Save the Date by Morgan Matson: A Wedding Rom Com
Save the Date by Morgan Matson is a 2018 YA contemporary. As part of my Author Spotlight on YA author Morgan Matson, I am looking back at this YA Wedding Rom Com. Is Save the Date one of my top Books to Read After YA? Let’s Discuss!
Overview of Save the Date by Morgan Matson
Published on June 5, 2018 by Simon & Schuster
417 pages
A version of this review was also published on my adult book blog, Jen Ryland Reviews.
Quick Summary of Save the Date by Morgan Matson
Charlotte “Charlie” Grant’s older sister Linnea “Linnie” Grant is getting married. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before their family house is sold and everything changes. But of course, everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) goes wrong.
big question:
Does the “selling the house” plus wedding premise of Save the Date remind anyone of a 2023 “romance” by a wildly popular adult writer who once wrote YA? Yes, I will soon be profiling this author too as she is clearly writing Books to Read After YA, so stay tuned.
My Analysis of Save the Date by Morgan Matson
First off, I’m here to tell you that despite the first chapter, Save the Date is more com (comedy) than rom (romance). So go in with the right expectations!
Save the Date begins with a scene of Charlie at a party almost sleeping with her brother’s best friend. Then the story skips ahead to the weekend of Charlie’s sister’s wedding.
At this point the book becomes basically a screwball comedy.
Weddings are rife with opportunities for disaster. They involve families and emotions. Lots of logistics. And typically … alcohol. Need I say more?
In Save the Date, pretty much everything about Charlie’s sister’s wedding goes wrong. Some of it was funny (I liked the surly newspaper carrier.) Some of it wore thin to me (like the security system alarm). Some of it was just TERRIBLE (like the dog “on loan” from the animal shelter.)
I think my favorite thing about the book was how realistically it portrayed a big family event.
This was not an Instagram-worthy family or gathering. In the story, the Grant family fought and squabbled. They were both loving and horrible to each other.
There was tension – one thing the synopsis does not mention is that Charlie’s mother is a cartoonist who, over the years, used her family’s lives to write her popular comic strips. And her now-grown children are not always happy about the fact that their private lives have been splashed across the comic pages every week for years.
While the synopsis above says that the girl Charlie’s older brother brings home is awful, I didn’t agree. I really sympathized with the outsiders in this one: the borrowed dog that I can’t get over, the “awful” girlfriend, and Bill, the hapless back-up wedding planner who tries to salvage the whole mess. And who is also a love interest in the story. (I wouldn’t call this a love triangle, exactly, because the romance quotient in Save the Date was low.)
Overall, this wasn’t the rom-com I expected, but what I did like about Save the Date was that it was anti-perfection. It pointed out that families aren’t perfect and relationships aren’t perfect and weddings aren’t perfect. And that things that are imperfect are still wonderful and worthy.
More Books by Morgan Matson
To see ALL Matson’s books, including the ones she wrote under her other author alter ego, go check out my Author Spotlight on Morgan Matson right now!
Check out my full list of YA Wedding Rom Coms!
