Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I think this book just increased my wariness of being a bridesmaid by a thousand-fold!

For the Love of Friends follows Amy, a 32-year-old who by what she deems a series of unfortunate events, is invited to be a bridesmaid in 5 different weddings. Chaos ensues as she attempts to juggle all the different events, overbearing bridal parties, and her own relationship prospects.

For the Love of Friends accurately explores the dark underbelly of all things wedding planning, including bridezillas, overbearing mothers-of-the-bride, toxic wedding diet-culture, wild bachelorettes, and the sheer EXPENSE of it all. The things you'd never see in the IG photos.

As someone who loves watching Charlotte Dobre's Bridezilla series on YouTube and reading about crazy behind-the-scenes wedding experiences on the internet, I found this book to be quite entertaining. The writing was simple and easy to follow making for a light and fun read.

I will say though, that this book focuses on a very specific type of "wedding." Weddings, as we know, look different depending on one's family, background, location and culture. While the budgets for each of these weddings varied, they all seemed to be of similar size. Additionally, being a bridesmaid seemed to entail similar things for all of these weddings...dress shopping, bachelorettes, bridal showers, etc.

Those who don't relate to this specific type of wedding festivity or simply aren't enamored with this form of wedding culture may quickly find themselves tired of or unsympathetic to a lot of the events of this book.

Overall, a fun and quick read!

This book was really fun, although it also got quite sad and frustrating at times. The main character called Lily finds herself being a part of five weddings, with two of them being her younger siblings' weddings, which puts a strain on her mentally, financially, and logistically. How is she supposed to attend all of the showers, parties, dress fittings, and actual weddings, and more importantly, how is she going to pay for it all?

The wedding industry in the US is just a special kind of unbelievable and some of the brides and bridesmaids became quite unreasonable - they wanted her to buy and wear a minimizing bra so that she can look "better" in the pictures (be aware that there is A LOT OF body shaming in this book), do several cosmetic procedures, change her hair color, pay thousands of dollars for a bachelorette party trip she wasn't even able to attend... in this sense, it felt incredulous and not relatable at all that someone would agree to some of these demands.

Lily starts a blog where she rants about the brides, bridesmaids, and her family members, and she isn't always nice but in the end, I still thought that her friends should have been apologizing to her, too. The way the blog went viral and she made thousands of dollars from it felt a bit far-fetched but what do I know... The boss in this one? Wow, if only more employers acted like that haha.

I really liked her friendship with Alex, although the miscommunication between them, which lasted the whole book, really bothered me. It wasn't the typical miscommunication trope where the characters don't talk about their feelings but it felt quite unrealistic that they would never discuss that one thing and thus it remained unexplained until the very end. Miscommunication is just one of my least favorite tropes but the friends-the lovers and fake-dating ones made it up to me. :- )

Overall, this book was great, I liked that we also got the actual blog posts, and I would be interested to read more from this author.

sadly, before i could download this title, netgalley took it off their catalog. that means i can’t review this one. HOWEVER, i will be checking in with my library to see if i can get a copy and review it that way

Four stars for this sweet, funny and emotional. This one has all the feels of a rom-com wedding movie complete with bridezilla's and overextended bridesmaids. I really liked Lily and was rooting for her to find her own HEA. I laughed at moments and cried as Lily faced some hard truths. I recommend this one to fans of rom-coms.

This book was brilliant enjoyed the storyline.and it was funny.

Lily ends up agreeing to being a bridesmaid to five different weddings. It all start fine then some of the brides end up being brides from hell. Lily decides to write a blog about the all the things that happen to her leading up to the weddings. She ends up becoming friends with one of the groomsmen for one of the weddings and they help each other out of situations.

I throughly enjoyed the writing and certainly would read more of this author.

●Loved the writing style
●Love the body positivity
●Love the switch between the serious tone to humour
●It felt very realistic

This was such a fun story. I loved Lily and although the book was a little predictable at times, I loved it. Definitely recommend it for a light, fun read!

Single thirtysomething Lily somehow finds herself agreeing to be a bridesmaid in 5 weddings during the same summer. Slowly she starts losing her mind over backstabbing bridesmaids and exactly how much money she's supposed to be spending on ugly dresses she'll never ever wear again. So she starts her own blog, as a way to let off some steam. And maybe also to find an extra source of income, because who knew five weddings would cost her this much?

This was a fairly enjoyable 27 Dresses inspired story. The overwhelming amount of body-shaming felt par for the course after a while, to the point where I even stopped noticing it. Certain side characters became more exaggerated as time went on, to the detriment of my enjoyment of the story. And unfortunately my dislike of the main character increased over time. At first I couldn't understand why she never said anything to her friends or family about their unreasonable demands, but as her blog became more important to her, it tipped over from her trying to keep the peace to her making sure people would keep clicking on her blog.

