👰‍♀️👹Book Review:
Title: So Happy For You
Author: Celia Laskey
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/4 stars

Wow, this is definitely not your normal wedding, maid-of-honor type of book. I know some women are considered "bridezillas" in preparation for their big day, but Ellie is beyond that description. Makes you think twice about taking on the huge role of maid of honor!

It seems pretty obvious that Ellie would ask her best friend, Robin, to be her maid of honor after years of friendship. Robin is hesitant to accept because she herself doesn't believe in the practice of matrimony. She believes it's just a money pit with unrealistic expectations. But alas, she eventually accepts knowing that Ellie would never forgive her if she didn't. That doesn't mean she's happy about it.

As the big day looms closer, Ellie seems to start acting very odd. She decides to incorporate strange spells into her ceremony and the events prior. Killing a rabbit at her wedding rehearsal dinner is just an example. Then Robin realizes she is the main character in the biggest spell that Ellie plans on casting. Maybe she should have stuck with her gut intuition to decline the role? This book was nuts!!! Ellie was nuts!!!

Published: June 7th, 2022

Thank you, @netgalley and @hanoversquarepress, for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I loved Under the Rainbow, and while this book wasn't as successful for me, I still enjoyed it. There is a lot of dark, satirical, and truly funny writing here.

Thanks so much to the publisher for the review cop!

BOOK: So Happy For You
GENRE: Thriller
RATING: 2 stars
THOUGHTS: This was entertaining & I felt like it gave a really dramatized view on wedding culture which wasn’t good nor bad. But the MC was one of the worst I’ve ever read. The author made it a point to insert her opinions on quite literally every social issue out there (which don’t get me wrong I AGREED with but not necessary to include). The book was APPARENTLY intended to be FUNNY and I did not laugh or even think about laughing. It missed the satire mark big time. Frustrated upon finishing.

This book is utterly adorable. I would probably definitely call it a beach read, but I was thoroughly entertained the entire time I was reading !

Society has become obsessed with marriage, and not just marriage a long lasting, successful marriage.
Bride's preform different acts and charms to ensure a successful marriage, sacrificing a rabbit, drinking the blood of a virgin, and whispers of far more sinister charms circulate on online wedding forums.

When Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honour, Robin goes against her better judgement, puts aside her personal feelings of marriage and agrees. This decisions sets her down a dark path of marriage charms and pranks and some pranks you cant walk away from.

This was an interesting book, definitely a little darker than I was expecting, but it was a fun ride.
Robin and Ellie were both pretty annoying characters and they were both a bad friend in their own way.

This book started out so promising and I was so intrigued by what might happen int he future. However, I just got so bored in the middle I couldn't really finish it. Maybe I will pick it up later.

“If you want to know the story of how my best friend and I ended up trying to kill each other, I should probably start with the night she asked me to be her maid of honor.”

Thus begins SO HAPPY FOR YOU, a darkly funny satirical-slash-dystopian novel about a friendship and a wedding gone horribly wrong. The story imagines a world eerily similar to our own but where government support for marriage and babies increases drastically, the cultural obsession with weddings rises accordingly, and women are desperate to find a suitable match. Robin, a lesbian working on her PhD in feminist studies, is asked to be the maid of honor at her high school best friend Ellie’s wedding, to which she begrudgingly agrees (and partially for research purposes). What starts off recognizable soon becomes totally unhinged as Ellie begins dabbling in so-called “charms” for ensuring a long-lasting marriage, leading to the novel’s brutal climax. It’s an absolute ride of a book that’s highly entertaining, while also offering powerful insights. The friendship between two very different women is at the core of this novel and it’s a wild, beautiful thing. The way their relationship shifts over time, from girlhood intimacy to something sharper and more complex, rings so true. I also really liked Robin and her character development; a lot of us queer, feminist, leftist folks will see a lot to recognize (and cringe at) in her. There were a few aspects that felt a bit unfinished to me. Definitely recommend to anyone who loves “Black Mirror” and/or has ever been in a friend’s wedding. Thanks to Hanover Square Press for the eARC!

