Best book of 2020. This romckm was absolute perfection. I cannot wait for more from this dynamic family.

Let me just start by saying this was EXACTLY what I was in the mood for. I laughed, I got frustrated and fussed at the characters, and I swooned in some spots. Definitely what I needed at the time.
Lina is so excited about her wedding.... That is until she's left at the altar. And to make it more humiliating, she works as a wedding planner. Despite this, she goes on to make her business successful. Enough to make someone from a ritzy hotel take notice. Unfortunately, they also take notice of three other people, another wedding planner and two promoters. And they just so happen to be her ex and his bone headed brother. To get the job, Lina must impress the head of the hotel with a presentation that brings her and her partner closer than she ever expected.
As for everything else, I really liked this one. The characters for me made this book. Lina definitely showed the struggle of being a woman (and a woman of color at that) who can never show emotion for fear of being too emotional and too angry. But she was also outgoing and so very smart. She was just very, very proud. And then Max who seemed to be beating himself up over this situation and knowing that he didn't deserve to be with Lina after what he did. I didn't like him in the beginning, but his growth throughout the story definitely made me change my mind.
The reason I couldn't give this 5 stars was the chemistry. Although there is a steamy romance (umm car hood?!) and I did recall swooning at some of the better Max quotes, I just didn't feel they were really for each other. I at first attributed that to the fact that Lina was closed off, but whatever the reason, I just didn't feel it was believable.
The writing style was simple, but I really enjoyed it. It was hilarious! And I mean actual laugh out loud funny. I found that even my husband (who doesn't actually laugh out loud at all at anything) was laughing at some events. (He walked in on the Wedding Singer scene) I hope there are more rom-coms to come from Mia Sosa.
I had a lot of conflicting ideas when I was trying to write a review for this, but ultimately I loved it. I've been watching Sosa's Twitter to see if her next rom-com is from a character from this novel, but nothing yet. No matter, I'll read whatever she has next!

I absolutely loved this romance! the main characters had great chemistry, and the secondary characters added some great texture to the plot.

The cover and the blurb had me so excited to get my hands on this book.

Lina was left at the alter and now is having to work with her ex fiancés brother if she wants to take her business to the next level. I can’t imagine being in that situation.

I really enjoyed The Worst Best Man and look forward to more work from this author.

While I like Sosa’s writing, and I loved learning about Brazilian-American culture, this book didn’t really gel for me. I liked the characters and the central romance, but there were some out of character things that just seemed out of place.

This book was all the cute, fun, adorableness my life needs right now. I loved Lina and Max's story.

Max's friendship with Dean was everything!!! They were so funny and cute with each other and I loved them. I especially loved Max showing up at Dean's for a sleepover because he didn't want to spend the night thinking of Lina.

Max and Lina have a complicated past but I loved how they committed to being professional and opened themselves up to each other the more they spent time together. If you're a fan of one bed, you'll love this one. There's also a sexy scene the day after that I'm especially fond of. They have such cute chemistry and I just completely fell for them.

Lina's family put such a smile on my face, they were the perfect meddling but supportive family and I loved them!!

Oh, how I ended up loving this book. 

Max isn't the usual hero we get. See, he is soft, caring, understanding, and willing to think before he acts. He is just so... amazing.

I ended up loving the main characters relationship and how it progressed. It was so sweet and lovely. This book also had me laughing and smiling often at the banter and the antics characters got into. 

This book is sweet, light, and terribly fun and I'm sure I'll be rereading it in the future.

I did not know what to expect when I started listening to The Worst Best Man. This is my first Mia Sosa book and this will definitely NOT be my last!

My initial reaction after finishing the audiobook was this emoji review that I posted on Goodreads: 🤪🤔🤐🚗🚪🌷🍛🥘🔥🤭😑😢😭😭😍🥰🥰🥰🥰🤣. As you can see, I was so full of emotions and it is quite obvious that I am in love with this book!

I received an eARC for this book, but I decided to wait until the audiobook was available. Luckily, it was available on Hooplah from the LA Public Library. I did not regret my choice! I will discuss the narrators later in this review.

The Worst Best Man started when Lina was jilted, and Max was the bringer of the bad news. Of course, there was drama and confusion and I really did not like Max at all! I am so glad that he totally redeemed himself!

What initially drew me to The Worst Best Man is the premise! I really love that it’s an enemies-to-lovers and fake relationship romance! The bulk of the story happens a few years after the jilting where Lina is vying to be an in-house wedding coordinator for a high-end hotel. The catch, she has to “audition” for the position and work with a marketing manager – Max!

I am so glad that I picked up the audiobook because I just realized that I do not hear a lot of Portuguese at all and I would not have known how to pronounce the words! Also, I realized that this book is chock full of representation, culture, and family is a huge focus, which I really love!

Let’s also talk about the food! I love all the mention of food here! Even that scene with Max and Lina involving a certain spicy dish!

