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For the Bride: A Novel
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.
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.
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 2, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 182 reviews
April 12, 2026
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️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.
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.
January 30, 2026
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!
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!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
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!
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!
June 26, 2026
3.75/5
a bridesmaids love story???? sign me up!!!
from the very first second i heard what this book was about i KNEW i needed to get my hands on it. two bridesmaids who don't like each other have to basically plan a wedding for their mutual friend together which forces them to be close and fall in loveeeeee!!! we see from the start that alice and renee do not mesh well. alice would like to be chill and spontaneous (and grieve her father in peace) where as renee would like to plan everything down to the second (and ignore her passion of the musical rent). these two clearly needed to be pushed together by gin (the character not the alcohol), the way they balance each other out was genuinely perfect!!
alice is really struggling with the death of there father, her new/weird relationship with her mom, and being in her exes wedding party as someone who is three years sober. her story was so interesting to me, i really loved how grief was discussed but i wish we would've seen more of her love for music. i got that she loved her dad and his band but we didn't see too much of her future in the business which i would've loved. renee doesn't really like alice because she knew her when alice was very much not sober so she really has to come around to this new person. i liked how the walls between them were broken down, i only wish we were in renee's head a bit more. since the story is told solely from alice's perspective i felt kinda disconnected from renee. her issues with her job and her future were very real and relatable so having her own perspective would've really added another element to this story that might've bumped it up for me.
the book really hit its stride in the last third, which feels like something i've never ever said in my life, but i didn't love the beginning to middle chunk. reading the text messages between the "i do crew" and reading the disastrous palm springs trip, was not fun. also how were they all so nice to gin when she basically made them plan her wedding and use their own money/homes for the ceremony. like i get that she's a great person but you're all unemployed or unpaid????
*thank you so much to viking penguin and netgalley for the copy!!*
a bridesmaids love story???? sign me up!!!
from the very first second i heard what this book was about i KNEW i needed to get my hands on it. two bridesmaids who don't like each other have to basically plan a wedding for their mutual friend together which forces them to be close and fall in loveeeeee!!! we see from the start that alice and renee do not mesh well. alice would like to be chill and spontaneous (and grieve her father in peace) where as renee would like to plan everything down to the second (and ignore her passion of the musical rent). these two clearly needed to be pushed together by gin (the character not the alcohol), the way they balance each other out was genuinely perfect!!
alice is really struggling with the death of there father, her new/weird relationship with her mom, and being in her exes wedding party as someone who is three years sober. her story was so interesting to me, i really loved how grief was discussed but i wish we would've seen more of her love for music. i got that she loved her dad and his band but we didn't see too much of her future in the business which i would've loved. renee doesn't really like alice because she knew her when alice was very much not sober so she really has to come around to this new person. i liked how the walls between them were broken down, i only wish we were in renee's head a bit more. since the story is told solely from alice's perspective i felt kinda disconnected from renee. her issues with her job and her future were very real and relatable so having her own perspective would've really added another element to this story that might've bumped it up for me.
the book really hit its stride in the last third, which feels like something i've never ever said in my life, but i didn't love the beginning to middle chunk. reading the text messages between the "i do crew" and reading the disastrous palm springs trip, was not fun. also how were they all so nice to gin when she basically made them plan her wedding and use their own money/homes for the ceremony. like i get that she's a great person but you're all unemployed or unpaid????
*thank you so much to viking penguin and netgalley for the copy!!*
June 11, 2026
Many thanks to Penguin Books and Netgalley for the digital review copy. This book is out now!
I came for the promise of sapphic romance and summer-y wedding vibes. But I stayed for the emotional depth and the exploration of grief.
The summer and wedding vibes are great in this one: Alice's friend's wedding is very central to the story, which was such a fun setting. I think this will be a great summer read!
More importantly, the sapphic romance is absolutely wonderful. This is a true slow burn, but one where the characters spend a lot of time together, and you can really see their connection and mutual understanding slowly build overtime. Renee was an absolutely wonderful love interest, and I could really see the chemistry.