Content warnings: homophobia, sexism, racism, animal sacrifice/death, near-drowning/poisoning and other attempted murders

This book is WILD, and intense and sure is a RIDE. It’s very clearly about how intense The Wedding Industry is, with more emphasis placed on The Wedding Itself than on, you know, marriage. Some of the things that happen in this book kind of border on the surreal, and some things are so funny that you can’t stop laughing but afterwards you kind of go, “that wasn’t funny, that was horrific and a nightmare??”. Kind of a nightmare exhausting book! I really…. recommend it? But I do think you should read up a little on this book and kind of know what you’re getting into, which I don’t usually recommend. And dedicate Some Time to it. Four stars.

So Happy For You is a crackling, larger than life story of a wedding gone awry, and a commentary on marriage as an institution.

What worked for me:
A lot of this book really resonated with me: I have ✨️issues✨️ with the wedding industry, expectations of bridesmaids, and honestly just a lot of things wedding related. Important to note: I say wedding-related, not marriage related, and So Happy For You has a lot of spot on commentary here.

What didn't work for me:
This book is meant to be over the top and satirical: it operates in a world of extremes, in an alternate-but-not-so-far-off reality where people are wedding CRAZED. I personally lean into books that are heavily nuanced, and this book leans into absurdity. Not a criticism of the book itself: the outlandishness is executed well, just not my cup of tea.

Overall, an absolutely wild ride that I'd recommend for anyone who likes things wacky, or to anyone who's been a bridesmaid 😉

If you’ve ever been a bridesmaid, or a bride with bad bridesmaids, so much of this story will be relatable and make you laugh. Parts of the story were so over the top and I’m not sure if the author did that to make a point, or to make a story. The story does make you think about marriage, the wedding industry, and how society places too much importance on a wedding instead of a marriage. I hope the author took things to the next level as a way to encourage deeper thinking about these topics. But it did also make for a wild ride of a story.

This was absolutely bonkers and I ate up every second of it!

NGL, it could’ve been a little more sinister at the end there, but alas, what am I gonna do?


anyway…criminalize hetero norms

Our main character, Robin, is gay and happily living with her long-term partner and has zero interest in ever getting married. Her childhood BFF, Ellie, however, is increasingly desperate to find a husband, and when she succeeds in snagging a man (Kaivan, pronounced Kevin lol), Robin begrudgingly agrees to be her Maid of Honor and shit gets real weird, real fast. From broken glass-laden trust falls to rabbit slaughter to bachelorette party kidnappings, Ellie seems determined to put Robin in more and more dangerous situations.

This story was bonkers, and I loved it. Laskey's satirical take on the wedding industrial complex was witty and smart and funny -- and by adding just a few tweaks to existing wedding traditions, she's shown how easy it would be to take American society's wedding obsession to new levels of insanity. I also loved how she portrayed the wild extremes of female friendships -- from showering together and basically melding into one person to not talking for years to trying to reforge a friendship as adults with very different lives.

This book was so enjoyable -- I highly recommend it (unless you are about to be a bridesmaid, in which case, maybe hold off? OR maybe you should read it immediately and consider yourself warned?)

I was really excited to read this one, but it just wasn’t for me. I really struggled through it, and by 30% it was DNF for me. The writing style didn’t work for me either.

This book was hilarious. Celia Laskey has mastered the art of continually heightening the story until it reaches a ridiculous, somewhat predictable/inevitable but nonetheless really enjoyable climax. I didn't really love the ending, especially given that it somewhat undermined everything we knew about Robin's character up until that point, but it didn't bother me enough to take away from the fun of the read overall. Plus, it's apparently wedding season (not in my world thankfully, lol) and this book being released now is kind of the perfect antidote.

There are some pretty spot-on/snarky observations about marriage culture (particularly straight marriage culture) and what it does to women, which I suppose could feel a bit too pointed if you were sensitive to such things - I'm not, so I just thought it was funny. I also really liked Robin as a character, particularly because she was so obnoxiously unlikeable at times, which made her all the more real and relatable.

