For the Love of Friends

Lily Weiss agrees to be a bridesmaid in five weddings over six weeks. The celebrations involve her closest friends and two younger siblings, leaving little room for her own needs or budget. She starts an anonymous blog to complain about the demands, risking the relationships that put her in the wedding parties.

Contemporary & literary Satire

From the author’s blurb

“few things online remain secret forever”

Read the full description at Sara Goodman Confino, author description

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What makes it funny?

Wedding expenses give Lily plenty to complain about. Kirkus quotes a blog entry in which a bride suggests Botox and expects her to pay two thousand dollars for a bachelorette weekend at the Ritz. The author’s description also saddles her with looking after a grandmother who likes her morning mimosas without any clothes.

The comedy at work

Lily behaves like the dependable friend in person, then gives her frustrations free rein online. That division lets the book mock wedding etiquette while raising a second question: how much of a friend’s private life is hers to turn into a public joke?

Try this if…

Wedding-party exhaustion and friendship under pressure are the main attractions. Readers who like a sarcastic narrator with something to learn may be interested in Lily; the romantic subplot gives her another relationship to consider amid the bridal obligations.

Good to know

Body-shaming and pressure to alter one’s appearance recur. Kirkus found Lily’s commentary more nasty than witty at times, while approving of her eventual moral reckoning. The book also includes a drunken sexual encounter.