Once upon a time, many many moons ago, I was a wedding videographer. My husband and I owned a company and spent every weekend filming fairy tale weddings, and most weeknights editing them. It was grueling, brutal, and so, so lovely. I cried at most every wedding we ever shot.
At Bookstore Date, which I've talked about on the podcast, I had the opportunity to take three ARCs from the ARC shelf at Read It Again Books in Smyrna. (If you're in Georgia, you should definitely visit Read It Again--they were lovely and had such a great collection of books to offer!) One of the ARCs I grabbed was Forget Me Not by Julie Soto. I've seen buzz about this book everywhere, and was so excited to snatch it up! Coincidentally, an audiobook ARC of Forget Me Not was also available via Libro.fm. This was actually perfect timing, because I could listen during my workday and read the physical book in the evening. Kismet!
Ama Torres is a wedding planner extraordinaire, who has broken off from her mentor, Whitney Harrison, to run a successful small wedding planning service, WeddingByAma. She isn’t like, major leagues, but she does well for herself and her reputation is that of perfection. She's friendly with her clients and they all seem to fall in (friendship) love with her. One day, a former client recommends her to Hazel Renee, a major influencer with an insane budget, and somehow Ama lands the job. There’s one downside, though: they’re set on their florist being Blooming—owned by Elliot Bloom, Ama’s ex. Ama’s HOT ex. Ama’s covered-in-endangered-flower tattoos and hair down to his shoulders hot ex.
Ama's based-on-Adam-Driver-and-Roy-Kent ex.
Yeah...their relationship didn’t end well at all. In fact, they can hardly look at each other during the meetings where they’re forced into the same room. Ama tries, because she is sunshine, which means you can guess Elliot’s personality type…
I freaking loved this book! It was nostalgic for me as a former wedding service industry member, because I know the stress of the behind the scenes of weddings all too well. There's ALWAYS something that goes wrong, and it's always thought to be the end of the world as we know it. But the wedding (almost) always goes on.
It was just the right amount of cute love story and steamy romance, everything balanced perfectly! You know we love a good grumpy sunshine trope, and I live for a second chance romance. While some scenes seemed a little rushed, overall I really enjoyed reading this! Except, of course, for when Ama professes her undying love for yellow Gatorade. YELLOW Gatorade. That part felt like I was witnessing a hate crime against humanity.
But then Julie made up for it with a FOUR SEASONS TOTAL LANDSCAPING JOKE ARE YOU SERIOUS?! I cackled and cackled until I was wheezing.
As far as the audiobook went, Callie Dalton and Teddy Hamilton did a marvelous job of bringing Ama and Elliot to life. Their voices were literally perfect for the characters they were representing, and they both read in a way that made you feel like you were hearing the story from your closest friend.
Forget Me Not by Julie Soto releases on July 6, and you can preorder your copy now here. Trust me, you want to read this on your summer vacation!
Love and any Gatorade but yellow,
Mandy
Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this audiobook from Libro.fm, and a physical ARC from a retailer, both for free and have voluntarily written this review with my honest feedback. You can (and should!!) create your own Libro.fm account here, where you can support your local bookstore (like Read It Again Books in Smyrna, GA!) while enjoying audiobooks either through a monthly membership, or by purchasing audiobooks a la carte. If you purchase a physical copy of the book using my Amazon affiliate link above, I will receive a small commission which I will use to justify my literary addictions and to spoil my dogs (probably).
