Sun’s out, carry-on’s out. If you’re heading to a destination wedding for Labor Day (or in the coming months), you won’t want to forget an essential item on your packing list: a book. Weddings revolve around a couple’s love story, but you’ll want other stories to sustain you between cocktail hours and toasts. SPF is good for sun protection; books are good for small talk protection.
No matter where the long weekend may take you, we’ve got the perfect suggestion:
For a Hamptons Wedding…
The Guest by Emma Cline. With a setting that matches the wedding destination and a cover that matches all those impeccably mowed lawns, this one’s both unputdownable and beautifully written. It follows twenty-something Alex, who’s out East with her much older sugar daddy. When they break up, grifter chaos ensues as Alex uses her looks and social ease to con her way into rarefied circles.
For an Italian Wedding…
Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine. Say ‘ciao’ to 18th century Venice. Set at a music academy for young girls, Fine’s transportive novel explores female friendship and class dynamics with lush, atmospheric prose. Music students Maddalena and Luisa waltz between friendship and romance, with character choreography that puts all wedding first dances to shame.
For a New England Wedding…
Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey. My debut novel opens in the aftermath of a wedding in Watch Hill, Rhode Island. Spoiler: the party does not end well. Callie, the bride, ends up scrolling through her phone in a stained dress over a large pizza, piecing together the events that led to her marriage’s early implosion. If you’ve ever been to a picture-perfect wedding and wondered what really goes on behind the scenes, this one’s for you.
For an NYC Wedding…
Everything’s Fine by Cecilia Rabess. The “enemies-to-lovers” trope gets a modern makeover with this smart and discussion-worthy debut. Jess and Josh butt heads as college students—he’s conservative, she’s liberal; he’s white, she’s Black—and develop a complex relationship as finance colleagues in New York post-graduation. With chemistry that jumps off the page, their situation begs the question: How far can a person bend their principles for love?
For a Beach Wedding…
Same Time Next Summer by Annabel Monaghan. SPF sold separately, but sand might as well pour out of these pages. Monaghan’s writing evokes the salt-soaked longing of lost love and the warmth of a perfect beach day, as newly engaged Sam becomes torn between her Type A fiancé and her first love (a hot musician, of course). A bit Sweet Home Alabama with a dash of The Summer I Turned Pretty, you’ll keep reading well after sunset.
For Your Best Friend’s Wedding…
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue. O’Donoghue’s said that her gravestone will read “for fans of Sally Rooney”; while the comparison is apt, she brings an original sparkle and laugh-out-loud humor to this friendship story. Rachel and James delight as Irish booksellers in their early 20s, whose friendship drama is only eclipsed by love triangle drama with Rachel’s married professor. It reads like a story you’d breathlessly tell your best friend.
For Your College Friend’s Wedding…
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin. An instant campus novel classic, My Last Innocent Year is as elegant and intriguing as its cover. Isabel Rosen’s senior year at Wilder College (a fictional Dartmouth) is marked by a nonconsensual one-night stand with a friend and a consensual affair with a teacher. Florin’s nuanced writing explores sexual politics against the backdrop of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.
For a Southern Wedding…
If We’re Being Honest by Cat Shook. A funeral is the opposite of a wedding, but it’s just as ripe for revelation and emotion. This book opens at the funeral of a Georgian patriarch, whose best friend delivers a eulogy that throws the entire family’s history into question. You’ll get to know a zany and charming cast of characters—a group as sweet as a Southern drawl with the spice of jalapeno pimento cheese dip.
For a Wedding with a Stressed Mother of the Bride…
Banyan Moon by Thao Thai. The tenuous and beautiful nature of mother-daughter bonds gets tested in Thao Thai’s moving debut. When Ann Tran’s beloved grandmother dies and her boyfriend delivers news that makes her question their future, she uproots her perfect life to boomerang back to the place where it all began: the Banyan House. In this dilapidated home of memories, family comes together while long-buried secrets come to light.
For a Wedding Where The Couple Met on an App…
The Arc by Tory Henwood Hoen. Move over, Hinge and Bumble. The Arc is the service that will make readers want to swipe right. Ursula Byrne’s a successful, smart, attractive 35-year-old underwhelmed by her dating options in NYC—until she tries out an expensive, bespoke matchmaking service that delivers her a guy who seems too good to be true. This witty rom-com will have you guessing whether it’s a match until the final pages.
