly because my disconnect from the characters made their relationship feel less convincing. Still, I appreciated the way they balanced each other and slowly learned to open up. They encouraged one another to reconnect with their passions, be honest, and grow into better versions of themselves. I do wish the enemies-to-lovers aspect had been stronger though; the initial animosity felt brief and surface-level. I also wasn’t satisfied with how the third-act conflict played out. Alice had many chances to communicate and didn’t take them, which felt inconsistent with her character growth. And honestly, the way everything was resolved felt too easy; so much tension could’ve been avoided with earlier communication.

What truly stood out to me was how thoughtfully the book handled grief. It emphasizes that healing isn’t linear and looks different for everyone. Alice writing short messages to her dad as a way to cope was especially touching and made her grief feel very real. I also appreciated how sobriety was portrayed; not as something neat or simple, but as something fragile and hard-earned.

In the end, while this book didn’t fully work for me, I can easily see why it will resonate deeply with others. It tackles heavy, important themes like grief, sobriety, and personal growth, and it’s messy by design. Readers who gravitate toward romances that feel raw, imperfect, and grounded in reality rather than fairytale endings will likely connect strongly with this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this eARC.

[Amber D’Ambrosio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book thinking I was getting a cute wedding romcom and instead I got emotionally body slammed, personally attacked, and then gently stitched back together while crying over fictional women. What the hell.

Alice is a disaster in the most human, heartbreaking, painfully real way. Sober, trying, messy, grieving her father, and still dealing with the absolute wreckage of who she used to be. And when I say the reveal of just how bad things were hit me like a truck, I mean I physically paused and had to sit there reevaluating everything. Suddenly Renee’s attitude made sense and I had to apologize to her in my head because ma’am, I get it now. I get it.

And Renee. Oh my GOD. At first I was like why are you being so mean, relax, unclench, drink some water. But then everything clicks into place and she becomes this guarded, quietly soft, deeply caring person who just needed proof that Alice wasn’t going to burn everything down again. The way she shows up for Alice when it matters??? The sleepovers, the small acts of care, the remembering details, the steady presence when Alice is spiraling??? I am unwell.

Their dynamic is messy enemies to reluctant friends to oh no we are obsessed with each other and also maybe a little horny about it. The chemistry is THERE. The soft moments are so sweet it made my teeth hurt. Watching them slowly let each other in, sharing vulnerable pieces of themselves, learning how to exist side by side without judgment, it felt so intimate and real.

And the grief. Dear god the grief. The way this book handles loss and addiction without turning it into trauma porn deserves a standing ovation. Alice’s journey with sobriety felt raw and honest and uncomfortable in the best way. The notes she writes to her father absolutely wrecked me. I cried. Multiple times. Not cute tears either. Full ugly crying.

Also the wedding chaos??? The bachelorette energy??? The friends being a little too comfortable leaving the recovering alcoholic as the responsible one??? I had questions. Many questions. Some side characters got on my nerves. Looking at you Chrissy. But the found family vibes still hit.

Now listen. We need to talk about the third act breakup. Because I am TIRED. This was a simple conversation away from being solved. A single “hey can we talk for five minutes” would have saved me emotional distress. I did not buy the level of separation that followed and I will stand by that. However, at least it did not drag on forever because I would have simply passed away.

There are also moments where the pacing feels a little chaotic. The jump from tension to feelings to love felt fast in places, especially with the whole “I am going to marry her” energy popping up when I was like ma’am you just got here. But honestly I was so invested I kind of let it slide.

At the end of the day, this book is romantic, funny, messy, a little unhinged, and deeply emotional. It is about forgiveness, about becoming someone new while still carrying who you used to be, and about finding a person who meets you exactly where you are.

I loved Alice. I grew to love Renee. I cried, I laughed, I got annoyed, I healed a little.

[Kate Connell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story felt a bit underdeveloped. Alice is a complex character, and we see a lot of her, but she feels still stuck in many ways until the epilogue, which isn't a satisfying character arc. I also felt the romance was underdeveloped, it's a lot of stuff happening in the background and not a lot of development on the page. It will state they've been spending every day together but the progression to that point doesn't add up, felt odd and rushed. Also didn't feel that bad for Alice when she found out about Kurt and her mom because she was borderline avoiding her mom for the entirety of the novel. Didn't enjoy that the ending for the Type-A character is essentially "she finally chills out". Just overall not satisfying for me.