But most importantly, I felt so touched by Alice's emotional journey in the story. She's recently lost her rock star father to alcoholism, so she's dealing with her grief, which felt so deeply real. She also used to be a rock star herself, but had to step out of that environment to get sober and not end up like her father. I loved how this was approached as a way to explore how it can feel like your life is essentially over when you're only in your 20s, but how you can always start over and find new opportunities and happiness.
I came for the promise of sapphic romance and summer-y wedding vibes. But I stayed for the emotional depth and the exploration of grief.
The summer and wedding vibes are great in this one: Alice's friend's wedding is very central to the story, which was such a fun setting. I think this will be a great summer read!
More importantly, the sapphic romance is absolutely wonderful. This is a true slow burn, but one where the characters spend a lot of time together, and you can really see their connection and mutual understanding slowly build overtime. Renee was an absolutely wonderful love interest, and I could really see the chemistry.
But most importantly, I felt so touched by Alice's emotional journey in the story. She's recently lost her rock star father to alcoholism, so she's dealing with her grief, which felt so deeply real. She also used to be a rock star herself, but had to step out of that environment to get sober and not end up like her father. I loved how this was approached as a way to explore how it can feel like your life is essentially over when you're only in your 20s, but how you can always start over and find new opportunities and happiness.
June 3, 2026
As someone who reads blurbs only to request an arc or add a book to my tbr then promptly forgets all about it, I was not prepared for how much this hit me in the heart. As someone who's sober now, books about addiction always make me tender and in this book, with Alice choosing recovery because she didn't want to end up like her dad, I think it made me tear up far more than I like to when reading lol. The topic was handled so so beautifully that I don't think I'll ever be able to read this again.
The way Alice's emotions were written about, even when they seemed contradictory or not the best...ugh I love her so much. Grischow wrote her with so much love and care. Renee was about as intriguing as a love interest could be when seen through the main characters pov. Their relationship though was absolutely adorable, I was cheering for them to kiss the entire time.
Books about grief and exploring how various characters deal with it are one of my favorite things in fiction ever and I'm so so glad I could read this on the second day of pride month! The amount of bisexuals in this didn't hurt either:))))
Thank you Netgalley and Viking Penguin for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
The way Alice's emotions were written about, even when they seemed contradictory or not the best...ugh I love her so much. Grischow wrote her with so much love and care. Renee was about as intriguing as a love interest could be when seen through the main characters pov. Their relationship though was absolutely adorable, I was cheering for them to kiss the entire time.
Books about grief and exploring how various characters deal with it are one of my favorite things in fiction ever and I'm so so glad I could read this on the second day of pride month! The amount of bisexuals in this didn't hurt either:))))
Thank you Netgalley and Viking Penguin for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
May 25, 2026
What a book to receive as a goodreads giveaway arc. It was incredibly emotional, deep and filled with life lessons you were learning along with the main character.
It had its silly goofy sweet moments of girlhood when they were on the bachelorette but also included moments of rolling grief and how to learn how to be yourself after changing so drastically through sobriety.
The cover alludes to a run of the mill romance but this was a beautiful and moving read. Some say it contains multitudes.
It had its silly goofy sweet moments of girlhood when they were on the bachelorette but also included moments of rolling grief and how to learn how to be yourself after changing so drastically through sobriety.
The cover alludes to a run of the mill romance but this was a beautiful and moving read. Some say it contains multitudes.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 5, 2026
FOR THE BRIDE is a sapphic romance about friendship, love, and not being defined by our worst moments.
I loved this enemies-to-lovers story! The friendship dynamics and character development were fantastic. Alice is navigating grief and her sobriety while coming to terms with what’s next for her career-wise.
🎧 Kristen DiMercurio was the perfect voice for Alice. I feel like I blinked and the audiobook was over… it went by so fast!
💚 bi x lesbian bridesmaids
💚 punk rock x theater girlie
💚 slow burn
🌈 If you’re looking for another book to add to your pride month TBR, look no further!
I loved this enemies-to-lovers story! The friendship dynamics and character development were fantastic. Alice is navigating grief and her sobriety while coming to terms with what’s next for her career-wise.
