Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for sending me an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Let me start this review saying that it's fairly rare for anything to make me laugh out loud but this book managed to achieve that. I loved the mix of culture and snappy and at times biting dialogue. It was a very fun read.

We cut to three years ago with Max as he wakes up to a text message from his brother Andrew, who is supposed to be getting married that morning, basically telling him "Thanks to you, I can see the truth now. I can't marry Lina. Need you to break the news."

Max ultimately tells Lina and, rightfully so, gets blamed for Andrew's cold feet.

Now in present day, Lina is shining in her role as wedding planner, even though her own wedding never happened. While on the job she's approached by Rebecca Cartwright about a job to be the official planner on staff for the hotel chain that she heads. Two downsides. One, she has to interview for the position and pitch her business to Rebecca. Two, Andrew, her ex-fiance and his brother Max are the marketing firm that she's paired to work with. They're also vying for Rebecca's business.

Max is in competition with Andrew, or it always feels that way. He sees this as an opportunity to shine and step out of his brother's shadow. When he's paired with Lina, things start to unravel as the pair realizes that the animosity between them because of their difficult past is slowly giving way to real undeniable chemistry. Max has to decide if potentially falling for his brother's ex-fiance fits into his plan of making a name for himself away from his brother's influence.

This book would be really easy to read in a single sitting. The writing is funny and everything flows effortlessly. It's told in alternating points of view, Max and Lina, and I was always able to tell them apart from their personalities. The way that Max and Lina start to connect was very sweet and felt realistic, aside from the soap opera-ish elephant in the room in the way of her ex-fiance.

There is a teaser at the end that the next book in the series is a story about Max's friend Dean, which I know is a common thing with romance novels. Up until now I kinda of ignored it, the characters chosen didn't really interest me, but I'm honestly interested in hearing more about Dean.

This book was so good! I laughed, I cried, I gasped, and I aww’d our loud. When I started reading, I thought there was no real way for me to get behind Max, but then I did! And I loved that there was never a love triangle with Andrew or any possible mixup with anyone else. And that little twist towards the end? Yes! Highly recommend this!!!

With a great cover and a blurb that drew me in, I was so excited to read this... and ultimately disappointed in the execution. The book starts out on a high note with humor and a very awkward situation for our hero, but as the story moved along it got bogged down by unnecessary detail and subplots that detracted from the romance. There were many times I found myself skimming, and while the bones of a good rom com are there - the actual relationship between Max and Lina was fun to read - all the clutter got in the way.

The story follows Lina, a wedding planner who has the misfortune of being dumped on her wedding day - by proxy. When her groom gets cold feet, he texts his brother, Max, to ask that he deliver the news, saying that Max’s advice the night prior pushed him into making this decision. Though Max doesn’t remember that drunken conversation, he steps up and delivers the news, sharing almost as much of Lina’s wrath as his brother does. Three years pass and the brothers are tasked with working with Lina on a business project. Since Max is (marginally) the lesser of two evils for Lina, they wind up working together and getting to know each other for the first time. Along the way, they can’t help but wonder if things would’ve been different had Lina met Max first.

There’s a definite enemies to lovers feel to the story, which I really enjoyed. The encounters between Lina and Max were the highlight of the book, they were just too few and far between. There’s a lot of detail relating to things I couldn’t care less about, and the continued use of Portuguese at the start of the book took me out of the story. I don’t mind the inclusion of details about Lina’s heritage, but without looking the words up it’s often difficult to follow the conversation. I liked the slow burn romance, but the payoff wasn’t there - their first sex scene is not at all sexy, and things move pretty quickly after that. Overall, it has the foundation of a good book but I would’ve liked it a lot more with a few changes. Thank you, NetGalley, for providing me with an ARC. I am voluntarily leaving a review of this rom com.

After being jilted at the altar, what is to be blamed on her fiancee's brother Max, Lina works successful as a wedding planer. When she gets approached with an offer of a lifetime, she is forced to work together with Max, the best man at her wedding who caused her fiancee to run away.

First person POV from each protagonist in present tense.
Language: profane

This is a delightful Enemies to Lovers RomCom. Carolina “Lina” Santos is a woman who is always in control. When she gets a great job opportunity, she ends up having to work with her almost brother-in-law Max Hartley. Since Lina partially blames Max for being unceremoniously dumped on her wedding day, she isn’t thrilled working with him. This is a nice set up for a romance with a lot of laughs. I loved Max! He is in an unhealthy competition his older brother Andrew, so falling for his brother’s ex is a problem. Lina was a little harder to warm up too, but since her character is always trying to lock down her emotion, that makes sense. This was my first book by this author, and I will definitely be reading her other books. I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley for my honest review.

