Novel: Save the Date by Morgan Matson| Goodreads
Release Date: June 15, 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardback
Source: Barnes and Noble
Synopsis
Charlie Grant’s older sister is getting married this weekend at their family home, and Charlie can’t wait for the first time in years, all four of her older siblings will be under one roof. Charlie is desperate for one last perfect weekend, before the house is sold and everything changes. The house will be filled with jokes and games and laughs again. Making decisions about things like what college to attend and reuniting with longstanding crush Jesse Foster all that can wait. She wants to focus on making the weekend perfect.
The only problem? The weekend is shaping up to be an absolute disaster. There’s the unexpected dog with a penchant for howling, house alarm that won’t stop going off, and a papergirl with a grudge.
There are the relatives who aren’t speaking, the (awful) girl her favorite brother brought home unannounced, and a missing tuxedo. Not to mention the neighbor who seems to be bent on sabotage and a storm that is bent on drenching everything. The justice of the peace is missing. The band will only play covers. The guests are all crazy. And the wedding planner’s nephew is unexpectedly, distractedly cute.
Over the course of three ridiculously chaotic days, Charlie will learn more than she ever expected about the family she thought she knew by heart. And she’ll realize that sometimes, trying to keep everything like it was in the past means missing out on the future.
Review
Save the Date by Morgan Matson is one of my favorite books this year. Young Adult Contemporary Fiction is a genre I really enjoy, but for some reason, I don’t usually reach for it. However, I really needed a palette cleanser one day, and Matson is one of my favorite writers in the genre so I ran into B&N on my way out of a Lexington shopping trip.
Matson packs all of the events of the book in one weekend. This is a weekend that our main character has been looking forward to because her whole family will be back together again. The family is a bit famous because Mom writes a comic strip based on her family. First, the family is coming together this weekend for the older sister’s wedding. Then, the newspaper will publish Mom’s last ever comic in the strip.
Our main character, Charlie, is the youngest of the family. It is very clear from the opening page that she is dependable. She also seems to have nearly every member of her family on a pedestal. In her eyes, her family can do no wrong. Unfortunately, she also sometimes confuses reality with the comic strips that her mom writes. Charlie’s siblings are much better at distinguishing. As the siblings open Charlie’s eyes to the reality of their childhood, Charlie begins to see her family for what they are. They aren’t perfect. They are real people with real problems that really love each other.
Charlie faces a series of unfortunate events on this weekend that she has spent months building up in her mind. From a wedding planner backing out, to problems with the cake, groom’s suit, and unexpected guests, everything seems to be going wrong. As the story goes on, Charlie takes it upon herself to fix every problem because she wants it to be perfect, just like she thinks the rest of her life is.
The love triangle between Jesse Foster (Charlie’s longtime crush slash her brother’s best friend) and Bill (the backup wedding planner) intrigued me. Honestly, while the triangle is there, it is definitely a subplot. Interestingly, the most important action in this book is about the family and their interactions. The family is going through so much during this eventful weekend. The family dynamic completely engrossed me culminating in an epic on-air interview debacle.
In the end, I found Save the Date to be the perfect palette cleanser after a bunch of high stakes fantasy. I blew through all four hundred some pages in one day. Truthfully, it was impossible for me to set down. From page one, this book completely and totally enthralled. I felt the same after reading The Unexpected Everything. Matson writes such engrossing Young Adult plots that I can’t seem to put down. I highly recommend Save the Date to anyone looking for an interesting story full of family excitement, a slightly angsty love story, and an adorable dog just looking to fit in.
