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Performance
Overall
Excellent, Unforgettable, Best of the nest
Very good, thoroughly enjoyed,
Good, Solid, Enjoyed many aspects
STAR RATINGS GUIDE
Salty and Bittersweet
THE BIRDICT
🧡 First off, let me say, I LOVE irredeemable characters. The viler the better. Hating an awful fictional person is the ultimate in consequence-free judginess. There is definitely some of that here, but then it goes deeper. It looks at how things like trauma, loneliness and low self-esteem can warp people’s personalities. It becomes an insightful tug of war between nature and, if not nurture, then experience.
💚 Listen to this for the layered characters and dysfunctional family dynamics. Listen to this to explore the depths of human bitterness and desperation with a supson of dry humour. Definitely listen to this for the dissection of a relationship by way of a sex scene. Not my usual thing, but cleverly done.
💜 PS. Feel like the title could do with a nudge. Not quite enough “wedding” for it to have top billing.
Big thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with an ALC in return for an honest review.
SQUAWKING THE TALK
🎧 Dan Bittner and Khristine Hvam bring plenty of snark to the party and make this a fun listen. Bittner’s British accent gets questionable at times, but I loved his Paul and Hvam’s Alice.
BIRDS OF A FEATHER: SIMILAR AUDIOBOOKS
Click For Spoilers
The People We Hate at the Wedding
THE BLURB
Relationships are awful. They'll kill you, right up to the point where they start saving your life.
Paul and Alice's half-sister Eloise is getting married! In London! There will be fancy hotels, dinners at 'it' restaurants and a reception at a country estate complete with tea lights and embroidered cloth napkins.
They couldn't hate it more.
The product of their mother's first marriage to a dashing Frenchman, Eloise has everything Paul and Alice have ever wanted: a seemingly endless trust fund, model good looks, an international life of luxury and their mother's unconditional love.
Meanwhile, Alice is in her thirties, stuck in a dead-end job and mired in a rather predictable, though enjoyable, affair with her married boss, and Paul, who still isn't speaking to their mother after their father's death three years ago, has upended his life to move to Philadelphia for his tenured track professor boyfriend, who has recently started looking at other, younger men and talking wistfully about 'opening up'.
As the estranged clan gathers, and Eloise's walk down the aisle approaches, Grant Ginder's bitingly funny, slyly witty and surprisingly tender story brings to vivid, hilarious life the power of family, and the complicated ways we hate the ones we love the most.
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