I received an eARC of this book in return for an honest review - thank you to NetGalley.

This book follows our main character Lily as she navigates having to be part of 5 bridal parties within a couple do months, including her own younger siblings. Starting a new online blog to follow her journey, she unleashes truths about Bridezillas, evil bridesmaids and monster-Moms. All while thinking she was remaining totally anonymous.

I really enjoyed the main character, she was likeable, funny and I loved seeing her relationships with the other characters. It was also really lovely that we not only had her voicing the story but we were able to read from her blog, too - adding that extra dimension and viewpoint. With jealousy over her younger siblings getting married, tensions with the bridesmaids and juggling money to reach all 5 weddings, she felt like a very relatable and real character.

The concept of 5 weddings meant that there were a lot of other characters involved in this book, but their personalities were so well built up that it was easy enough to follow each individually. The love interest plot had quite a few twists and turns, the only let down for me was that the ending was quite predictable.

Overall I really enjoyed this, a perfect summer read, easy enough to be sucked into and breeze through.

If you loved, or even liked, the film 27 Dresses then I think you will love this - same same but different.

Lily Weiss is a writer, working for a prestigious science institute. It's her job to make complex (and often boring) science accessible to normal people. She's good at it, but it's not what she dreamed of when she used to write stories at night under her duvet as a child.

Her work BFF Caryn asks her to be a bridesmaid when she finally gets her boyfriend to propose. Caryn and Lily don't really mix in the same circles but Caryn begs Lily to save her from the toxicity of her other bridesmaids, including her sister-in-law-to-be, and Lily can't say no. But then things snowball, her college BFF also announces she is getting married and asks Lily to be a bridesmaid to protect her from her overbearing mother. Then her closest friend Meghan also announces she is getting married and guess what? You got it, she wants Lily to be a bridesmaid. Next her younger brother announces his engagement, and as a way to get her new sister-in-law he wants Lily to be a bridesmaid! Lily is at Meghan's engagement party when her baby sister, who still lives at home with their parents, announces she too is engaged. Suddenly at 32, Lily feels over the hill if even her foetus of a sister is engaged. The only solution is to mainline Chardonnay which leads to her waking up in bed with one of the groomsmen and no recollection of the night before.

At first things are hectic but manageable, Lily even manages to become adept at helping brides to choose their favourite dress (and not just the one their bitchy friends or controlling mothers like). But then the bridezilla demands start: buy this hideously expensive bridesmaid's dress; dye your hair; lose weight; fly to Chicago for dress shopping; fly to Mexico for a wedding; fly to Paris for a bachelorette party; etc. In frustration, because Lily would never say these things out loud, and in an attempt to earn some money to help her pay for all the dresses, shoes, gifts, parties etc, Lily starts up an anonymous blog called Bridesmania where she recounts the more absurd things her brides are doing.

Oh, and one of Meghan's groomsmen, Alex, is really sweet and charming but Meghan has ruled no drama, and after sleeping with one groomsman Lily can't risk any more disruption to the wedding so Alex must go firmly into the friend zone.

I think it will be fairly obvious to any reader/watcher of rom-coms, what is going to happen. But it's a fun read and Sara Goodman Confino walks a thin line between making the brides-to-be unreasonable but also showing that Lily's decision to take out her frustrations by writing a vitriolic blog was not the most appropriate response.

After DNFing so many books already this year (and with more on the horizon), this was a delight and proved to me that it's not me, it's the books. So if you fancy a light-hearted, hilarious, snarky wedding-themed rom-com that is absolutely ripe for being made into a movie then look no further. Highly recommended.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

For the Love of Friends was an entertaining, feel-good read.

Lily is a single woman in her early 30s and finds herself a bridesmaid in FIVE weddings. The thought of that makes me want to rip my hair out. She tries her best to get through it, but has to deal with bridezillas and everyone having an opinion about her love life. Lily needs an outlet and starts writing an anonymous blog.

I can see how people might think Lily is a selfish person for broadcasting her closest friends’ and family’s dirty laundry. She really tried her best to be selfless, but how selfless can you be before you explode?

I loved the complexities of all of her relationships, especially her love interest. At first, it was difficult to keep all the characters straight; but I quickly fell in love with some of them.

This book is definitely one I plan to re-read and purchase a paper copy when it’s released.