The Worst Best Man is such a refreshing plot because it highlights how a woman’s character is always played as drama or overacting on something and is called crazy and irrational while a man’s temper tantrums are not viewed the same! I actually didn’t really think about that part.

This book is an awesome lighthearted read. There were awkward moments and there were also funny and laugh out loud moments that I really appreciate!

I really, really wanted to love this book but I was just so bored with it. I didn't like the characters. They just felt too flat to me. I just didn't like Lina and Max together at all. I didn't find it funny or sweet. The humor felt forced and the interactions between Lina and Max felt fake and clunky. I kept waiting for something big to happen, but it never did for me. I loved the glimpses into Lina's family life and her culture (I of course went and made pão de queijo because of this book), but it just didn't work for me as a whole.

This book was sharp and funny. I loved how Lina was forced to work with Max, and he kept on pushing. They talked through their issues, which was wonderful. The food in this book was ridiculous too.

Full Review to Come:

The Worst Best Man is utterly charming—the first book in a long time to make me literally laugh out loud while reading. It is the perfect quarantine read.

Loved the diversity but the love story wasn't captivating. I found myself skimming most of it. The heroine was too much at times.

Here’s the thing. The Worst Best Man probably deserves a better review than I am going to be able to write for it. The fact of the matter is that we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, and I find myself struggling to do most of the things I love. For my first month at home after my work closed, I couldn’t even focus enough to read. I just worked around my home and garden and played casual games on my phone.

Finally, after about a month of no real reading, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I started reading again, slowly. However, even after I was able to pick back up the reading, I found myself struggling to write. By now I have a backlog of reviews to write, for books I finished before and during the pandemic, but not a lot of words to say about them.

But what does this have to do with The Worst Best Man? Well, it had the misfortune of being a book I started but hadn’t yet finished prior to the entire world seeming to shut down due to the pandemic. So it sat unfinished for over a month before I finally picked it up and finished it. So I can’t be entirely sure if it was the book or the extenuating circumstances that lost me for so long. The truth is the book didn’t seem to be blowing me away prior to the world going mad, which is why I hadn’t finished it by the time everything changed. But maybe that was pandemic related too.

I was excited to hear in mid March, as I was about to start this book, that a colleague with whom I share some tastes in books had read it already. But when I asked her what she thought of it, she said it was just OK. She said that the main character was too prickly, and that her Brazilian heritage, while interested, got fed to the reader pretty heavily throughout the book. I assumed this was just one of the times where our tastes different somewhat and set to reading anyway.

Then I discovered that she and I pretty much agreed about the story. Max, the hero, is a nice enough character. He’s got some baggage of his own, but is mostly a well-intentioned sweet guy burning a candle for the woman his brother left at the altar. Lina, on the other hand, is really difficult to like. Not difficult to understand, but difficult to relate to. While it’s explained thoroughly why she developed the cold hard persona/ exterior over her very emotional true inner personality, while we understand that as a Latinx woman of color she doesn’t have the privilege of expressing her emotions too strongly around others without being perceived as angry or irrational or other pejoratives, this fact doesn’t make her easier to connect with. It just makes her chilly and prickly and difficult to care about.

And yes, my colleague was correct. The information about Lina’s Brazilian heritage really is piled on pretty thickly. On one hand, I love learning about other cultures: the music, the food, the language, the traditions, the relationships. But on the other hand, a romance novel shouldn’t feel like an introductory educational text or an after-school special. Whether Lina and her family are speaking in English heavily sprinkled with Portuguese or Lina is explaining Brazilian cuisine to Max or any of the other examples of telling more than showing, they together ended up being too much, feeling more didactic than interesting. (It did make me hungry to try Brazilian food, though.) Which is sad, because I had been excited to read a book about a Brazilian Latina heroine.

I have a few other minor quibbles with the book as well. Some is just personal preference–I don’t prefer first person romance novels, especially from the perspective of both love interests. This was especially important when reading The Worst Best Man, because I don’t think Max’s POV sounds very much like it was written by a straight white male. There’s a scene where his handsome best friend is introduced, and Max describes him in detail, contrasting his friend’s appearance with his own. I think that contrasting description would have made much more sense coming from Lina or another exterior perspective. it just felt weird and inauthentic being presented as Max’s perspective, the way it was written. The entire introduction of his friend, whose name I cannot remember, was pretty heavy handed and seemed obvious that Sosa was setting him up to be the hero in her next novel.

And finally, a very tiny quibble, but there’s a scene where Lina and Max are at a country B&B overnight on Easter weekend, and they’re awoken early Sunday morning by ‘heavy machinery’, and all I could think, as someone who grew up in the country, on a working farm, WHAT FARMER USES HEAVY MACHINERY EARLY ON ANY SUNDAY MORNING, MUCH LESS EASTER MORNING?? I guess it’s something that you might not think about without prior knowledge of farm life, but it really pulled me out of the story.

