The Wedding People
Alison Espach, 2024
Romance Graphic novels & humourContemporary fictionLiterary fiction
A newly divorced professor checks into a Newport hotel with a secret plan and is mistaken for a wedding guest; the weekend becomes a witty, tender study of starting over. Wry and tender, with a quick comic voice that keeps circling back to grief, memory, and the strange intimacy of hotel strangers.
Feels like wonder, melancholy and hope. About death, time and memory.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy witty contemporary fiction about divorce, weddings, and starting over among strangers. One caveat: the book holds a character's dark moment and death-adjacent thoughts, so its humour may not suit you if you want pure light escapism.
Why read it
It gives you a funny, humane view of reinvention and the odd closeness of strangers, with comedy that carries real emotional weight.
A page from the book
How a marriage ends: a polite goodbye and the sound of the fridge.
When she left St. Louis, it felt important to leave everything behind—the husband, the house, the luggage. It was time to move on, which she knew because that was what they had all agreed to last year at the end of the divorce hearing. Phoebe was so stunned by the finality of their conversation, by the way her husband said, “Okay, take care now,” like he was the mailman wishing her well. She could not bring herself to do a single thing after except climb in bed and drink gin and tonics and listen to the sound of the refrigerator making ice. Not that there was anywhere to go. This was mid-lockdown, when she only left the house for gin and toilet paper and taught her virtual classes in the same black blouse every day because what else were people supposed to wear? Alison Espach.Alison Espach teaches at Providence College, near the Newport, Rhode Island, setting of The Wedding People, which was a Read with Jenna pick.
Books that feel like this
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
Jonas Jonasson, 2009
Also memory and wonder.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Wedding People for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy witty contemporary fiction about divorce, weddings, and starting over among strangers. One caveat: the book holds a character's dark moment and death-adjacent thoughts, so its humour may not suit you if you want pure light escapism.
- What is The Wedding People like?
- Wry and tender, with a quick comic voice that keeps circling back to grief, memory, and the strange intimacy of hotel strangers. Feels like wonder, melancholy and hope. About death, time and memory.
- What should I read after The Wedding People?
- If you liked The Wedding People, try Book Lovers (Emily Henry), The Chase (Elle Kennedy) and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (Jonas Jonasson).
A taste of the feed
A poem that begins like a bugle call and ends like a psalm.
But while said City Person is in town, things don’t go to plan. Because, of course, the Christmas tree farm—or bakery, or whatever the hero’s been sent to destroy—is owned and operated by someone ridiculously attractive and suitably available for wooing.
Book Lovers · Emily Henry
The same fire that once burned bras now fuels the comments section.
We live in a society where too many women tear each other down instead of raising each other up. That’s absurd to me. We need to empower one another, teach future generations of girls that it’s important to stand together. Once upon a time, we had a common goal and a common enemy. We were burning bras, and fighting for the right to vote. Now we’re body shaming each other on social media and blaming the mistress if our man cheats.
The Chase · Elle Kennedy
Death as sleep sounds restful until you try to think it through.
Imagine that, death was just like being asleep. Would he have time to think before it was all over? And would he have time to think that he had thought it? But wait, how much do you have to think before you have finished thinking?
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared · Jonas Jonasson
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