Lily Weiss is a writer stuck in a prestigious but boring PR job who somehow ends up being a bridesmaid in 5 weddings simultaneously. As she manages her brides and family opinions on her weight, single status, and overall life prospects, Lily decides to channel her frustration into a blog called Bridesmania where she writes (mostly) honest and snarky recaps of her adventures. When she unexpectedly falls in love and reaches a breaking point, she has to climb out of a hole of her making.

While Lily was pretty heinous on the blog, I could have forgiven it had the main conflict in the book not been so absurd. My least favorite romance trope is months/years of tension based a simple misunderstanding, and that is the basis of Lily’s entire story. Without spoiling it, I felt as though we wound up to this huge cliff only to find out we had only climbed two feet off the ground. Lily is at times not a great friend, but more importantly, she has awful friends! A certain love interest redeemed the story - had this book simply been about friendship and family, I would have knocked another star 😕

this was actually cute and fun! i rarely read books within this genre because some don't just meet my expectations, but this was quite the book and i did enjoy my time with it. Another first from the author, a solid one and i would love to recommend.

This book was, for me, a little too complicated. I loved it, i love the author’s style and i love the dry wit of the main character, she made me laugh so many times, but i was also having a hard time following all the different characters. The point of the story is exactly that, that Lily has too many friends getting married at the same time, and the author showed the confusion of all the different friendships perfectly!
I loved it and will reread it for sure, as soon as i have enough time to delve in and remember the characters better!

What can I say?? This book was hilarious and heart warming, and showed the importance of friendship while still being light hearted.
Lucy is a single 32 year old who is invited to 5 weddings in two months, AS BRIDESMAIDS!. And to add insult to injury, two of them are her younger siblings.
And with her little income slipping through her fingers, mum-zillas let loose and killer bridesmaids, Lily finds it surprisingly cathartic to blog about it all. She can rant to a few thousand strangers and no one will know!
But what happens when everyone does know??
This book was so refreshing and funny and the writing was amazing! This is a classic for all lovers of rom-coms which are moderate on the romance and heavy on the comedy.

I LOVED this book. I cannot recall a moment where I was starting to get bored or uninterested. There was always a new little twist that kept me engaged.

Although I cannot directly relate to Lily, I can empathize with the way she is being treated by some of her closest friends and family. She had so many thoughts and feelings going through her head all at once, yet she did not want to upset any of the people she loved. So she translated those feelings into writing which is her biggest passion. This did come back to bite her in the butt when her post gains views. But there were a lot of lessons learned from this mistake that helped Lily develop as a character. I love the humor of her blogs and references to relatively recent events or people.

There were SO many relatable themes throughout the novel, which I think is what ultimately kept me so interested. I found myself reflecting about how I would respond in Lily's situation and understanding why she felt the way she did.

I think the way Sara Goodman Confino incorporated romance into this novel was clever and not too overbearing. It wasn't the main focus of the book, but it developed nicely and was really a cute story.

I would definitely recommend this as a joyful read with a great storyline, that'll leave you happy! Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it down. I was reading every break I got, which says a lot about the quality of a book.

As someone who has been a bridesmaid 11 times, I relate a lot to this story. After the kind of year we've all had, it's been really refreshing to read something lighter and fun!

For the Love of Friends follows Lily, a 32-year-old PR writer, who is in 5 weddings in the same year. She starts a blog about her experience to make a little more money so that she can cover the expenses of the weddings.

This is the book about a bridesmaid that we all needed. It was a riot and I could not stop reading. Though it was a little slow in the beginning because of all the background information, the story picked up in no time. One of my favorite things about the book, besides the blog posts themselves, was the voice of the main character Lily’s narrative voice was so much fun to read. She’s snarky, opinionated, and extremely funny. I really liked how Lily’s character developed through the course of the book. I really liked that she started to notice the things she could do to be a better person and be better toward her friends and family.

I really liked that the book also focused on the relationships between Lily and her friends, her family, and her love interest. It was nice to get a look at her friendship and family dynamics and see how they changed as she grew as a person. I enjoyed reading all these characters, they were so well fleshed out and so dynamic. I loved all the drama and all the hectic wedding events.

One of my favorite tropes to read is the best-friends to lovers trope and this book delivered. It’s definitely a slow burn. I loved seeing the evolution of their relationship and how they went from strangers to best friends to lovers.

This book was just a joy to read and I would highly recommend it.

For the Love of Friends is a hilarious but real look into the life of a bridesmaid...x5. Lily agrees to be in 5 weddings within a few short weeks of each other. And to cope, she starts an anonymous blog to rant about the Bridezillas.

