Book Smart Kate

Book: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Audiobook performance: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 Spice: 🌶️🌶️🌶️

by Livy Hart (August 6, 2024)—I saw this one all over Bookstagram with wildly varying reviews, which always gets me curious, so I decided to give it a listen when it became available on Everand.

Nora D’Amato is a loyal best friend. She is so faithful that she devises a plan to be Benji’s fake girlfriend for the giant 6-day Italian family wedding experience he has to attend. She’s all in on the drama between these rival families but could never have anticipated that she’d be at the center of some of the biggest drama that week. She’s not the only one fake dating their way through the wedding festivities. So is Sebastian Rossi, the guy she has a crush on. He’s doing his friend a favor by being her fake boyfriend. But over the week, Nora and Sebastian’s connection is painfully evident as they are thrown together for pickleball tournaments, mechanical bull rides, and cleaning up a lot of wedding drama, all while trying to keep their hands off each other and their fake relationships in place.

This was an entertaining and funny rom-com with heart and heat. I adored the messy, over-the-top drama-filled families, the ride-or-die friendships, and the instant connection between Seb and Nora. There were a lot of characters in this one, and at times, I struggled to remember how they were all related. I’m hoping the book has family trees listed. I will go back to read Planes, Trains, and All the Feels, as it has been on my TBR forever, and I did not realize they were interconnected. Overall, it is a fun read. And as a side note, after this book, I’ll never look at a photo booth the same way again—make sure to have those sanitizing wipes handy next time you use one!

Zura Johnson and James Cavenaugh narrated the audiobook. Although they were both good, neither fit my vision of the characters in a way that made it an immersive experience. I may have liked this one more if I had read a physical copy.