Alice is getting her life together. She is three years sober, working in the music world, and has rekindled her friendship with her once best friend, then girlfriend, and now friend again Gin, just in time to be a bridesmaid in Gin's wedding. She's working hard on staying sober and coping with the first year after her dad's passing, the two go hand in hand as he was an alcoholic and played in a band, which sparked Alice's love of music, but also her substance abuse.

While Gin and her fiancée Rishi are planning a small wedding, she only has three bridesmaids (no maid-of-honor, don't know why the description states differently), and she splits the traditional tasks up among them. Alice is to give the speech at the wedding. Chrissy, Gin's college roommate is to plan the bridal shower. And Renee Roberts, who hates Alice, is to plan the bachelorette party. Renee is Type-A, she used to replan Gin's birthday parties in college after Alice planned them (Alice planned them drunk and they were disorderly to be fair), and although Gin has forgiven Alice for their rocky relationship, Renee holds a grudge on behalf of her friend.

Being around Renee reminds Alice of her past self, and she isn't proud of that version of her. Being around Renee also makes Alice realize how much attention she is focusing on the woman, her humor, her hair, her lips, but she won't let it distract her from the wedding and her own issues. When Alice finds out her mother is dating one of her father's bandmates, it feels like the last straw, and she sits outside her old favorite bar. When Renee passes by and takes Alice to her house to talk, they realize that maybe being different people doesn't been they have to be opposed. Maybe, they even are meant to be.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC of this novel.

[cidney · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the Bride follows Alice being a bridesmaid to her ex / best friend’s wedding. She goes on a bachelorette trip filled with shenanigans. Another girl on the trip, Renee, has to share a room with her and they can’t be more opposite. It’s very much Type A versus Type B enemies to lovers vibes.

Renee is an uptight planner, and Alice is laid back go with the flow. The entire book is them arguing and being quite rude to each other, so I found it really hard to see them start to form feelings. There’s a lot of animosity they have to work through, as Renee reminds Alice of who she used to be - a bad girlfriend and never sober. Or as they say, “blackout Alice”. Alice has gotten her life together and has been sober for 3 years, but it’s as if Renee doesn’t see that or care. Alice holds enough guilt for how she used to be, and it keeps getting thrown back in her face.

I felt infuriated by their actions pretty much the entire time. Renee was … a lot. And maybe that stems from me not being a huge itinerary follower, and the fact that I’m a big team player, but Renee taking charge of everything and not letting the other girls have input that she’d use was just annoying.

And don’t get me started on Alice making promises and then not keeping them. I think this has been the messiest set of WLW characters that I’ve read in a LONG time. “We’re definitely not getting together, we’re too different” *kisses passionately and then doesn’t talk about it*

Even as they started getting closer and opening up, I didn’t feel invested. The hatred and jealousy just left a bitter taste in my mouth.

And I mean this with the utmost love, but this was incredibly millennial - in humor, personality, and overall book vibe. Which I’m not saying is bad!! But, it felt almost too over the top cringe. So not particularly my cup of tea, but I’m sure others would love!

My favorite part was when the four of them were together, and mostly because Gin was my favorite character. I loved how kind and forgiving she was, how silly she could be, and how much she cared about her friends.

I also really liked the journey Alice took through grief, having notes she’d write to her dad to cope. I appreciated the insight to how she handled her ongoing healing and her road to sobriety. It was raw and real.

All the characters separately had amazing character growth and layers to their personalities, but the two main characters together didn’t click for me.

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to ARC read in exchange for an honest review!

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first novel by Becca Grischow, and it definitely won’t be my last.

Alice seems to have her life mostly together. She has a job in music that she genuinely loves, she’s firmly sober, and she’s grateful to finally be back in the good graces of her ex-girlfriend, once her best friend and now her only friend, Gin. The timing couldn’t be better, since Gin is getting married this summer and Alice has even been asked to be a bridesmaid.