This book was hilarious, with a narrator you both hate and relate to. Lily is not the most self aware person, but we all know that friend or family member. I’m sure we can also relate to some of the stressors she experiences as a bridesmaids, and how our friends can change when weddings are in the picture. This was a quick read that kept me on my toes. While it was somewhat predictable at times, it was fun to watch this all unfold in front of Lily. I definitely recommend this book if you want a laugh, and a light read.

This is a totally fun and enjoyable novel. For the Love of Friends is delightfully humorous and shines as one of the best funny book I have read.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This book as a lot of appeal for the mid twenties to mid thirties crowd. I really liked Lily and her friends—I felt like they reminded me of several of my friends and their own misadventures through dating, engagements, wedding planing, etc. I also love this because Lily really is a good friend and good bridesmaid, which did hurt the believability that she would write some of the blog posts she does. They were a little too on the nose/mean, but I guess they have to be in order to forward the plot (as opposed to taking the smarter, more discrete option of changing facts enough that the posts are still entertaining while not being too obvious). I thought the opening romance might mean this mostly women’s fiction book would also fall into a romance but the love story is definitely a side story to Lily’s relationships with her friends, but the story doesn’t suffer because of this.

Overall, I liked it. If you like 27 Dresses, Say Yes to the Dress and all those TLC spin-offs, or frankly have been a bridesmaid you will probably find someone to relate to in this book.

This book really surprised me, I loved Lily as a character and the story itself was a fun and easy read. I cannot recommend it enough.

I found this book entertaining and easy to read. However, I thought the story was a little overly simplistic.

Thank you to Netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For the Love of Friends grabbed me immediately. It was fun, honest, relatable, and, at times, heartbreaking. I found Lily Weiss to be quirky, and at times a bit annoying, but overall I really loved her character. As a former journalism major, I completely understood her need to write and a place to call her own.

However, I knew from the first blog post Lily wrote that it was going to end in disaster if her friends found the blog. Even though she never named anyone by name, there were too many personal details for it to be "anonymous."

There were certainly parts that I could see coming and expected to happen (let's just say "viral status"), but I love that it all ultimately led to Lily rediscovering her true passion, writing.

The book even inspired me to think about blogging again!

All in all, a really cute read.

“For the Love of Friends” is a whimsical novel by debut author, Sara Goodman Confino.

I have been reading a lot of serious fiction lately so this novel was a quirky surprise. We meet Lily, who like many writers, has an unfulfilling job that pays the bills. In her thirties, Lily has a variety of friends as well as a younger sister and brother getting married; she ends up being ask to step in as a bridesmaid in five different weddings in a two month period. All of that angst needs to be funneled somewhere and Lily decides to create a blog (and also raise a little cash for bridesmaid related expenses) where she anonymously posts about what it’s like to deal with a variety of brides and their accompanying eccentric family members.

The author has a lively writing style that pulls you write into the story. The different brides—especially Caryn and Megan—manage to avoid falling into most bridezilla clichés and instead, be entertaining. Each bride is well-developed though some of the situations they find themselves in are a bit plausible. The novel stays in Lily’s point of view—excerpts of her blog intermingled with her narration. Readers should be able to relate to Lily. How many of us felt like we were watching everyone get to do what they want to do while we stood on the sidelines? Because Lily was so likable, I was able to get past some of the forced plotting choices and occasional dialogue that did not ring true.

This is an enjoyable read and fits the bill for comfort food that tastes great doing down and doesn’t give you (too much) guilt when finished. 


Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for my advanced copy.

Quirky, contemporary and fairly relatable; "For the love of friends" is a fast-paced, engaging and heart-warming, albeit rather formulaic, read, ideal for getting one's mind off of things.

It’s currently 5am, and I just finished this book. I can’t remember the last time a book kept me up this late/early.
I absolutely loved the concept of this book, and found myself laughing out loud multiple times.
Lily was an entertaining main character, and I enjoyed her.
Anyone who has been in a wedding or multiple weddings in the same month will really get a kick out of it.
This book was great.

Thank you #netgalley and Lake Union for the E-ARC!

As someone who has worked in the industry, as well as a practiced bridesmaid, this was a delight.

Lily is a well-developed main character with relatable flaws and good intentions. Her “friends” and family add charm and depth to the story. And humor!

This was as satisfying and sweet as a piece of good wedding cake. I look forward to more from this debut author.