🎧 Kristen DiMercurio was the perfect voice for Alice. I feel like I blinked and the audiobook was over… it went by so fast!
💚 bi x lesbian bridesmaids
💚 punk rock x theater girlie
💚 slow burn
🌈 If you’re looking for another book to add to your pride month TBR, look no further!
May 10, 2026
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. 🖤
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. 🖤
June 3, 2026
Whew! This book was a ride! Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an advance review copy for free. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
I loved Alice. Her grief was done authentically without being overwhelming. It was tender and relatable. I enjoyed her journey and strength.
I wasn’t sure about River for a bit but then I really liked her. She and Alice complimented one another nicely. There were a lot of feels and I was almost giddy towards the end.
Good pacing. Well written. Recommend!
I loved Alice. Her grief was done authentically without being overwhelming. It was tender and relatable. I enjoyed her journey and strength.
I wasn’t sure about River for a bit but then I really liked her. She and Alice complimented one another nicely. There were a lot of feels and I was almost giddy towards the end.
Good pacing. Well written. Recommend!
June 4, 2026
I really enjoyed this one, but I debated with myself about whether my rating should be 4 or 5. I'm going with 5 because...well, Kristen DiMercurio narrated, and she is fire.
June 23, 2026
You’re telling me that Alice wore a dress to Gin’s wedding? I don’t believe you.
June 3, 2026
୨୧ book title: For the Bride
୨୧ author: Becca Grischow
୨୧ my rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
୨୧ blurb
for the bride follows alice, a woman trying to rebuild her life after the loss of her father and a difficult battle with alcoholism. when her best friend and previous ex, gin, asks her to be a bridesmaid, alice is forced to spend the summer planning a wedding alongside renee brooks, a polished perfectionist she has never been able to stand. as wedding festivities, late-night conversations, and unexpected moments bring them closer together, their long-standing animosity begins to give way to understanding. what starts as a tense partnership slowly evolves into something neither woman expected, forcing them to confront old assumptions, open themselves to vulnerability, and consider the possibility of a future they never saw coming.
୨୧ my review (a lil all over the place but as honest as it can be):
wow. so. this book took me completely by surprise. i like going into books blind, so several elements from this book hit me harden than a train at full speed.
at first glance, i thought this book would be about wedding planning with a sapphic love story in the background, but it was more than just that. i had never read any books by becca grischow before, but when i tell you i was eating up her writing like my starved orange cat eats his dinner… her writing alone would inspire me to reread this book again. it was purposeful. it was vivid. it was rich in every way that it counts.
i really connected to this book in a deeper level than i thought i would. i was not mentally prepared to cry over this book on a random week night but i would do it again. honorable mention to the background feeling of raging nostalgia that kept me at the edge of my seat reading in the dark all evening. i was even thinking about this book earlier today, wanting to find out how the hell alice and renee would be anything other than friends. because let me just say something.. even though it starts off as an enemies to lovers (my absolute favorite), it truly turns into a friends to lovers story that took me by surprise. it was so gradual that i thought the book may end before anything happened (slow burn shenanigans). it was the perfect friendship that eventually became something more. i only wish that the book didn’t end when it did because i wanted more of alice and renee! i absolutely loved them.
overall: if you love sapphic romance, laughing your ass off, and stories about found family, loss, and healing - this book is worth the read. it is officially one of my favorite reads of 2026.
thank you to netgalley, becca grischow, and penguin books for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
୨୧ core tropes/themes:
* sapphic romance
* forced proximity
* grief and healing
* enemies to lovers
* opposites attract
* slow burn
* sobriety and recovery
* second chances
୨୧ author: Becca Grischow
୨୧ my rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
୨୧ blurb
for the bride follows alice, a woman trying to rebuild her life after the loss of her father and a difficult battle with alcoholism. when her best friend and previous ex, gin, asks her to be a bridesmaid, alice is forced to spend the summer planning a wedding alongside renee brooks, a polished perfectionist she has never been able to stand. as wedding festivities, late-night conversations, and unexpected moments bring them closer together, their long-standing animosity begins to give way to understanding. what starts as a tense partnership slowly evolves into something neither woman expected, forcing them to confront old assumptions, open themselves to vulnerability, and consider the possibility of a future they never saw coming.