And yet I find myself extraordinarily annoyed that it was Lily who had to do all the apologizing at the end (because of course "anonymous" isn't really a thing anymore online). Because we spend 95% of the story hearing all about how demanding every bride is, how mean all the other bridesmaids are, how mom doesn't like Lily as much as her siblings, and so on and so forth, you're kind of left wanting everyone else to get down on their knees and apologize to Lily instead of mainly the other way around.

Good love interest, even though the author managed to wedge a late instance of miscommunication into their romance that was very, very annoying to read through.

Overall, I felt like this could have been better. But as is, it's an entertaining read to lose yourself in for a day or two.

Thanks @netgalley for the arc!

Lily Weiss is her mother’s worst nightmare: thirty-two and single. She’s also a talented writer but hides behind a boring job at a science foundation. To her friends, she’s reliable and selfless, which is how she winds up a bridesmaid in five weddings in six weeks. To keep her sanity, Lily needs a safe place to vent. And so her anonymous blog, Bridesmania, is born. The posts start pouring out of her: all the feels about mom-zillas, her vanishing bank balance, the wicked bridesmaids of the west, high-strung brides-to-be, etc. So far the blog has stayed anonymous. But as everyone knows, few things online remain secret forever…

This book was fun, snarky and I enjoyed reading the blog posts. However, I didn't like the whole idea of why Lily started her blog in the first place. She badmouthed her family and friends and practically called her friend a doormat, yet she never stood up for herself or said no to something that she didn't want to do which in the end made her snarky. The bridesmaids were annoying and personally I didn't think she was that close to some of her friends to be a bridesmaid. Also, who tells their supposed best friend to get botox for the wedding aesthetic and pictures? In the end, she lost some things, which was unfortunate. However, I did enjoy the romance subplot, although that did take the backseat. I would have enjoyed seeing more of the romance. I also liked the mended relationship between Lily and her mom. My favourite characters were Lily's grandmother (hilarious) and her new sister-in-law, although I wish we could have gotten to know her more.

Overall, this was an enjoyable and fast-paced read.

This is the debut novel for Sara Goodman Confino and it was great!
Bridalmana … hilarious!
I loved the blogs.
This is a great light read. Such fun!!!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for my honest review.

I tried really hard to get into this book but I just could not make myself like this book.

I’m not sure if it’s because I am more of a romance reader instead of a women’s fiction reader but I unfortunately could not finish this book.

Thank you to #Netgalley for the opportunity to read this eArc.

For the love of friends follows Lily as she is involved as a bridesmaid/made of honour in five weddings in the same five months, two of those weddings being her little brother and little sister. The book follows Lily as she struggles to grapple with her suddenly busy life in a season of romance whilst she grapples with her own love life, which may include the writing of a tell all blog about her brides.

Before I start huge triggers for fatphobia, body shaming, demonization of food.

ugghh I really wanted to like this book, I thought wow, a nice chill romance involving wedding season- I'm in. what I didn't expect was to be transported to the 50s possibly, even the early 2000s romcoms weren't this bad. i mean not to be rude but how did this get published in 2021? how did someone read this and edit it and say hmm, yes there's nothing wrong with this book.

The language used in here was so problematic, and I haven't even touched on the body shaming and fatphobia yet. The way using a wheelchair was referred to, casual slut shaming, the list goes on.

The body shaming/fatphobia was rife in this book, the book was essentially made up of it and what killed me was that this woman is a size 12eu, at most, with boobs and they treat her like this, i am so happy there weren't any actually fat characters because the abuse they would've received would have been horrendous.

I hate to say it but the only redeeming quality of this book was the love interest Alex, like ma'am you had a host of characters, majority female, and the only good one is the man??

I like an unlikeable character as much of the next person, but this girl was not a fun or interesting unlikeable character she was just bland and mean at times in a not fun way.

Yeah, I just hated this book and I would not recommend it at all .

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thought and opinions are my own.

This book is hilarious, right from the start, and the moment Lily wakes up in a hotel room with a naked guy beside her and doesn't know who he is, or rather which one of the groomsmen he is from her best friends wedding....awkward much?!

Lily has been invited to 5 weddings which are all around the same time. 2 of them are friends, 1 a work colleague and the other two are her siblings. So she can't really dip out or decline the invites to be Maid of Honour or Bridesmaid. I personally think she needs to find some new friends because some of these are b*****s! They expect her to pay for her own dresses, bridal parties, trips abroad, presents not to mention suggesting she goes on a diet and has botox. Her character is brilliant and is full of whit and sarcasm to these situations. In order to vent her frustrations she starts a wedding blog, basically slating most of the brides and the wedding parties, whilst some of her comments are rude they are correct. The book is full of brilliant characters like Alex who is so lovely and my favourite Lily's Grandmother, she is hilarious. I hope I am like her when I am in my 80's, she's brilliant.

I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to everyone who needs a laugh and a little romance in their lives. Brilliant.

A sweet, madcap, contemporary novel perfect for that beach read by the pool – from Amazon’s book club imprint Lake Union Publishing.