There’s just one problem: Renee Roberts is also a bridesmaid. Renee is organized, intense, and basically Alice’s complete opposite, and she has spent years making it clear she can’t stand her. Being around Renee pulls Alice back to memories of the person she used to be, not the one she has worked so hard to become. And with wedding planning, events, and preparations constantly putting them together, Alice finds herself stuck in close quarters with Renee more often than she’d like. The forced proximity only makes it harder to ignore the tension between them, or the fact that she’s started noticing things about Renee she probably shouldn’t.

Alice already has enough on her plate. Her music career suddenly feels directionless, she is still grieving her father’s death from alcohol just a year ago, and now her mother has started dating one of his former bandmates, leaving Alice emotionally reeling. With Gin’s wedding fast approaching, she doesn’t want to burden the bride with any of it.

But when Renee unexpectedly shows up at exactly the moment Alice needs someone most, everything begins to shift. As the two of them spend long days and even longer nights helping Gin pull together an over-the-top DIY summer wedding, Alice and Renee slowly begin to realize they may have misjudged each other entirely. Despite having almost nothing in common, they might be exactly what the other needs.
I absolutely loved this book. It’s romantic, steamy, funny, emotional, and at times heavy and heartbreaking. Grischow delivers a beautifully written sapphic romance that balances humor, vulnerability, and chemistry so well.

I highly recommend picking this one up when it releases in June 2026.

A huge thank you to Becca Grischow, Viking Penguin | Penguin Books, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Trigger warnings: alcoholism, death, grief.

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 4.25 stars

Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review! This is out June 2nd.

For the Bride is a sapphic romance that follows Alice, a former rock star processing her rock star father’s death, as she agrees to be a bridesmaid at her best friend’s wedding. She and the Type-A bridesmaid Renee butt heads but eventually form a reluctant friendship that blooms into something more as they plan the wedding of the summer.

This was so fun and sweet. I loved the journey this book took me on.

At first I didn’t understand why Renee was so rude to Alice who I immediately liked. It wasn’t until almost 60% of the way through the book that we learn how awful Alice was to the bride, Gin, and others in her life before she got sober. When I finally fully understood where Renee was coming from, I learned to love her but I can see some readers giving up before then - why would you want to read a romance when someone hates someone else for no apparent reason? I think the story could have benefitted from the reader learning the extent of Alice’s bad behavior earlier on.

That being said, Renee grew on me and I can now say I love her and the titular bride Gin. Chrissy, the fourth in their friend group, was a bit too annoying for me.

I didn’t fully understand the third act conflict between Alice and Renee. It seemed like a very simple moment of communication would have fixed any hurt feelings. I was happy that the conflict wasn’t drawn out at least.

Alice and Renee don’t properly date in the book - they go from enemies, to reluctant friends, to crushes who sleep together - which can totally work but it means that when Alice thinks to herself that she plans to marry Renee one day and that she loves her it feels quite fast. I know the “I love you” moment is a beat in most romance novels but I think it needed more build-up or shouldn’t have happened until the epilogue (if at all).

Overall, I still really enjoyed For the Bride! Alice was such a great main character and it was lovely to see her process her grief and navigate the messy relationships in her life. I’ll definitely be reading I’ll Get Back to You and will pick up any future books by Becca Grischow.

[verenmore_vixen · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 🌶️
Thank you netgalley for this arc!

There is so much I loved about this book. Let’s start with what it’s about with minimal spoilers.

This is about Alice, who lost her Dad and is sober. Her ex GF/best friend is getting married and she’s asking to be a bridesmaid. One of the other bridesmaids is someone who has a lot of negative feelings about her because of her past actions. But then, they are forced to room together for the bachelorette weekend and they each start seeing one another for who they really are.

I immediately identified with Alice on so many levels. I am sober and I lost my Dad. In the beginning of the book, Alice is a people pleaser and keeps saying “anything for the bride” in her head BUT some things I feel like should be boundaries, especially when the talk about “blackout Alice”. I didn’t feel in the beginning of the book that her old friends truly respected or understood her sobriety at all or the fact that she was still grieving her Dad. This at the time made me relate but also so sad for her BUT this changes as the book proceeeds. She really has found true friendships and that made me see their growth as characters.

The grief, man did I feel everything she was feeling. My favorite part was her working in her notes app to her dad. You can see through her actions that she’s really struggling with her grief and really has leaned on no one. She feels bringing up anything to the bride is not ok because she’s so busy with the wedding. She really glides through the stages of grief too.

