It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe’s plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

I think The Wedding People easily could have verged on either boring or cringey with the angle it takes, however it managed to do neither. It felt like a great 90s comedy plot that was wrapped in a well-balanced, touching undertone of grief, which lends well to the authenticity of the characters and the simple story. But despite its simplicity, I was eagerly listening to know what would happen next.

First you hate the wedding people along with Phoebe, but then as she opens up to them, you do too, mirroring her experience. They go from shallow caricatures to human beings with their own struggles and story and identity. It feels so natural somehow through her narration that by the end of the book you almost feel like a part of this dysfunctional, loving family.

It’s been really interesting to see how books, or any media really, talks about Covid-19 and lockdown. I think the only other book I’ve read that actually made it a part of the plot or character development was Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfield. I liked how The Wedding People handed it a lot. It didn’t dwell on those moments—as I imagine many of us don’t necessarily want to relive that time in our history, at least not yet—but it did contribute a lot to the character development and the set up for the story in a way that made sense.

I think the only slightly negative thing I’d have to say about The Wedding People is that I felt like sometimes Phoebe’s motivations were unclear. She was a character under a lot of stress and had a lot of things to figure out very quickly, so maybe the way she meandered through the plot sometimes could be justified by that, but I often found myself confused what her plan or end game was. I knew what I wanted her to do but I guess she didn’t, and while it was frustrating that I couldn’t figure her out, it also helped the plot move forward as she explored all of her options.

I also have to say I highly recommend the audiobook of this one, the narrator was really engaging and had great comedic timing with the jokes. I actually laughed out loud once or twice, and I don’t usually do more than snort at a book. If you’re feeling a little lost or jaded or just looking for something with both depth and humor, I’d definitely recommend meeting The Wedding People.