୨୧ my review (a lil all over the place but as honest as it can be):
wow. so. this book took me completely by surprise. i like going into books blind, so several elements from this book hit me harden than a train at full speed.
at first glance, i thought this book would be about wedding planning with a sapphic love story in the background, but it was more than just that. i had never read any books by becca grischow before, but when i tell you i was eating up her writing like my starved orange cat eats his dinner… her writing alone would inspire me to reread this book again. it was purposeful. it was vivid. it was rich in every way that it counts.
i really connected to this book in a deeper level than i thought i would. i was not mentally prepared to cry over this book on a random week night but i would do it again. honorable mention to the background feeling of raging nostalgia that kept me at the edge of my seat reading in the dark all evening. i was even thinking about this book earlier today, wanting to find out how the hell alice and renee would be anything other than friends. because let me just say something.. even though it starts off as an enemies to lovers (my absolute favorite), it truly turns into a friends to lovers story that took me by surprise. it was so gradual that i thought the book may end before anything happened (slow burn shenanigans). it was the perfect friendship that eventually became something more. i only wish that the book didn’t end when it did because i wanted more of alice and renee! i absolutely loved them.
overall: if you love sapphic romance, laughing your ass off, and stories about found family, loss, and healing - this book is worth the read. it is officially one of my favorite reads of 2026.
thank you to netgalley, becca grischow, and penguin books for providing me with an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
୨୧ core tropes/themes:
* sapphic romance
* forced proximity
* grief and healing
* enemies to lovers
* opposites attract
* slow burn
* sobriety and recovery
* second chances
June 3, 2026
For the Bride was a really easy book to just want to keep reading and so I just stayed up and read it.
When her college friend Virginia “Gin” is getting married, she gets her former friends and roommates back together as bridesmaids. This includes Chrissy, who seems like the life of the party, Renee, the type A planner friend, and Alice, who was a bit of a mess in college and has drifted away from everyone for a bit.
I felt so sorry for Alice, who is struggling to rebuild her friendships after becoming sober following her father’s illness and subsequent death but they all keep referencing her previous alcoholic tendencies and kept using terms like “classic Alice”. Alice grew up the child of a rock and roll star and the drinking and partying eventually caught up to them both but the benefits, including the financial security, are mostly still in play.
I loved that while Alice is processing her grief, she chooses to write to her dad in her notes app and it gives us a little more insight into alice.
In addition to all of the wedding planning shenanigans, we get a lot of character growth, commentary on adult friendships evolving over time, and how they’re all dealing with hardships.
The “friends” to lovers trope was well done and really well paced, and I really enjoyed that they called each other out on their shit.
This is one of the few instances where I wish we had just a little bit more. Chrissy annoyed me but I don’t think we got a lot out of her, I wanted to see more from Gin and Rishi, and I wanted to give Renee more of a change.
Rounded up from 3.5 for goodreads.
For the Bride was published June 2, 2026 and I received an advanced reader copy from Netgalley in exchange for my review.
When her college friend Virginia “Gin” is getting married, she gets her former friends and roommates back together as bridesmaids. This includes Chrissy, who seems like the life of the party, Renee, the type A planner friend, and Alice, who was a bit of a mess in college and has drifted away from everyone for a bit.
I felt so sorry for Alice, who is struggling to rebuild her friendships after becoming sober following her father’s illness and subsequent death but they all keep referencing her previous alcoholic tendencies and kept using terms like “classic Alice”. Alice grew up the child of a rock and roll star and the drinking and partying eventually caught up to them both but the benefits, including the financial security, are mostly still in play.
I loved that while Alice is processing her grief, she chooses to write to her dad in her notes app and it gives us a little more insight into alice.
In addition to all of the wedding planning shenanigans, we get a lot of character growth, commentary on adult friendships evolving over time, and how they’re all dealing with hardships.
The “friends” to lovers trope was well done and really well paced, and I really enjoyed that they called each other out on their shit.