There are good things about the story too, though. Although I never really connected to Lina, I didn’t hate her either. I liked her strong, close relationship with her family and friends, especially her assistant Jaslene, and their grounded-ness in their own culture. As I mentioned, I liked Max, and thought he was sweet. I could see how their opposite personalities might attract each other. The sex scenes between the two of them were thoughtful as well as steamy, sort of realistically hot. I also appreciated that the main character was a working woman, a small businesswoman working on a thin profit margin who had relatable struggles like old broken down cars and rent that was too high for her budget.

I also really liked the setting–DC and the surrounding suburbs is relatively local for me, and I’ve definitely visited friends in some of the areas Sosa describes. It’s always fun to recognize real-life roads and neighborhoods in a book I’m reading. And yes, the rent really is pretty steep there, from what I’ve heard and read.

So the overall verdict for The Worst Best Man is that while it didn’t grab me and refuse to let me go, like I wanted it to, I didn’t hate it either. It was pleasant and interesting, if easy to put down, and I’m curious to see where Sosa goes with the next story, which I understand will be about Max’s best friend and Lina’s briefly mentioned cousin Solange. I would love if Jaslene got a story to herself too. Whatever the case, I’m willing to give the author more tries, hopefully not in the midst of a deadly pandemic, but in times more well-suited to focusing on a fun book. I’ll be keeping an eye out for what comes next.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Avon/ Harper Collins for letting me read an advanced copy of #TheWorstBestMan . Sorry it took me so long to finish. I still blame the pandemic.

This was a pretty good novel! At times I definitely felt it was cliche, but the enemies to lover trope is one of my favorites and I definitely enjoyed it here. The characters go from incredibly unlikeable to much better throughout the course of the book. Overall, a fun read!

4.5 Stars! I really enjoyed this absolutely delightful romantic comedy featuring an Afro-Latina (Brazilian-American) wedding planner and the brother of the man who jilted her at the alter. The premise is that Lina is incredibly uptight and protective of her feelings because past experience has taught her that she has to be. When an amazing professional opportunity comes her way bringing with it an unwanted blast from the past, she has to fight to stay professional and in the running to win, especially in front of her ex-fiancée and his feckless brother, Max, upon whose cooperation her success depends.

I thought the humor in this was fantastic. The description of Brazilian food was amazing and made me want to explore more of that cuisine and culture. I loved the matrilineal family relationships explored in this book and even more so the themes of friendship- both female (between Lina and her cousins and BFF) and male (between Max and Dean) in this. I felt that the exploration of vulnerability in friendships matched the exploration of vulnerability in relationships and what makes a good relationship. I related a lot to Lina because I too have a phobia of losing it in public and seeming unprofessional or risking my heart and leaving it vulnerable to be smashed by someone else. I love that this was a story of growth for Lina (and Max) and for Lina, coming to terms with dealing with emotion and vulnerability in her life.

I thought this was a perfect rom-com and the only thing that made it a little unbalanced for me was that it wasn’t very realistic, it sometimes felt a little Deus Ex Machina and a little slapstick for me, especially with the premise of the blast from the past and the resolution of that conflict. But the writing and themes and story were so good that this didn’t signify much for me. I loved this and highly recommend this as a 4.5 star read.

Many thanks to Avon Books/Harper Collins for a complimentary review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

It’s not love at first sight. There isn’t even any flirtation or lusty happenings until 20%. The romance builds gradually so When the sex finally happens, it’s hot and gratifying. It’s romance, so not expecting too much from the storytelling. Yet the characters are suitably flawed, charming, funny and relatable.

***Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review***

Though I usually the enemies-to-lovers trope. The story felt a little forced, or maybe I just wasn't quite in the mood for this type of book. I appreciated that the main character was Brazilian and they did not shy away from her culture.

Although this is an author whose books I have loved in the past, I found this book very difficult to get into. I love this author and I was really surprised, but the characters just weren’t super interesting. I kept putting the book down and had to convince myself to go back to it. I just did not feel invested in the story. Perhaps it all started from the beginning because I thought the main source of conflict between the two main characters was a bit silly and unfair. I would definitely read more books from this author, though, because I think she’s talented and this probably just wasn’t the book for me.

The Worst Best Man will give you all the feels! It's witty, sexy, and has a happily ever after. I really enjoyed how the author, Mia Sosa, entwined the Brazilian culture throughout the book. I found myself googling capoeira first to find out what it was, then if I could find a class near me. I couldn't put down this refreshing read. I was not expecting some of the saucy comments, but it was so fun to read. I will definitely not look at a tulip field the same! Beautifully and entertainingly written. It doesn't shy away from the real issue of women having to hide their emotions in the business world which I haven't seen expressed by such a strong female lead. If you are looking for a sweet, sexy book that features a strong female and a man who isn't turned off by it, then this is your next read!

I really enjoyed this book- I felt the characters were fleshed out and well-developed, and the plot points weren't too over-the-top to render them completely unbelievable. If I had to say anything negative, I feel that the ending was a bit rushed BUT on that account, it's probably because I wanted the story to keep going! Mia Sosa is definitely going on my authors to watch, and I can't wait to promo this to all the romance readers at my library.