Thanks, as always, to NetGalley for the ARC.

Metaphors abound in this suspenseful tale of irony, selfishness, and self-righteousness.

Robin and Ellie became best friends at a time where they needed each other the most. Growing up can be difficult, so finding a friend who feels like a soulmate can be life-changing. But once attached at the hip, they drift apart as they go off to college and start down different life paths. Years later, when Ellie finds the man of her dreams, she asks Robin to put aside their differences and serve as her maid of honor. Robin, however, is uneasy about the prospect. Not only have they grown apart, but grad student Robin's doctoral thesis is on the negative impact marriage has on our culture. Deciding she can use this for her research, Robin reluctantly agrees -- and immediately regrets it. What began as a way to bridge their friendship and to get much-needed firsthand research on her thesis topic, Robin finds herself fighting for her life instead. Is she overreacting to each "near miss", or Ellie really out to kill Robin in an effort to bring good luck to her upcoming wedding?

Thoughts: Robin is not your typical unlikable character -- she doesn't drink (often) or do drugs, and she's clinically insane. But whether or not you agree with her POV, the way she tries to force her views on others makes her more than a bit annoying at times. However, the hypocrisy of Robin's judgement of others given her own strong opinions not only drives the plot forward but also led me to reflect on the way I express my views and how I view others who I disagree with. Laskey challenges readers who truly think about what they're reading to become introspective with her metaphors on life, culture, and what we deem "tradition", and it's been a while since a fiction book has forced me to self-reflect and really make me think; when Robin's therapist tells her most people don't connect their opinions with their self-identity, I had to sit and stare at the wall for a while. Also, having an undergrad degree in media communications, I liked how Laskey uses her main character to explain the history of wedding traditions that are tied to the economy and advertising. There are a lot of interesting cultural "easter eggs" throughout the story and that was honestly the most fun part of the plot for me. This book would be perfect for sociology and communications students, women who are caught up in the wedding "season", and anyone else who's a fan of cultural irony.

**Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin for this DRC in exchange for an honest review.**

4.5, This book was completely unhinged and I loved it. It was kind of slow at the start and I almost dnf-ed it BUT I powered through and I am so happy that I did. I have so many feelings about this book but to leave this spoiler free, I'll just say read this book, the twists just kept coming.

Thanks NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

This is a strange little book that I don't really know how to review! The protagonist has an engaging sense of voice and I read it in virtually one sitting. I did enjoy it for the most part and it was easy to read but I would've like a smidge more from it!

DNF at 15%.

I really struggled to get into this book, but I but the writing style just wasn't working for me in the end. I also didn't realize it was more dystopia which ended up just not being for me. I

This was something completely unexpected! Ok! The description made me think this was about a bridesmaid who is sort of over the whole wedding complex but is sucking it in to stand up for her best friend.

Boy was I wrong!

This was creepy, eerie, and wholly original. It takes place in a not-so-distant future where the only distinguishable difference that was explored, was the emphasis on marriage has become overwhelming in society. Marriage is rammed down people's throats -- especially women's -- and once you get to a certain age, the pressure is on. People use wedding "charms" - from harmless things like carrying a sage bouquet down the aisle, to sacrificing animals -- to ensure their marriages will be successful. In this book, the bride-to-be starts acting strange...then dangerously strange...until the bridesmaid realizes she's in real danger.

I can't say much more without giving it away, but rest assured that this book looks like one thing but is in fact quite another. The cheerful pink cover belies a very disturbing, yet entertaining story. Thank you very much for the opportunity to read this book!

I loved so much about this book- the wedding drama, the laughs, the hilarity, but, unfortunately, I didn't expect it to go so off the rails at the end and that really threw me off. I would like future readers to expect this, this book is NOT rooted in reality, and is maybe somewhat of a satire. Had I known that going in, I think I may have found more success. Still enjoyed it nonetheless!