After the bachelorette weekend, Renee and Alice start getting together to do wedding things. The start hanging out and really start forming a beautiful friendship. The night the get back, something happens and Alice is parked infront of a liquor store near Renee’s apartment. Renee sees her and gives her the support she truly needs. That moment made me go from hating Renee to loving her. You will hate Renee too🤣

The growth in this book was the best I’ve ever read. Alice and Renee really go through full transformations. Alice is 100% the main character. Alice truly grows beautifully.

The only thing I wish was more detailed was their sex scene. There is only one and I would have liked it better described.

[Kimberlyyyreads · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5

Thank you to Netgalley and Viking Penguin for the e-arc!

For the Bride is a Sapphic Type A x Type B tension-filled romance between the maid of honor, Renee and one of the bridesmaid, Alice.

Alice, the protagonist of the novel is navigating some pretty big life changes. She's recently gotten sober and is grieving her father, who passed and was a struggling alcoholic. Now that she's at the cusp in her life, she's learning to live a life that isn't entirely off the seam, having a reputation as "Blackout Alice" has only made it difficult that she is no longer that reckless girl.

Renee, the love interest is a rule-follower. She is always committed to sticking to a plan. So when she's asked to work on the wedding of one of her closest friends, she agrees. Renee has never liked Alice, she is someone that Renee does not understand, she's complicated and reckless but when she discovers that Alice is one of the bridesmaids of the wedding party, Renee must put her differences aside and work alongside Alice.

This was a entertaining read, I found myself really drawn to Alice's character as someone who has lost a parent with complex history. Grief is such a complex experience, on top of managing sobriety, it's truly an emotionally daunting process. There's no right way to cope with loss and I think Alice really does a great job at showcasing this. She's imperfect, she's aware of her flaws but consistently puts in an effort regardless of her past. I really admire that about her. her grieving process is something that is consistent through the book, which was really great.

The romance in this book could've been written much better, we got to read a lot about the tension between Alice and Renee but we didn't get to see them fully connect on the romantic level that really made their relationship believable. Towards the end, the final conflict really shows this lack of relationship building which I personally didn't enjoy.

I want to believe that outside of the book Alice and Renee got a chance to really flourish their relationship but unfortunately throughout the book we don't see this.

Me 🤝 Alice, both bisexuals who are so incredibly awkward at flirting.

[Michelle Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking Penguin for an ARC in exchange for my honest review. I will be posting this review on Goodreads and Storygraph
For the Bride is a forced-proximity enemies to lover’s romance that follows Alice, who is still reeling from her father’s death a year later. As she struggles to maintain her sobriety and determine her next path, her world is upended when Gin—her best friend turned ex-girlfriend turned only confidante—asks her to serve as a bridesmaid.
And then there’s Renee. Her sharp edges made it difficult to warm up to her at first. Beyond her prickly pretense is someone reserved yet tender, quietly caring, and profoundly loyal.
Their dynamic unfolds in a deliciously chaotic progression—from messy enemies to reluctant friends to utterly consumed by each other and loving every second. Their chemistry sparkles. The soft moments are pure sweetness. As they gradually open their hearts, offering fragile pieces of themselves and learning to stand together without judgment, their connection feels intimate and beautifully authentic.
I even tolerated the third-act breakup—something I usually dread—but here it felt essential to completing Alice’s character growth.
I came for a cute wedding rom-com and stayed for the emotional devastation, existential reckoning, and tearful healing courtesy of fictional women.
At the end of the day, this book is romantic, funny, messy, slightly unhinged, and unapologetically emotional. It’s about forgiveness, reinventing without erasure, and finding someone who loves you exactly as you are.
What lingered with me most was the tenderness with which the story explores grief. It reminds us that healing is rarely straightforward and is deeply personal. Alice’s quiet ritual of writing notes to her father was profoundly moving, making her sorrow feel achingly real. The notes she writes to her father absolutely wrecked me. I cried…multiple times.

[Marcus Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's so much to love in this book. It's Delilah Green Doesn't Care meets Wedding People, with really great prose and an emotional core that will probably stick with me for a bit. I really wasn't expecting this book to hit my heart like a sledgehammer the way it did, but tears were definitely had and in a way that never really felt like melodrama.