Our heroine Lily is trying to survive the upcoming year where she is a bridesmaid in five (yes, five) weddings for friends and family in just as two-month period. Attempting to balance her job, her maid of honor/bridesmaid duties, not to mention her budget is stretching her to the breaking point. Finicky friends, family jealousies, and a cram-packed schedule push her to the point of losing it. Then there’s the groomsmen Lily slept with after one of wedding-related event parties (oops) who she’s desperately trying to avoid. Can Lily keep her sanity and survive a budding romance with a friend as well? Hop on board this crazy ride of a book and find out!

Some parts were a bit predictable, and it was a bit boggy in the first half with all of the wedding preparations (could have been peppier). But the book had an awesome theme of being brave and not scared to do what you love.

Recommended for fans of novels highlighting the craziness of the modern world in the vein of Julie Valerie’s Holly Banks Village of Primm series or Emma Gannon’s Olive, or for your next book club read.

A big thank you to debut author Sara Goodman Confino, Lake Union Publishing, and NetGalley for providing a complimentary Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for this honest review.

To grab a copy of For the Love of Friends for yourself, head on over to www.BookShop.org – the online bookstore that gives 75% of each book’s profit margin back to independent bookshops. Find yours at https://bookshop.org/lists/best-fiction-of-2021.

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The book delivered on what it promised to be -- somewhat high-stress bridesmaids shenanigans, with a cast of kooky friends and family members alternately demanding the moon or haranguing our put-upon protagonist about her own lack of a wedding ring... It was funny and cute, but the circus of weddings and crazy friends honestly overstimulated me. I felt exhausted for Lily, as though I'd been running around with her! I also had a bit of a hard time with the family dynamic. From my single lady friends who also have big Jewish families, this apparently is very accurate. However, it was hard for me to read the sniping and nasty back-handed comments from the family, especially all the body-shaming content. Lily recognized and rejected the critiques, but then simultaneously actively participated in it... it kind of bummed me out, to be honest. Lastly, just wanted to give a heads up that this is one of those stories where there's one big secret, everything falls apart around it, and then there's a big apology-montage, essentially. I don't love this framework myself, but if it works for you, this is your next read! Overall, fun, frothy, an easy, quick read, and the romance is pretty good.

4.50 ⭐️

This was a super quick and funny rom-com! I really enjoyed it and finished it in less than 6 hours so I highly recommend if you’re looking for something light and funny and also easy to get into!
I liked our main protagonist Lily! She was hilarious but the one quality that made me absolutely love her was how unapologetically herself she was! In the kind of situations she was put in the book, her reactions were idealistic for me because I don’t think I’ll ever have enough courage like her.

The romance was supremely adorable! It was more of a friends to lovers romance and I loved how Alex was always here for Lily whenever she needed him! He was also so sweet, nice and charming so there really was nothing to not like. Their little coffee note exchange was sooo cute!!

We saw some real bridezilla action and some of the things bridesmaids have been asked to do were so atrocious that I was laughing at the impossibility of it all!
There were also some discussions about you’re asked to loose weight for weddings, change how you look, etc which is SO not okay and I appreciated how Lily took a stand for herself when it came to that!

Because of the setting, there were so many characters in this book! I really liked how it still wasn’t confusing and everybody seemed fleshed out and real. Also, kudos to the author for managing Lily’s time between all her friends and family AND having an adorable romance on the side. I can’t imagine the amount of time it must’ve taken.

There was so much drama and chaos so if you like that kind of setting in books (I DO) then I would definitely recommend this one! And also to all my fellow comedy lovers because it was less romantic and more comedic but super fun!

This was such a fun book! I absolutely loved Lily and was rooting for her both personally and professionally. I highly recommend this for any woman who enjoys a good laugh.

I had a ball reading the blog posts of Lily. They were witty,full of drama and shows an evolution of the character Lily.
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As you continue reading story, you will realise she is your everyday girl with a potential to write which also reflects the author's work in the story. I could see myself in Lily so much maybe because I have also asked myself the question " DO THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO WORK" when it came to organising stuff with my friends (nt kiddin).
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You can sense the frustration, the envy, the longing to have someone in Lily as she tells you tales through her blogs but she also brings you back to the ground when she becomes self-aware at various moments. She certainly will seem the most mature amongst the entire crowd but you will also catch her at her foolishness in the story. Enjoy her story with Alex. I saved the best for the last.

DNF at 17% after her first blog post. Every character is so cringy, the women are all doormats, sarcastic spinsters (MC), or mean girls. And I realize the venting online aspect of the story was in the description but her post was so mean and incredibly specific even if she avoided names. Anyone can see how that’s going to end up and it just does not sound like an enjoyable journey. I didn’t even want to stick around for the romance because I didn’t like any of the characters. This book just feels unkind to women, so many negative stereotypes in one book.

As a 30-something I could very much relate to the main character Lily and the weddings all around her. What will happen when he private thoughts and opinions on these weddings aren't so private anymore? In the age of social media/blogging, I liked this story and it reminded me of chick-lit movies of the past. I would recommend to those readers who like chick lit and contemporary, humorous romance. Thanks to netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.