This comes out in 2022, and you should read it if you love romcoms with strong friendships and understanding your worth, plus laugh out loud moments. I spent half the book telling at Zoey but because i wasrouting for her

Enough spice to make it awkward to read during a flight.

I was hoping for a fun rom com. Bad Luck Bridesmaid was some of that. It was also the story of a woman put off on marriage and love. She considered herself that bad luck bridesmaid because of the number of brides that did not make it down the aisle.



Zoey is fun and quirky but also hard on herself. She puts a lot of pressure on herself to live life her way. Society calls for a woman to get married, settle down, and have children. This is not the life that Zoey wants or plans to live. When she got proposed to her entire life gets turned upside down. She questions if the answer she gives is the right answer for her.



This book was quick and fun to read, there were very few surprises and I enjoyed the unique ending. The book kept me entertained while not making me think too hard so I could just enjoy the story and the characters.

WHEW! How am I going to put this rollercoaster ride into words?! This is a brilliant, hilarious, and emotional story -- and not your typical romance at all, but I absolutely loved it.

I started reading this right after a historical romance reading spree, so adjusting to the writing style took me a moment. However, It didn't take long to see that Alison Rose Greenberg's writing style was something special. Our heroine, Zoey, takes us through her experiences as a wild child and independent woman--and we learn how her free spirit doesn't always fit in with tradition--and how this complicates love for her. A lot. 

The pace is perfect. I feel like it became more and more unputdownable as the story went on. I read the second half in one sitting--absolutely flying through the pages--desperate to see how it would all turn out. 

This book is at the intersection of romcom, emotional romance, and women's fiction. It was extremely emotional and I felt more invested in this story than I have in a book in a long time. I felt that I came to care about all of the characters, despite their flaws. In general, a book that gets "steamy" is usually a romance or romcom, but I loved that this book didn't shy away from open door romance scenes, even though it does overlap with women's fiction. 

The characters felt so real and well developed, and I found myself rooting for and relating to all of them in different ways. They are frustrating, they make huge mistakes, there are some morally grey moments and yet they all deserve romance happily ever afters. 

I just feel like I got so much more from this book than I expected. I absolutely love it and recommend it to EVERYONE!

I went into this book from the description thinking it would be a rom-com, but it ended up being much more about Zoey discovering herself and what she wants.

This was a three star read for me because I found the main character to be unlikeable for a good portion of the book. She calls herself the “Queen of Banter” and says things like, “I don’t want him back…I just-I don’t want him happy with anyone else.”
I did come around to her towards the end though, even though I wasn’t a big fan of the ending.
The conflicts in this book also center around miscommunication, which is by far my least favorite trope.

I did think the book was pretty funny at times, and I loved the relationship between Zoey and Hannah. Overall, the writing was really good and I enjoyed it, but I was just expecting something different.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review

I LOVED this book. The character was so relatable, the writing wonderful and I couldn't put it down. The ending left me wishing for something completely different! I still really enjoyed reading this book but didn't buy the choice made at the end.

Zoey Marks is convinced she’s cursed, that it’s her standing between her friends and their Forever. She is the bridesmaid in three wedding where no bride gets down the aisle, and so she mentally becomes the novel’s namesake: Bad Luck Bridesmaid. But she is smart and vivacious and ambitious, so to her, who needs love, that is until her best friend’s cousin comes to town and Rylan has her questioning everything she thought about love. This book is not a romance. It is a story about love, but more than anything, it’s about loving yourself. I couldn’t put it down. I loved the writing style and the characters. I stayed up til past midnight to finish it. Everyone was so unique and interesting. It was a little heavy on the introspection, but it’s fluid and fast-moving. I think at times Zoey gets a little pretentious, emphasizing how much she’s not like other girls, but at the same time, she’s so honest. She’s strong and a go-getter, and she isn’t afraid of what she wants. She’s a very admirable character with a lot of heart and spunk. I think Rylan is so interesting too, he’s genuine and loves to intensely. I did like him a lot more in the first half than the second. And Zoey’s best friend Hannah is an absolute gem. She’s sweet and complex and just a great friend. Zoey and Hannah are both flawed and complex characters that just shine. This is a beautiful story of friendship and personal growth and finding what makes you happy and being unafraid to admit that. The characters are so genuine and interesting, and I loved the Taylor Swift mentions throughout! It is a fun and wonderful read!