The protag and her struggles with grief and addiction were exceptionally well written, and it's easy to relate to her downspirals of figuring out what to do when life doesn't go way the way we expect, whether those curveballs are positive or negative. I think the cast overall was really solid. The book is at its best when Renee and Alice are vulnerable with one another and I'm glad we got plenty of that. I was a little worried the two would have no chemistry after the first third or so, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the pieces fall into place. Gin and Alice's relationship is also a major standout and not something I've seen pulled off too often in other works in the genre.

As someone who has lost loved ones to addiction, it's nice to see a book take that subject matter on without it feeling like a plot point or character motivation. It, along with things like grief and settling to keep our heads above water instead of chasing our dreams, is the beating heart of this novel and there's a nice message of seeking support and offering grace when able to take away from it.

The third act, as frustrating as it can be in regards to the typical expectations of a third act in a romance, really has some of the book's best work. Maybe the emotional gauntlet is a bit much, but the payoffs are nice and the moment of realization by Alice feels particularly earned and impactful. Only real knock I have against the book is the epilogue could've used a bit more oomph.

[Nicole (NicoleIsBooked) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alice and Renee have been enemies for years, but now, they are forced to work together because they are bridesmaids in their mutual, Gin's, wedding together. Alice dated Gin, but they have since reconnected as friends. Alice works as an assistant at a recording studio and Renee was laid off as an events planner and she was an actor. Alice is a lesbian, and Renee is bi.

As they are forced to work together, they see their differences come through. Renee is very type A, and Alice is more laid back. Despite their differences, they become friends, and they start to rely on each other. On the bachelorette trip to Palm Springs, they are forced to share one bed together. The romance is a slow burn, but it's well worth the wait! I appreciated that they spent time becoming friends before jumping into becoming lovers.

The story is also about grief and loss. Alice’s dad was in a famous band, annd he died from alcohol. Alice and her dad were alcoholics- she’s been sober 3 years. She was in a band and got kicked out for being drunk. Alice is grieving the loss of her father and the loss of her dream of being in a band. She is trying to put her life back together.

I loved that the story talked about moving on from the past and redefining your dreams and who you want to be. It’s about how dreams can change and you can find yourself again and make new ones with those you love. You can change- your past doesn’t define who you are in the present and future.

The story is well thought out, and it is not only a romance, but an exploration of found family and finding your dreams. I loved how all of the characters grew together. I can't wait to purchase this book.

[Juli W · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will hold your hand, respectfully, when you realize that you’ve just found what will be your new favorite sapphic romance. Take your time, I’m here to support you.
I’ll start by saying, Becca Grischow managed to accomplish something that has consistently been missing for me with so many other sapphic novels, and that’s authenticity, and relatability.
Our main character, Alice, is a bridesmaid for her best friend, once ex-girlfriend, Gin who happens to be marrying the man of her dreams, Rishi. While navigating her bridesmaid duties alongside her estranged yet familiar counterparts Chrissy and Renee, Alice labels Renee, the control-freak perfectionist, her mortal bridesmaid enemy.
Between forced proximity, and a gentle push from Gin, Alice opens the door to bridge the mutual gap between her and Renee. We follow along as their icy exteriors thaw, and in true queer fashion, something shifts. As their guards fall, they find themselves spending more and more time together. At one point Alice finds herself cooking for Renee, not because she knows her favorite foods, but based on her favorite color: red. Need I say more? Chest’s kiss.
Grischow captures the WLW essence in a way that is both hilarious and deeply emotional. As Alice navigates rebuilding her relationships while in recovery and through the grief of losing her father, rock super-star Ricky Pierce, we watch her reveal her inner self in the most authentic and vulnerable way. We also watch as her shielded heart is mended and admired.
It’s been a beautiful ride filled with humor, relatable turmoil, social anxieties, and a heart-pounding love story that brings just the right amount of spice!

[Elizabeth Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about Alice, a woman who lost her father and distanced herself from friends as she began to find sobriety from alcohol. It's about when she reunites with her friends as a bridesmaid for her friend Gin's wedding and her journey into falling in love with Renee. A very type A, by the books woman who is her total opposite.