This is one of the few instances where I wish we had just a little bit more. Chrissy annoyed me but I don’t think we got a lot out of her, I wanted to see more from Gin and Rishi, and I wanted to give Renee more of a change.
Rounded up from 3.5 for goodreads.
For the Bride was published June 2, 2026 and I received an advanced reader copy from Netgalley in exchange for my review.
June 8, 2026
4.5 but I’m rounding up cause I feel like it
I requested this ARC without the cover, mainly on title alone, I must have skimmed the blurb and then forgot all about it cause when I started reading it, I was expecting a light romcom. While I enjoyed this book a lot and there were some laughable scenes, I wouldn’t call it a romcom.
It’s sapphic contemporary romance with complex characters and some tough themes - grief and alcoholism/sobriety.
If you don’t believe in staying friends with your ex - this book is NOT for you.
I enjoyed the writing style and I liked how all the relationships portrayed in this story were complex, as well as the characters. I also can’t get over how clear all the personalities were even when we got little glimpses of the characters. As for main characters - I loved how their depth was unraveling at bits for the readers.
While we have some pretty common tropes here, I think the storyline was quite unique.
Strong dislike to lovers but the dislike was due to wrong/past assumptions about each other. When the story goes from enemies to lovers through solid friendship stage - this is my fav type of execution of this trope!
It was really hard to put this book down. I read it in two days not so much because of “all the ARCs deadlines” but truly because the story and writing got me so hooked.
Some sentences or whole paragraphs about alcoholism and sobriety were so true and hitting the mark.
There is a third act breakup and while it felt a bit of unnecessary, at the same time I can admit it was well executed and it made sense how it all wrapped up.
Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for the eARC.
I’m putting Becca’s debut on my TBR and I will be looking out for any new releases!
I might come back with some of my highlights
I requested this ARC without the cover, mainly on title alone, I must have skimmed the blurb and then forgot all about it cause when I started reading it, I was expecting a light romcom. While I enjoyed this book a lot and there were some laughable scenes, I wouldn’t call it a romcom.
It’s sapphic contemporary romance with complex characters and some tough themes - grief and alcoholism/sobriety.
If you don’t believe in staying friends with your ex - this book is NOT for you.
I enjoyed the writing style and I liked how all the relationships portrayed in this story were complex, as well as the characters. I also can’t get over how clear all the personalities were even when we got little glimpses of the characters. As for main characters - I loved how their depth was unraveling at bits for the readers.
While we have some pretty common tropes here, I think the storyline was quite unique.
Strong dislike to lovers but the dislike was due to wrong/past assumptions about each other. When the story goes from enemies to lovers through solid friendship stage - this is my fav type of execution of this trope!
It was really hard to put this book down. I read it in two days not so much because of “all the ARCs deadlines” but truly because the story and writing got me so hooked.
Some sentences or whole paragraphs about alcoholism and sobriety were so true and hitting the mark.
There is a third act breakup and while it felt a bit of unnecessary, at the same time I can admit it was well executed and it made sense how it all wrapped up.
Thanks to Headline and NetGalley for the eARC.
I’m putting Becca’s debut on my TBR and I will be looking out for any new releases!
I might come back with some of my highlights
April 18, 2026
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!
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!
June 5, 2026
Cute cute cuteeeee would definitely recommend this one! I loved the friend group, and the enemies x lovers, the love for music, and the fun wedding party events! Getting to see Alice and Renee realize they don’t actually hate each other and can empathize with each other was so special. I truly appreciate the support all of the characters had for one another, found family for the winnnn
June 5, 2026
“there are always just as many reasons to laugh as there are to cry.” gulp. BUT YAYYYY!!!!!! I LOVED THIS! I ADOREDDDDDD every second of this!!!!! such unique relationship dynamics to explore!!! and they were all done so incredibly well. and such a touching story about grief too! LOVED!!!!!!!!!
thank you prh for the free audio!!!!!!!!!! yippee!
thank you prh for the free audio!!!!!!!!!! yippee!
