The weekly post

The one where we celebrate the acknowledgments

Hi friends, happy official start of fall! I am filled with such hope and anticipation for the months ahead: friends’ weddings, silent book clubs, helping to get out the vote (please make sure you’re registered by checking into vote.org!), a cozy reading vacation getaway, an abundance of concerts, and curating my 2024 holiday gift guide and year-in-review. As hard as it is to believe, it took me about two months to put together my holiday gift guide and year-end wrap-up so this is my request to all of you: I’d love to hear who you’re shopping for this year, what superlatives you’d like to see featured on the year in review, and what books you think are a must-include for these posts. I had such a blast putting these together last year. It was a fun challenge to think about what book to gift your grandma, boss, and brother-in-law, as well as how to reflect on the books I read in the year beyond just quantifiable metrics. So any and all inspiration from you is much appreciated!

This week, I’m looking forward to sharing my latest review with you for The Wedding People. As with my last newsletter, I do want to include a disclaimer that this book discusses topics related to mental health challenges, including depression and suicide. If this is not the right time for you to read about or process these topics, please skip the “Recent Recommendation” section of this post and jump ahead to “Up Next.”

Wherever you are, whatever you’re reading, I do hope you’re taking good care.

Currently Reading

THE MINISTRY OF TIME by Kaliane Bradley. As I have now gifted this book without reading it myself (a rare and brave choice on my part!), it’s about time I move it to the top of my own reading queue. The Ministry of Time has received rave reviews from everyone from Emily Henry to Barack Obama to my friends on Goodreads. It’s described as “a time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all,” so needless to say I am intrigued to dive in.

Recent Recommendation

THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach (4 stars). It seemed that everywhere I looked this summer - in every bookstore, book club, and newsletter - I found The Wedding People, and with mixed reviews. Readers seemed to either absolutely love or hate this book, and I knew I needed to read it myself to understand this stark divide. This book is certainly not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and I would say it leans more towards character relationships than plot, so let’s see how this review goes!

This novel starts with Phoebe, standing in the lobby of the extravagant Cornwall Inn in Newport, Rhode Island. The lobby is bustling with guests checking in, all of whom are there for the same wedding taking place later in the week. This opening scene is in itself hilarious in how familiar it all feels: the guests are lamenting about how difficult travel has become, every man in the family seems to be named Jim, the hotel concierge somehow manages to keep a smile and can-do attitude in the face of the most absurd requests. Phoebe stands in the midst of this commotion in an emerald green dress, gold heels, and without luggage, leading the hotel staff and guests to instantly assume she is also there for the wedding. When Phoebe meets Lila - the bride who has reserved the entire Cornwall Inn for her wedding week - in the elevator, she confesses that she has arrived at the inn with the intention of taking her own life. And this is all in the first chapter. What follows is the bizarre, heartwarming, exasperating, and hilariously dynamic friendship that blossoms over the course of one week between Phoebe and Lila, and the relationships that emerge among the other wedding people.

Phoebe’s confession in the elevator felt jarring. I hadn’t suspected this premise, and she is remarkably casual and straightforward as she delivers the news to Lila. The tension and anticipated heaviness of this moment is immediately broken in how Lila responds: you cannot do that because this is my wedding week and nothing - not even you, stranger! - will ruin it. This moment sets the tone for the rest of the book: for every raw truth, tender moment, or unsettling interaction, there is something ridiculous, quippy, or shocking to break the ice. While I found myself appreciating how Alison Espach executed these moments, I can also appreciate why some readers would be immediately turned off by the sudden jolts.

The Wedding People is full of quirky, selfish, grumpy, grieving, and lost characters, and it is the collection of all of them together that feels simultaneously relatable and absurd. In all of the ways that this novel is about characters trying to figure themselves out and navigate life’s big questions, it is equal parts about unexpected friendships and the profound power of connection. While I found this story to drag about two-thirds of the way through (and there were moments where I wanted to give the note, “show, don’t tell!”), it consistently delivered over-the-top, laugh-out-loud-worthy antics, and the author nailed the ending with tender sharpness.

In closing, I will once again make the case that the acknowledgments can add so much power to a book. After reading the first chapter, I immediately flipped to the end to read the author’s acknowledgment notes, and I’m glad that I had her reflections with me for the rest of the book. She shares this line about her friendships, which I think encapsulates so much about the story itself and what I personally connected with: “I am fortunate to have friends that I can share my work with… thank you all for being smart, funny, and loving people who talk and laugh about the weirdness of life with me. I always thought I’d get increasingly afraid as I grew older, but I’m not, and that’s because I’m too excited by everything we have yet to talk about.”

Recommend for… fans of Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley, Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

Up Next

For the first time in a long time, I have a hankering for a really compelling, inspiring piece of nonfiction. I used to be very regimented about alternating between reading fiction and nonfiction, but in recent years, I have lacked the appetite for nonfiction. Some of my favorites over the years have been Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, For the Love of Men by Liz Plank, All the Single Ladies and Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister, and Mediocre by Ijeoma Oluo, so I’d love something in a similar vein. If there’s anything that has caught your eye in the nonfiction department lately, I’d love to hear about it!

Three Words

Inspired, restored, cozy.