I thought the way this book handled grief was beautiful. It showed that healing isn't linear and that the smallest things can make you feel like you're going through it all over again. Though things will still continue to get easier with time.

I loved that Alice was shown as an imperfect character. She wasn't someone that was super easy to love right from the jump. She had a lot of messiness to her, but she grew and changed and it was cool to see.

I thought we also saw Renee grow quite a bit as well because she learned new perspectives on Alice and how it's best to not necessarily judge someone right away because they can prove you wrong.

The only thing I didn't really love about this book is some miscommunication. Never my favorite thing, especially when it's keeping a couple apart. I thought it was handled decently here but I still didn't love that element.

Overall, this was a pretty fun time. I appreciated that it was a slow burn that took its time with issues that mattered.

Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the ARC to honestly review.

[m · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book felt like a love letter to people who find themselves in their mid-to-late twenties not where they expected. Alice is knee deep in the grief of her father, complicated by both his alcoholism and her own. She's trying very hard to scavenge the only remaining good parts of her life--her love of music and her only remaining friend (and ex)--after deciding that she needed to quit drinking because it took the life of her father.

So now she works as a studio assistant (for free) after having to quit her band, and she's trying to be a better friend to Gin, her only true friend, who is now engaged to be married. But getting your life together after so much grief and personal struggle is far from easy, and it's only made harder when she becomes a co-bridesmaids with Renee (who is oh so familiar with drunk Alice). Renee who is so very type A and who is understandably maybe Alice's number 1 hater seems to be on a mission to antagonize Alice at every step of the way. But when they're forced to work with one another during the lead up to Gin's wedding, they both realize that people are capable of change.

A cute sort of coming-of-age for older young adults / romance. I wish the romance burned slower, but it made sense for the timeline presented.

4.5 rounding up

Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Reli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spice Rating: 🌶

This story follows Alice "Dallas Alice". She is navigating the passing of her father, a complicated relationship with her mother, and now helping plan her ex girlfriend turned bff's wedding.

Insert Renee. Queen bee energy, has her ducks in a row, successful, plans her life to the letter, and she absolutely cannot stand Alice.

These two women are forced to work together for the sake of their bestie. Sacrifices must be made for the bride 😉

A bridal shower getaway, drinks galore, flirty waiters, and hotel room shenanigans 🌚 Alice and Renee are forced to share a room and of course, there is only one bed!

Sharp words soften and glares shift to lingering glances. Can these two foster their budding relationship or will it fizzle out before it can fully bloom?

Add on the anxiety of Alice's former band having reached main stream fame and paying a visit to her home town.

This story will deal with some more serious topics ⚠️ such as: Alcoholism, Sobriety, Anxiety, Panic attacks, Wealthy inequality, Depression, Death of a parent

Overall, this was a good story. I really enjoyed the banter between Aloce and Renee. If this story sounds like something you'd like it is set to be released on June 2nd. Just in time to kick off Pride Month!

[Walter Underwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a slow starter because neither Alice nor Renee were likable characters. But there are reasons for that, and they are uncovered organically as the story goes on. As that happened, I was hooked.

This is much better than an up front, infodump. It is really graceful writing.

This isn't fluffy, it is pretty angstful, but in a satisfying way. These are women who are 30ish and have histories, good and bad. Those histories collide in the past and have complications in the present.

Their backstories are rich and compelling. Yes, I figured out one of the "twists", but not too soon. It is OK to be one beat ahead of the people in the story sometimes. That is anticipation, not bad writing.

The side characters (bride and bridesmaids) are fleshed out nicely. I quickly got a feel for how each of them would behave in a situation.

Grischow's first book was a DNF for me, but now I wonder if I should go back and give it another shot. I'll definitely be checking out her future books.

Penguin Books was kind enough to provide me with an advanced reading copy via NetGalley for an honest review.

[Tori Kamosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want to start off by thanking NetGalley & Viking Penguin for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As someone who is currently a bridesmaid for two weddings this year, I found a lot in this book to be relatable; however, I didn’t really feel the romance so much. While this book did have some elements of romance, it felt more like a book focused solely on our main character figuring out her life while recovering from grief and alcoholism with a side plot of romance sprinkled in. At times, I found the book to be both depressing and hard to get through when I was expecting the book to mainly revolve around romance and when we did get somewhere romantically, there was sex and then little to no contact until the last 20 pages of the book where it was quickly resolved with a magical happy ending.