Overall, this was a good read. I enjoyed the storyline but I felt there were a lot of pieces that were skimmed over or left out.
Sosa made me feel connected to the main characters which is probably why I read this book start to finish in less than 24 hours.
If you need a quick, light-hearted read then pick up this book! This book is pure enjoyment but probably won't change your life if you read it.

The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa is a novel involving a slow-building enemies-to-friends relationship that transitions into a well-paced romance. The character development throughout the story of the main characters, Lina and Max was brilliant and allowed the reader to understand their actions and emotions. The supporting characters—especially Lina’s family—were hilarious. The Worst Best Man offers the reader pages of humor and fun—but also provides a story of vulnerability about love and self-reflection that is so refreshing and necessary. Mia Sosa has a definite hit on her hands with this novel.

Usually I inhale books like this. Cute cover. Fun, romantic comedy. But this took me several evenings of reading a chapter here or there to feel any urgency to finish. I really thought the story had potential but the writing dragged. The heroine, Lina, is a complicated woman and I really, really wanted to like her as she survived being broken up with on her own wedding day by the best man, she’s a good friend, hard worker, smart businesswoman, and is loyal to her family—but the telling on every page of her heritage, being jilted at the altar, and her dislike for the bearer of bad news, Max, from her wedding day, became repetitive and felt forced, and so I never connected with her.

Some scenes were so long detailing other characters and Lina’s relationship with them or with her Brazilian culture that I often felt like skimming to find names like Max, Andrew, Rebecca, Cartwright—just to get to the next topic that would hopefully drive the story forward. Heck, I didn’t even realize until chapter 20 that Lina identified as a black woman, Afro-Latinx—because her Brazilian heritage is so profuse throughout. Even in chapter 10, after the Capoeira instructor offers a long explanation of the martial arts form originating from enslaved Africans in Brazil, I still never made a connection that Lina’s family is bi-racial. It wouldn’t have made me like the main character more or not but with all the copious details about food, preparation of delicacies, music and dance, and family dynamics, I wish the author made a better visual depicting Lina earlier on.

I liked the ex-best man most of the time except the scene in chapter 15 when he realizes he is so turned on by Lina, his new business partner nee brother’s ex-fiancé, that he goes to his best friend’s to help sort out his feelings and ends up asking Dean if he can sleep in his huge bed with him because he is worried he will masterbate thinking about her and won’t be able to look her in the face at work the next day... “Let me sleep in here tonight. Your bed is huge.” I just did not buy that “man-bonding” sleepover. I think it was supposed to be cute or endearing but I just found it cringy.

And then there is that scene when Lina is trying to maneuver around Max in a pickup truck cab and her hand lands on his crotch. And rather than pull her hand away, she is incapable of doing anything but be mortified about it until the vehicle is turned off and the driver exits the truck and she notices Max’s breathing is audible and he asks her to “unhand” him and then she turns to meet his eyes and then gasps, yelps, and finally unhands him. Again, the humor seems heavy handed (pun intended).

Finally in chapter 22 when they do end up in bed, it really is the most drawn out sex scene because of all the open discussion about what she likes and doesn’t like: “I don’t enjoy it when men jab their tongue in as though they’re poking a bee’s nest with a stick. Or when they munch on me like a crunchy snack they can find at a concession stand. Cunnilingus is an art. It requires imagination and nuance. Oh I love it when a person talks dirty to me as they do it—in small doses, of course, because I’d obviously want you to be focused on the task at hand.” And so that’s how it “went down”—on and on like that. Max must have had the patience of a saint to listen to all that and still want her because I closed my kindle and came back to it the next night.

I am glad I read it through NetGalley. Thank you for the opportunity. I’m glad there was a happily-ever-after that tied up all into a nice bow. But frankly I was disappointed. I expected better. Less is more.

Rated mature for provocative sex and language.

This book missed the mark. The author tried to hard to be witty and funny making the story tedious to the reader.
The storyline itself was good but that's where the good ended. The main character and her family's ethnictacity
where highlighted throughout, including phrases in their native language. I only ask "why" was this necessary.

This enemies to lovers book sounded different from the blurb and didn't disappoint. There are so many things to like about this story. The antics are zany. Lina's family is worth the read all on their own. Max is one of the better male characters I have read in this type of romance. Lina is full of contradictions. Their journey to happiness is bumpy, funny, sad, and sweet. There are the perfect amount of steamy scenes. I will be reading this author again.