June 26, 2026
I really really enjoyed this. I was routing for every character throughout the book. I also loved that this was so much more than a romance, it was about facing your grief, finding yourself, and chasing your passions. A beautifully written story.
Read
June 19, 2026
Trigger & Content Warnings
:
Alcohol abuse discussed & recounted
Death of a father from alcoholism
Alcohol abuse discussed & recounted
Death of a father from alcoholism
June 25, 2026
Might've been a three because I found the third act conflict so underbaked but the audiobook narration is worth a star all on its own!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
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.
“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.
March 25, 2026
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!
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!
June 14, 2026
Cute and sad and cute!! 3rd act breakup get fucked
May 1, 2026
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!
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!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2026
Becca Grischow's sophomore novel felt uniquely tailored to me, my tastes, AND my emotional wounds.... While I didn't gel with her debut, I was eager to settle in to read For The Bride because I cannot resist a narrative set amidst bridal chaos, nor could I miss the promise of a romance grounded in Chicago/Illinois. Fortunately, this book delivered on every promise it made and then some - 5 stars!
Premise: Lesbian Rockstar nepo-baby and recovering alcoholic Alice, in survival mode following the death of her father from an alcoholism-related health condition, is swept up into a whirlwind of bridesmaid activities after her college best friend (and ex girlfriend) gets engaged. Using the bridal festivities as an avoidant distraction for the impending 1-year memorial concert of her father's death, Alice butts heads with the seemingly rigid, overly-organized, and cold (to Alice) Renee Roberts, but what starts as dislike/hate between Alice and Renee becomes something more as they come to terms with the misunderstandings they hold onto about one another and themselves.
Rapid Fire Notes:
*I cried (a lot)
*I laughed (a lot)
*I do agree with the comp notes of Bridesmaids (the movie) and Emily Henry, especially the latter. The focus was heavily on the growth journey of Alice, reflective of how Emily Henry focuses on more than JUST the romance, and I for one am thrilled to have more queer writers exploring these narratives.
*Chrissy fully reminded me of the weird cousin in The Wedding Date (in the BEST way).
*The entire bachelorette trip was GOLD
*I slightly wanted more of a friendship reckoning between Gin/Alice but I think it might have busied up the ending.
*I don't remember the author's first book having such lovely and accurate (to the feeling) prose, but I have to say the language of this book was really well done.
*Grief is always such a sensitive theme for books for me that I eat up every time.
*Time to plan another trip to Galena!
Premise: Lesbian Rockstar nepo-baby and recovering alcoholic Alice, in survival mode following the death of her father from an alcoholism-related health condition, is swept up into a whirlwind of bridesmaid activities after her college best friend (and ex girlfriend) gets engaged. Using the bridal festivities as an avoidant distraction for the impending 1-year memorial concert of her father's death, Alice butts heads with the seemingly rigid, overly-organized, and cold (to Alice) Renee Roberts, but what starts as dislike/hate between Alice and Renee becomes something more as they come to terms with the misunderstandings they hold onto about one another and themselves.
Rapid Fire Notes:
*I cried (a lot)
*I laughed (a lot)
*I do agree with the comp notes of Bridesmaids (the movie) and Emily Henry, especially the latter. The focus was heavily on the growth journey of Alice, reflective of how Emily Henry focuses on more than JUST the romance, and I for one am thrilled to have more queer writers exploring these narratives.
*Chrissy fully reminded me of the weird cousin in The Wedding Date (in the BEST way).
*The entire bachelorette trip was GOLD
*I slightly wanted more of a friendship reckoning between Gin/Alice but I think it might have busied up the ending.
*I don't remember the author's first book having such lovely and accurate (to the feeling) prose, but I have to say the language of this book was really well done.
*Grief is always such a sensitive theme for books for me that I eat up every time.
*Time to plan another trip to Galena!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
*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.
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.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
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.
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.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
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.
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.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
3.5 ⭐️
I’ve said something similar around three months ago: I think stories where grief plays a central part are really important to tell.
I especially loved the aspect of grief in this book: grieving over a complex, complicated person, someone with whom you have so many happy memories but whom you also hold anger towards. This is such a great theme to highlight, and I am a big supporter of stories like this being told.