5 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
I would definitely be recommending this book to readers on my Instagram bookstagram account.

I really liked this book! It was real and honest. The characters were so real and raw as well! I thought this was just going to be a really light-hearted story and I would not explain it that way after reading it. It really dove into what real relationships are like and didn't sugar coat it.

This was a sweet rom-com. Zoey was due to be a bridesmaid 3 different times but the weddings didn't happen. Zoey doesn't accept her boyfriend's proposal thinking their wedding will turn out doomed too. Her friend is is getting married and Rylan will be there. Can Zoey and Rylan work out their differences? Or are they meant to be doomed too? I enjoyed the characters but am not a fan of the ending. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are mine.

Wow. This is now my favorite rom-com of all time!! Greenberg really knows how to tell a story! The main character Zoey is like my spirit animal! She is a fiercely independent woman and I live for it! This book gave me so many emotions: happiness, sadness, excitement, joy, anxiety (in the best way!) I cannot say enough positive things about this book. If you are looking for a book that will make you laugh and a constant page turner then read this book!

I think I may be older than the intended audience for this book. Instead of being the typical age of a bridesmaid, I am the age where the children of some of my friends are starting to get married. This book had a cute story about Zoey, whose presence as a bridesmaid seems to curse brides and stop their weddings from happening. She also has a dreamy boyfriend who lives in the perfect apartment, and they are the perfect couple. Except that Zoey doesn’t want to get married.
The story continues when her best friend gets engaged and quickly plans a romantic destination wedding in Ireland. But, will this wedding go through? Will Zoey get married, or at least engaged to her boyfriend?
Overall it was a cute, light read. However, I did find that it dragged a little bit for me about two-thirds of the way through the book. I just found Zoey to be a little shallow. I think that was part of the storyline, but it just got old.

This is a good book. The two main characters are Zoey and Rylan. Rylan is a cousin of Zoey’s best friend. They start dating, move in together, which leads Rylan to ask Zoe to marry him. She does not say yes, which leads Rylan to tell Zoey to be moved out by the next day. Zoey has trust issues. When Zoey’s best friend gets married she ask Zoey to be her maid of honor and she has to run into Rylan. She realizes that Rylan still loves her and want to marry her, but she doesn’t want to marry, but loves him. He leaves once again.

After the initial pages, I found myself not connecting with the story or characters, so I decided to pass on this book. Did not finish

This was a nice read-not too long, a quick plot, and a woman learning about herself. There was light romance in here I would say, but it was definitely a women's fiction book rather than a romance, in case the title gives you any rom-com inclinations! Bad Luck Bridesmaid follows Zoey through her journey of learning whether or not she wants marriage out of life, and feeling as if she is the root reason that 3 of her friends so far have just about walked down the aisle before calling off their weddings. Her BFF is about to get married and Zoey is desperate to prove that she can get one bride actually married. It's a cute plot, but overall it was an okay story.

There was a lot going on in this story. The first half read like exposition, and the second half was where the main story kicked in. I wish we could have gotten more time in the second part of the novel. I enjoyed the setting and the friendship between Zoey and Hannah, the bride-to-be. That part was excellent!

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for the e-ARC.

Bad Luck Bridesmaid was a quick contemporary book (some romance but ultimately its about accepting yourself) where we follow thirty year old Zoey who has been a bridesmaid at each of her friends wedding and has noticed one glaring similarity (besides having her in the wedding party), that none of the brides ever made it down the aisle. It's because of this, that she is skeptical about the idea of love. While she is a lover of romantic comedies, in her personal life, love hasn't really been a priority. That is until she meets Rylan.....