In summation, I think this book had a lot of potential, but it would’ve needed to be longer with more romance included or to have been marketed as more of a dark road to recovery than a cute bridesmaid romance as the cover and synopsis suggests. Overall, the writing wasn’t bad, but I just found that it seems to create false expectations.

[Courtney · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heartfelt LGBTQ+ romance that explores love, grief, forgiveness, and finding moments of joy even through life’s messiest struggles.

I found myself deeply invested in Alice and her journey. She’s a flawed, complex character. Someone who has made mistakes and is trying to make amends, while still holding herself at a distance to avoid causing more pain. That push and pull felt very real. Watching her learn not just to survive her grief, but to grow from it and become a better version of herself for both her and the people around her, was incredibly moving.

The story does start off quite slow, but it truly finds its stride around the halfway point and becomes difficult to put down. The found family elements are especially well done and add so much warmth to the narrative. The enemies-to-lovers dynamic between Alice and Renee had me hooked from the beginning, and the chemistry between them is undeniable. On top of that, the banter—especially from Chrissy and Gin, brought so much humor and balance, and genuinely made me laugh out loud!

Overall, this is a touching story about healing, second chances, and rebuilding yourself after loss ❤️‍🩹

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personalities clash yet sparks fly in this brilliantly executed WLW romance. So many romances rely on outlandish scenarios to force characters to interact, but in For the Bride there's a simply reason for enemies to lovers forced proximity: Alice and Renee are bridesmaids for their mutual friend Gin. Protagonist Alice is well-developed as a sober music producer trying to advance her career in Chicago. She is decidedly a go with the flow person although a recent death in her family has forced her to reevaluate her life. Her love interest Renee is decidedly Type A and yet insanely attractive. The book really delves into Alice as a character just as much as the budding romance. The author's ability to find humor in everyday situations seeps through the different set pieces and character observations throughout. This could easily be adapted into a romcom movie. The only thing that didn't work for me was the inevitable miscommunication between the love interests - I had to reread it twice and still didn't quite understand why Alice acted the way she did. But that is a minor issue compared to an overall a fun read.

[Danielle Russell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good enemies to lovers trope, and For the Bride pulls it off splendidly

Gin is getting married and chooses Alice, Chrissy and Renee as her bridesmaids. But Alice and Renee couldnt be more different... Renee is a type A personality, who likes for everything to follow a plan. Alice is a loveable train wreck that often lacks a filter. But through the course of the Bachelorette party weekend and wedding planning, the two women find themselves drawn to each other and develop feelings for each other.

The author did such an incredible job with creating each of the characters. Through the course of the book, you really felt like you knew them... Everyone was fully developed. The romance had great pacing, and For The Bride even has a spicy scene.

If you like sapphic romances with an enemies to lovers trope, you need to add For the Bride to your TBR. Its funny and heartwarming, but also tackles serious topics like grief over losing a parent and alcoholism.


Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free digital copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

[Jessica Mae · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the author's first book, I'll Get Back to You (yay for Thanksgiving rep) so I was definitely interested in checking out her next book. I loved it so much & didn't want to put it down! I love a wedding setting so that was really fun to read from the engagement to the wedding & all the fun in between. I really appreciated the growth of the main character who's been through a lot and has come a long way from her younger years. I liked that she worked in music and the storyline about her dad. I was really invested in the story and loved seeing the two main characters come to understand each other and fall in love. This has everything you could want in a good book - a sweet romance, a fun wedding plot, a deep storyline, great arc and character growth, some laughs, some emotional times, & just overall a book you want to keep reading to see what happens next! I def recommend it :) Side note: also recommend watching (or rewatching) Bridemaids when you finish the book - love that movie & it's nice to have a sapphic version!

Read if you like:
- Sapphic/Queer Romance
- Books set around weddings
- Summer read
- the movie, Bridesmaids
- enemies to lovers
- opposites attract
- Rom com but also dram
- one bed trope
- similar books to Delilah Green Doesn't Care by ABH, Happy Place by EH, & Playing for Keeps by AB

*Thank you to Netgalley for this arc in exchange for an honest review*