Honestly, my least favorite part of this book was the romance, as it felt underbaked compared to the grief aspect of it and her journey as a recovering alcoholic coming face-to-face with people who haven’t known her since she got sober. It had some showing-not-telling moments, though it also had very sweet and heartfelt romantic moments. It wasn’t that the romance was bad; it was definitely sweet and had its moments. I think it wasn’t quite at the same level as the other themes.
I have the opinion that you really can’t make true enemies-to-lovers believable in contemporary fiction or contemporary romance, and unfortunately, this book supports that claim for me. Renee was so unbelievably rude to Alice at the beginning of the book, and as we get further into the book, Renee kind of sort of explains why she was a bit of a dick and how she was seeing Alice from her perspective. However, I still feel like Renee was way too much of an asshole for me to forgive her 100%. Also, the reasoning behind her being so mean didn’t make sense, because given her connection to Gin, I find it very implausible that she would still hold the same image of Alice from years prior. I wasn’t really rooting for Renee, and while their love story is sweet and Renee comes around, I feel like her early sins were forgiven too readily to be believable. But that could be a me thing. I do not doubt that there are people who like enemies-to-lovers in contemporary romance who will eat this up.
My last thought was that the third-act conflict didn’t really make much sense given the stakes and fallout. I understand why it was an issue, but the reaction didn’t match it, in my opinion. I just felt confused and like this was being played up to raise the emotional stakes for Alice, and it didn’t match the actual situation.
In summary, I think this was a great story about grief and recovering from alcoholism and coming to terms with your past and current self. It had some heartfelt moments about how not everything is all bad or all good, and letting the people around us love us for who we are. It was the romance itself that I didn’t love, compared to the main emotional themes. It had its moments and tugged at my heartstrings, but I didn’t love it as much as the other aspects of the story.
Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the advanced copy! I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.
I’ve said something similar around three months ago: I think stories where grief plays a central part are really important to tell.
I especially loved the aspect of grief in this book: grieving over a complex, complicated person, someone with whom you have so many happy memories but whom you also hold anger towards. This is such a great theme to highlight, and I am a big supporter of stories like this being told.
Honestly, my least favorite part of this book was the romance, as it felt underbaked compared to the grief aspect of it and her journey as a recovering alcoholic coming face-to-face with people who haven’t known her since she got sober. It had some showing-not-telling moments, though it also had very sweet and heartfelt romantic moments. It wasn’t that the romance was bad; it was definitely sweet and had its moments. I think it wasn’t quite at the same level as the other themes.
I have the opinion that you really can’t make true enemies-to-lovers believable in contemporary fiction or contemporary romance, and unfortunately, this book supports that claim for me. Renee was so unbelievably rude to Alice at the beginning of the book, and as we get further into the book, Renee kind of sort of explains why she was a bit of a dick and how she was seeing Alice from her perspective. However, I still feel like Renee was way too much of an asshole for me to forgive her 100%. Also, the reasoning behind her being so mean didn’t make sense, because given her connection to Gin, I find it very implausible that she would still hold the same image of Alice from years prior. I wasn’t really rooting for Renee, and while their love story is sweet and Renee comes around, I feel like her early sins were forgiven too readily to be believable. But that could be a me thing. I do not doubt that there are people who like enemies-to-lovers in contemporary romance who will eat this up.
My last thought was that the third-act conflict didn’t really make much sense given the stakes and fallout. I understand why it was an issue, but the reaction didn’t match it, in my opinion. I just felt confused and like this was being played up to raise the emotional stakes for Alice, and it didn’t match the actual situation.
In summary, I think this was a great story about grief and recovering from alcoholism and coming to terms with your past and current self. It had some heartfelt moments about how not everything is all bad or all good, and letting the people around us love us for who we are. It was the romance itself that I didn’t love, compared to the main emotional themes. It had its moments and tugged at my heartstrings, but I didn’t love it as much as the other aspects of the story.
Thank you to Viking Penguin and NetGalley for the advanced copy! I received an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.
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