I found this book heartwarming and an easy, fast read. Zoey was a complicated main character, her friendship with Hannah was endearing. I REALLY wish we would have seen more of a relationship develop with Ezra, the characters had very realistic flaws and I enjoyed the overall story. I'm a BIG HEA fan so the ending fell a little flat for me, HOWEVER I can see how a lot of people have enjoyed it. that was more a matter of personal preference. Alison Rose Greenberg definitely wrote a story that I flew through and I look forward to reading more of her work


thank you to netgalley and st martins for the e arc in exchange for my honest review.

Such fun to spend time with such messy characters! That's one thing that always elevates a good 'chick lit' story: a lot of attention paid to the surrounding cast of characters, and they're such disasters (in a fun way) that you have lots of characters to follow/cheer for/root against. Time spent with these characters is time spent in their world, engaging as the author could possibly make it. We're drawn into the 'bad luck bridesmaid' theme, and author lets us feel what it must be like to be seen with that kind of stigma. But we're led through the wonderful layers of story to find resolutions everywhere. Delightful.

2.5 ⭐️

It’s more of a rant that a review, but:

Bad Luck Bridesmaid was an emotional rollercoaster, but definitely not a good one. It’s messy and not to mince words, but the main character Zoey is awful and I kind of hate her 😬

After being a bridesmaid in 3 failed weddings, Zoey prides herself on dodging the bullet that is long term relationships. She eventually gets coerced by her best friend to go on a blind date with her cousin, which ends in her letting her commitment issues completely destroy their relationship when he proposes 2 years later and she turns him down. It seems that in all their time together she was never able to explain her extreme dislike of marriage or that their versions of forever are VERY different. Just so much unnecessary heartache that could have been avoided.

We spend all this time rooting for her and Rylan, feeling all that heartache, and for what?! Some post break up sex, admissions of still loving each other, and then realizing that love isn’t enough?! Neither were willing to compromise to make their relationship really work in the end….

Bah! I’m so frustrated with this book lol

I heard a speaker say recently, "What is the best that can happen?" Zoey believes the worst about herself and the effect it has on her friends. Bad luck seems to follow her, not only in her friends' relationships, but in her own life also. Love is a hard thing to navigate, especially when the worst always seems to happen. Will Zoey be able to overcome the bad luck? Will she realize that maybe her bad luck is actually good luck? Read it to see! You won't want to miss the ending, trust me...

this was super easy to read and get into. it was a solid read. I was expecting this to be more on the romance side because of the cover but it did lean more towards women’s fiction. I loved the whole idea of zoey being “cursed” as a bridesmaid and overall it was a pretty interesting read.

Greenberg's novel starts as a dramatic comedy of sorts. The protagonist is a woman who prefers her independence to relationships, her freedom to being tied down, and thinks that her inability to get brides down the aisle makes her very unlucky for anybody who wants to be married.

Zoey Marks is a quirky, complicated woman who had loving, intelligent parents who were in a good relationship. Her best friend, Chelsea, was the "perfect" daughter and person. They were each other's person, even if they were in relationships. Chelsea, was Zoey's opposite. She loved being in long-term relationships and doing what others expected of her. Zoey, however, rebelled against all expectations. Any time she was supposed to do one thing, she did another, just to prove that she could. This pattern is shown throughout the story. And it gets annoying.

--SPOILER ALERT --

By the end of the story, Zoey comes to the realization that she is "complicated" and that is okay. What is not okay is how she treats others who love her. Basically this story ends in an extraordinary selfish manner. Instead of the protagonist realizing she is complicated but can take care of those who love her while remaining true to herself, she decides that what she wants is the only thing that matters, everybody else be damned. While that is something children do, a complicated, grown woman should have figured out how to balance her fundamental truths with the fundamental truths of those she loves. That is how relationships work, any relationship, especially one that she was in with a man that she supposably loved. While others may find her actions freeing, I found them juvenile and selfish. However beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Overall, this is a fun and easy read. The protagonist is likable for the most part and she does come to several important realizations. Somehow, though, those realizations do not influence her final big decisions. But she does learn to love her complicated self, which is a very important realization that any person needs to have.