My Best Friend‘s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner

Narrated by Blair Baker and Emily Shaw

Standalone Queer Romance

Thank you Macmillan Publishing and NetGalley for an early copy for review. All opinions are my own. This post contains affiliate links.

I loved the diverse representation in My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner (4/29). I don’t read a lot of non-traditional romances outside of MF, so I was excited to dive into this pansexual/non-binary lesbian best friends-to-lovers story.

Elsie is beautiful, Jewish, pansexual, and engaged to her high school sweetheart mostly because she didn’t know how to say no to him. She works at her family’s hardware store, which she genuinely enjoys, but her father refuses to let her take on more responsibility or use her business degree in a meaningful way, mostly because she doesn’t stand up for her needs. Her best friend since childhood is Ginny, who’s always been by her side, inseperable since the day they met.

Ginny is a short, wide, non-binary lesbian who has been in love with Elsie for as long as they can remember. When they asked Elsie to the 8th grade dance and got turned down, it almost ruined their friendship forever, so they never brought it up again and just secretly pined for Elsie.

When Elsie finally got the nerve to cancel her wedding, she went on the non-refundable honeymoon and brought Ginny instead. Once there, they hooked up. A lot. It was hot, but it came out of left field and then dominated the story, and I never really felt the romantic connection between them.

I’m not usually a fan of 3rd person, especially the distant 3rd used here, and the use of “they” took me a while to adjust to (57 years old and not enough exposure). I’ve read books with non-binary side characters and didn’t have as much trouble, but the distant 3rd person POV in this book made it harder to follow whether “they” referred to Ginny alone or to both Ginny and Elsie. That distance also made it tough to connect with either character emotionally.

That said, I really loved the core of the story and their deep-rooted friendship. At first, the author made it sound like Elsie was a beauty queen and Ginny was a troll, so it was easy to think that the love was one-sided. I loved that it turned out that Elsie thought Ginny was gorgeous and had felt the same way all along.

They’ve been each other’s person since they were kids. Their lives are so intertwined that it’s hard to picture them with anyone else. I liked how the author gave them space to explore who they were as individuals, even while ultimately bringing them together.

Likes:

Non-binary representation.
A surprise Jewish heroine representation that felt real, as just a blip in the story, with small mentions of Hanukkah and Passover and not a plot point.
The overall storyline
The sex was hot.
How Ginny encouraged Elsie to speak up and express her needs.
Some strong, much-needed character growth by the end.

Dislikes:

The distant 3rd person made the “they” pronoun harder to follow, especially when trying to distinguish between Ginny and the couple as a whole. I’ll admit I’m old and haven’t used the term much personally, so that’s a big part of it. (I really think they deserve their own unique pronoun). Ginny was also referred to as “she,” a few times, which didn’t help.
The story occasionally switched POV mid-chapter, even within internal monologues, and I had to go back to follow who was thinking what.
The distant 3rd person POV made it hard to emotionally connect.
I didn’t feel the love. The sex was hot but it almost felt like they were strangers and it kind of came out of left field. It was missing the romance.
Neither of them seemed to stand up for themselves and fight for their needs, especially Elsie who was a total pushover.
The conflict was soooooo blown out of proportion.

The Narration:

I wonder if I would’ve connected more if I’d read this instead of listening. The narrators were great, but the audiobook may have emphasized the distance of the 3rd person POV. The pronouns also felt more vague in audio.

The Down & Dirty:

I liked My Best Friend’s Honeymoon by Meryl Wilsner and loved the representation. I adore the cover and I was so hoping to love what was inside as well. If it had been written in first person with more emotional intimacy, I think I would have loved it. I just never fully connected and felt like the romance got lost along the way. But if you are looking for a HOT female/non-binary lesbian romance, this may be great for you.