I love rom-coms and this was another quick read I could easily see turned into a movie. I love the afro-latino representation. There was some Portuguese in this and even though I'm not fluent it was very easy to pick up on what was being said when the words were used. Lina was allowed to be vulnerable and acknowledge that sometimes a a black woman you're expected to be tough all the time and not let your emotions out. Max truly just wanted to see her thriving and happy.

I really felt like this book needed another draft. The bones of the story were cute, but the characters didn't seem real, the dialogue was cringey at times and a lot of the situations didn't seem realistic or organic-- even in the context of a rom-com. I liked the idea that Lina was Brazilian,but the integration of the language, food and culture was awkward and heavy handed. There are good ideas here, they're just not fully realized.

If you're a fan of enemies to lovers romance, this book is for you! The plot was what drew me in. A wedding that ended over confused feelings for someone else, and reconnecting with both men later? I'm on board for that.

Three years ago, Lina was all set to marry Andrew. Sure, he was boring, but boring meant safety from emotions, and so Lina was hooked. Unfortunately, then along came Max, who got drunk, said a few things, and bam. No more wedding. Andrew was out, Lina was confused (but not exactly upset, because of that emotions issue), and Max felt super guilty.

Flash forward to the present. Offered to interview for wedding coordinator at a luxury DC hotel, Lina leaps at the chance. Except she's been paired up with marketing advisors Andrew and Max to make her pitch. Obviously she chooses Max, and sets out to exact her revenge. Hot peppers. Capoeira. Family meetings. Unfortunately, it does nothing to quell the mounting attraction. Eventually they crash a couple's therapy retreat.

All said, this is an adorable little rom-com. The obstacles to Max and Lina's happiness never feel too much like a trope, or overblown. I need Netflix to produce it immediately, thank you.

When I was reading this book, I just wanted to shout "Obrigado" over and over again, because it's so good. Max and Lina are just completely awesome. Her family is awesome. His family is...not totally awesome (I want to kick Andrew in the balls). The story is engaging and so, so good! I cannot wait for more from the side characters, and Mia as well!

As a romantic comedy this book didn't hit the right notes. There was some problems with understanding some of the Portuguese language, and I felt that though the concept of the story was a good one, I just couldn't get interested in the characters. I received an e-book from NetGalley in return for an unbiased review.

I really enjoyed The Worst Best Man. It opens with Lina Santos being left at the altar after her fiance's brother (and best man) Max convinces him not to get married. Fast forward three years and she is a successful wedding planner who is forced to work with Max on an extended job interview. Lina is used to bottling up her feelings as a woman of color who has been penalized in the past for showing emotions; Max is determined to break down her barriers. Both characters (and their friends) were wonderful, as was Lina's extended family. This was really overall just delightful. In the author's note Sosa mentions how hard it is to write a romcom while the world's on fire, and I really felt she succeeded; this book sucked me into its world and let me forget what's going on in ours for a while. Definitely recommended and I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

Amazing read. Max and Lina fit so well together I was rooting for them from the very first scene. I would love to see a book about Andrew, maybe with Lina’s assistant ? Or even Rebecca? Something where Andrew can redeem himself for being such a jerk. Great story !

This book had a cute concept, but it missed the mark for me. There was some dialect in Portuguese, and there was no translation for some of it, and it was like the author thought I might know what they are saying? I also don't understand why she is so mad at the brother, considering he wasn't even engaged to her? i don't know, there is too much going on in this book, and I feel like I needed more romantic connection.

Lina is a wedding planner who was jilted at the alter when her fiancé Andrew decided that he just couldn't marry her, and he sent his younger brother Max to deliver the news an hour before their wedding. That was three years ago, now she finds herself with the job opportunity of a lifetime planning weddings for a high-end hotel. The only problem with that is the marketing agency that's supposed to help her happens to belong to her would-be mother-in-law. Caught completely off guard Lina pretends that she doesn't know Andrew or Max when they walk into the meeting with Rebecca, the hotel director. Deciding that Max is the lesser of two evils they're paired up to put together a pitch.

This is such a great book, It has everything, tons of humor, plenty of heartbreak and angst, and diverse characters. I thoroughly enjoyed that Lina is Afro-Brazilian and that her culture was a huge part of the story. An important point this story addresses is the difference between how men and women's emotions are treated so differently in the workplace. It's absolutely spot-on, it's acceptable for men to be upset, stomp around and express their displeasure at a situation, but if a woman does that or has a few tears over the same situation, she's unstable. It's a definite double standard. I was cackling during several scenes, the eyebrow situation, the spicy peppers, the mortification cloak, and many others. As I was reading this the cast of Fools Rush In kept popping into my head playing out the chapters. Overall this a fantastic, well-written book, highly recommend.