Title: Save the Date by Morgan Matson

Pages: 432

Genres: YA, Contemporary

Published by: Simon & Schuster (June 5th, 2018)

Summary

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.

What I Thought

I really love Morgan Matson’s books.  I’ve read all of them so far, except Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour, and I’ve loved them all.  So, when I first heard about the release of Save the Date, I was so excited!  I’m so happy to say that it did not disappoint!

One of the things I loved most about this book were the characters!  They were all so unique and memorable, and I just really loved reading about each of them.  I especially loved Charlie’s family.  I have 3 sisters, and so I found the family relationships and dynamics to be so relatable.  I related to Charlie so much with her struggle of growing up and moving on.  I was just like her when I was 18.  Wanting to keep everything the same, yet knowing everything is about to change is hard. Something I really love about all of Morgan Matson’s books is that, while there is always a cute romance, the stories always go beyond that.  Family and friend relationships are always at the forefront of the books as well, and Save the Date was no different.  The heart of this book is about Charlie and her family.

That being said, the romance was so much fun to read, too!  There’s a little bit of a love triangle going on, but I don’t even know if that’s what I would call it.  Plus, unlike most triangles, it’s not obnoxious or dramatic at all.  Also, I love Bill so much!! He’s too sweet, and, in my opinion, there was not enough of him in this book at all.

I literally laughed and cried while reading Save the Date!  This is one of those books where, if something bad could happen, it will.  While that type of story is usually really frustrating to me, it actually wasn’t this time.  Even though it felt like one disaster after another, it was done in a way that was actually entertaining, and everything always was nicely resolved.  There were so many crazy, yet relatable, moments that had me cracking up.  There’s one particular scene that involves some uncontrollable giggling at a really inappropriate time, and it literally had me laughing out loud because, as someone who gets the uncontrollable giggles, it was just SO relatable!  It’s probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire book.  There were also quite a few really touching and emotional moments that brought tears to my eyes.

Overall, I completely adored this book!  It brought all the emotions that weddings bring, plus some great hilarity.  The romance is cute, the family aspect is relatable, and, just like with most of her books, there’s an adorable dog that you fall in love with!  Save the Date makes a fun and, despite it’s size, fairly quick read with more depth than a typical rom-com style YA novel.  I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a well-written and fun, contemporary novel.

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