I liked that this had good bi/queer representation, but it wasn’t enough to save the book. The main character was overly self-absorbed and just wasn’t likable. I finished the book, but overall was just not memorable. I had really high hopes though.

This is a story about friendship, love, found family, and self-discovery.

3.5 rounded up
1.5 spice

This was a really solid read! Lot of people seemed to take issue with Andi but she made perfect sense to me as a character with her trauma. As a therapist it makes sense to me why she feels “unlikeable”. When you go through trauma like that you experience PTSD and it’s a struggle for her to show up how she wants to show up because she’s fighting the PTSD. But she does try and she does have character development!

Loved :
- Owen what a cutie! So sweet and respectful and supportive and understanding!!
- Andi and Owen banter
- “A pastry for your thoughts” ❤️
- The friendships and found family
- Descriptions of stunning Italian views and the food!! (I’m going to Italy this year and it’s really getting me in the mood for it all!)

Missing :
- The emotional tug. It was solid read but didn’t make me feel the feelings.

Andi and Owen both have a hatred of weddings in common. Unfortunately, as Maid of Honour and Best Man, it's up to them to lead the celebrations. This gives plenty of scope for humour as predictably, some things don't go to plan. Andi can't get past her aborted wedding when she was betrayed by her fiancee. However, you see her step up to the plate for her best friend who has supported her so much in the past. Andi has got a lot to work out in her life, especially what she is going to do if her Mum does sell the family fish and chip shop. You follow her story as she gradually gains some confidence, but will she be able to step away completely?

Family and friends are at the centre of the story and you sense that Andi's Mum is ready for a change as well. Owen is a little bit more difficult to work out. He seems a bit of a loner but at the same time, he is also family minded and a loyal friend. Set in beautiful Italy, this is a great Summer read, with likeable characters and lots of sunshine!



In short: Will love win out?

First book I have read by this author; not sure if I will read another one any time soon.
I loved the bi and lesbian representation in this book. Andi got cheated on by her fiancée and maid of honor right before the wedding. So she’s pretty much anti love, anti weddings, anti romance. Which doesn’t bode well for her since her best friend is now getting married and having a wedding week in Italy.
I really liked Alex and Charlie. They were super cute and definitely in love. I personally think Andi could have covered her feelings better and not been so anti everything. It seemed like nothing could go right for Andi and she kept having to fix things.
Owen was an interesting character. I loved the descriptions of Italy and all the food. I would have loved to see pictures of Owen’s craftsmanship and everything he made. These two were an interesting mix but it ended up working out for them.

Omg this was so much fun to read, like the title immensely , the whole setting is great and the story is highly enjoyable. Definitely fun and recommending.

This was a cute romcom and definitely made me feel very hungry and desperate for a trip to Italy.

Unfortunately the main character, Andi, fell a bit flat and I had a hard time liking her or relating to her. But the scenery and food descriptions kept me going. There also wasn't really a 'zing' between her and Owen though it was a cute story - the two wedding haters coming together. Thank you to Head of Zeus and Netgalley for the advanced copy of this one.

I tried so hard to love this book but it just fell flat for me. The first half had a cute, yet typical rom-com storyline. The problem was, it really could've ended shortly after that. Instead, it drug on for another chunk of the book. A lot of those events could've been cut out. I think I would've enjoy this more if it wrapped up sooner after the wedding. I also would've loved more backstory on Andi and Hannah.

I had a very hard time relating and connecting to this story. On top of that, the plot moved very slowly and our FMC was overall unlikeable. I thought the premise for the book had lots of potential but overall was just not for me.

Thank you to Aria and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader. All thoughts are my own.

The Anti-Wedding Party by Lucy Knott is a forced proximity rom-com set mostly in Italy.

Andi hates weddings after she found her fiance cheating on her moments before her wedding. Now, her best friend is getting married and Italy and she needs to be there.

When she arrives in Italy she is paired with Best Man, Owen, who also hates weddings. Can these wedding haters come together and survive the wedding week?

I love Owen's character and everything tondonwith Italy. Andi's character however was not my favorite, but I get why she is how she is as she has alot going on.

I got 33% through this book, and that was the longest 33% of my life. I feel like the book should be halfway over by now, but we are technically just getting started. This fmc is one of the worst people i've ever read, she is too self absorbed to realize the world in fact does not revolve around her. She is so focused on herself and her woes, that she never entirely processed why her best friend would be hesitant to tell her she was engaged, because she didn't expect her best friend to be happy for her. And not for typical "she stole my boyfriend' reasons, its because she had a ruined wedding and makes it her whole personality.

I have to abandon this one unfortunately. It's been a few weeks of trying to pick it up at night and it's been rough. There are entirely too many descriptions. I do not need to know the full detail of everything in every setting, or see similes in every other sentence. It's exhausting. I was never able to immerse myself in the story because of this.

Also, I don't like the main character...so that's been a struggle as well. You have to like the MC in a romance or it will never be enjoyable.

This book made me unbelievably hungry. Food was such a vital part of the story, and the way it was described really brought out the character's love of food. I even stopped reading at one point to take a cheese and crackers break. I also loved the setting. Not only could I picture the Almalfi Coast, but I could practically feel the same awe and relaxation that the characters were feeling.

That being said, there were a few aspects of the story that I didn't love. The biggest one is (oddly) how much the author talked about sweat. As a sweaty person, I understand how it can take over in situations, but I thought the sweat descriptions were overdone and they definitely did not leave me feeling romantic. Otherwise, I just was not that invested in the story. I think that is partly because this read a bit more like women's fiction than romance, and I usually prefer the latter, which isn't the book's fault.

