When I first heard about this book, I was intrigued by the premise—a woman goes to a fancy hotel to kill herself, but it turns out to be a destination wedding week and the bride keeps her from following through, because she doesn’t want her wedding to be ruined.
In a world where it seems like everything has been done, this hasn’t, so I wanted to see how it would play out, and whether the novel would live up to this what if.
It did! The characters in the book are interesting, they all have different motivations and different reasons for being at this wedding that don’t necessarily reflect their relationship to the bride or groom. Espach explores the main character’s despair with enough gentleness and distance to allow the reader to empathize with her, but also makes us want her to find another way out. None of the characters, even the bit players, are flat.
The plot keeps the suspense going on multiple fronts, no spoilers here, but it isn’t all about Phoebe and her difficulties—we also get to know the bride, Lila, and her struggles. If you like books that explore themes related to our choices, dark feelings, the pressures of modern life, this might be for you. Espach does a wonderful job diving into some dark places without leaving hope behind—there is always a tiny bit of hope here.
Full disclosure: there is a scene that I would have left out of it. I don’t understand why it is there and it was pretty gross—it added nothing to the story that I could tell. It is a scene in which a man does something to a car that would likely be impossible and there are way too many iterations of the word, “f***,” for my taste. Skip that and you won’t miss anything. I was listening to audio and running, or I would have skipped it…by the time I got to a place to slow down and get out my phone, it was thankfully over.
Writers, notice a few things:
The extraordinary premise, which is clear in the opening pages coupled with a lack of backstory in the opening.
- Frequently, writers try to make the what if either too bland or too much. You want to make it extraordinary, but within the realm of possibility (unless it is fantasy, and then all bets are off). A novel about quotidian concerns is much harder to engage a reader in than one with a dash of the extraordinary.
- There is no backstory explaining why she puts on her best dress, boards a flight, and goes to a fancy hotel. It will be made clear eventually, when you, as the reader, need to know it. The opening makes us curious! When Phoebe gets to the hotel and realizes that she is the only guest who is not part of the wedding, there is conflict. She has a goal, the bride has a different goal. No backstory.
The Wedding People might be interesting paired with The Perfect Couple. Both of them are about destination weddings, but with very different casts of characters and plots. The wedding setting, and indeed any setting, offers multiple possibilities.
How can you use your setting and what if to best effect and create a captivating narrative?
Outlining is a valuable tool at any point in the writing process: just getting started, revising your novel, or writing your summary to query.
Get your free copy of the Beats of the Heroine’s Journey with examples here.