Review: Save the Date

Title: Save the Date
Author: Morgan Matson
Genre: Young Adult
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Release Date: June 5, 2018
Rating: ★★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Charlie Grant’s older sister is getting married this weekend at their family home, and Charlie can’t wait—for the first time in years, all four of her older siblings will be under one roof. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before the house is sold and everything changes. The house will be filled with jokes and games and laughs again. Making decisions about things like what college to attend and reuniting with longstanding crush Jesse Foster—all that can wait. She wants to focus on making the weekend perfect.

The only problem? The weekend is shaping up to be an absolute disaster.

There’s the unexpected dog with a penchant for howling, house alarm that won’t stop going off, and a papergirl with a grudge.

There are the relatives who aren’t speaking, the (awful) girl her favorite brother brought home unannounced, and a missing tuxedo.

Not to mention the neighbor who seems to be bent on sabotage and a storm that is bent on drenching everything. The justice of the peace is missing. The band will only play covers. The guests are all crazy. And the wedding planner’s nephew is unexpectedly, distractingly…cute.

Over the course of three ridiculously chaotic days, Charlie will learn more than she ever expected about the family she thought she knew by heart. And she’ll realize that sometimes, trying to keep everything like it was in the past means missing out on the future.

Review:

I loved this book so much!

The writing was amazing. I loved the way that the scenes with lots of characters were written. It was as if I was right there. Some scenes had the whole family, plus an outsider like a taxi driver or a wedding planner. The main characters would be discussing something and someone else would chime in with a comment, but the family would continue speaking without missing a beat in the scene. Multiple conversations could be going on at once. It was like a real family conversation.

I also loved the way that the comic strip was part of the family too. It was a lot like the comic strip For Better or For Worse, where the family grew up as the comic progressed. In this story, their mother created the comic called Grant Central Station, based on the Grant family. But this caused many problems when she reflected their lives too closely.

The wedding chaos was crazy, but still realistic. I can imagine these problems happening (hopefully not at one single wedding) and most of them stemmed from the problems with the wedding planner. This story really kept me on the edge of my seat, and made me laugh out loud many times!

This was my first Morgan Matson book, but it won’t be my last!

Have you read this book or any other Morgan Matson books?  What did you think?

Author: jilljemmett

Jill lives in Toronto, Canada. She has studied English, Creative Writing, and Publishing. Jill is the creator and content producer of Jill’s Book Blog, where she has published a blog post every day for the last four years, including 5-7 book reviews a week. She can usually be found with her nose in a book. View all posts by jilljemmett