Overall, this wasn't my favorite, but it did have some great aspects that kept me entertained (i.e. food and Italy). I think this book would be good for someone who prefers women's fiction. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a really lovely romance between two people who had been hurt in the past and had allowed that to seep in to their previous beliefs. I know the feeling. Whilst Andi had a rocky start in being a likeable character, her development really blossomed as the story went on and I really enjoyed her story by the end. Owen was a charming man all round and although he was also lacking a passion for romance, he encouraged Andi to have some fun and not be a total pessimist throughout their best friends wedding. Lucy has a beautiful way with words and that showed clearly on the page when she was describing Italy and the delicious foods featured. I wish I could now whisk myself away to Italy and put myself in an Italian food coma! It felt good to be reading a book of Lucy's again and I can't wait to see what else is in store.

Do I think that some reviewers were being a little overdramatic over how bad this book apparently was? Yes. Do I think certain parts of it dragged/were hard to get through? Also yes.

Straight off the bat, I really enjoyed the banter between Andi and Owen. I thought they had really good chemistry that bounced, I thought Andi was a very relatable fmc in the sense of her family struggles of always wanting to please her mother and keep her grandparents legacy alive, and therefore ignored a lot of what she wanted and enjoyed herself. I also felt really touched by what she had been through, with her ex fiancee cheating on her with her maid of honour on their wedding day .. Like I cannot begin to imagine that kind of hurt and betrayal. Overcoming being cheated on and opening yourself back up to being vulnerable is hard.

I didn't dislike this book at all. I thought that the characters were enjoyable and that the premise was really good from the starting point. I just felt like some of it dragged on just a bit. It was a very average romance novel to me, but that is not to say that someone else may not love it!

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for giving me the ARC in exchange for honest feedback.

This was a sweet story with lovely setting and characters. I found it to be a just a little slow to start. The male main character isn't even introduced until nearly 20% into the story. However, the book was very cute and definitely a good one if you like travel romance, Italy, and/or low-spice, closed-door romance. I will definitely recommend.

This book is lighthearted and fun, focused on a “bantership” where the characters have lots of fun and jokes between them, it’s not deep or complicated. The perfect read for the summer where you could pick it up in between dips in the pool and not worry about trying to remember a complex plot.

A cute story with great banter between the main characters, and the descriptions of the area, food and atmosphere that is shared leaves the reader wanting to visit the Italian Amalfi coast.

This was an okay book. I didn’t love the FMC. Requested solely because the cover I thought this was gonna be a light, cute and fluffy read, however, cheating was involved and that’s one of my least favorite tropes. The book was definitely missing something and I can’t put my finger on it.

A contemporary rom-com nestled in the beautiful Italian coast
The (Anti) Wedding Party by Lucy Knott is a romantic comedy nod to those people in our lives who just don’t “do” weddings. A person like Andi, a 34-year-old fish and chip shop co-owner who caught her fiancée making out with her maid of honor in the bathroom on her wedding day. Fast forward three years later and Andi’s best friend, Alex, announces that she is getting married to her long-term girlfriend, Charlie. Yet this isn’t just a quick “I do.” Alex and Charlie are inviting their friends and family to a week-long wedding extravaganza on an Italian coastal villa. Seeing no way to get out of it, Andi bites her tongue and boards the plane to Naples.

“If there’s one thing I strongly dislike more than an overcooked cod, it’s weddings.”

Photo of the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Credit Georgi Kalaydzhiev on Unsplash.
When Andi arrives in Italy with the rest of the wedding party, she meets the best man, Owen. Owen is also someone who dislikes weddings, and he and Andi quickly hit it off with their shared distaste for romance. Owen, as an MMC, is adorable. He’s a burly woodworker who carefully crafts bespoke coffee tables or eclectic furniture out of recycled wood. The way to his heart is through his stomach; Andi and Owen seemingly eat their way through the week without regret. Throughout the story, you see Owen as someone who is not romantic but who is sweet and thoughtful in his own way. He takes an instant liking to Andi and falls pretty fast for the romance-adverse MFC.

Andi, on the other hand, I just couldn’t get behind until maybe the last chapter or two of the book. Knott wrote Andi as a pragmatic and controlling person who is also anxious and easy to upset. I think Knott really wanted to highlight how uncomfortable Andi was with the whole wedding weekend. The story is told from Andi’s POV and a lot of time was taken to describe her as perpetually hot and sweating, with a stomach that was always spinning or flopping or grumbling, and a heart that races, pounds, or plummets in her chest. I felt uncomfortable for Andi as I was reading from her perspective, and it ended up being more distracting than helping me to make a connection with the character.

What Knott really does well in this book, though, is capturing the landscape and food of the Amalfi Coast. If you’re a foodie — especially one that enjoys fresh Italian cuisine and cooking — your mouth will water at the many meals that are shared among the characters. Fresh Italian cheeses and meats. Pastas in savory sauces. Rustic desserts and limoncello. I seriously wanted to be one of the characters, with an Italian nonna slapping me on the back, yelling “Mangia, mangia!“

Overall, The (Anti) Wedding Party is a typical rom-com with a lot of foodie flare. The premise is a good one but, unfortunately, the main character development was not as strong as I would have liked it to be.

This book had everything to be perfect for me, but unfortunately I found the author's writing not very good, I found her very stuck and the book ended up being very monotonous because of this. The characters and plot were interesting, but I didn't like the romance either. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review!