The Worst Best Man Review

 So before I start with my first ever ARC review, shout out to Edelweiss for giving me a copy of this book. Also, this book doesn't come out until February 4. Okay, now onto the review. If any of you made the resolution this year to more diversely or to read more books by own-voices authors then look no further for the fun book that is The Worst Best Man. Honestly, this book was so much fun and cute, while also having some really fun BAMF female characters.

 So, the book is about Lina Santos who is the owner of her wedding planning business, Dotting the I Dos, and at the start of the novel she's about to get married until her fiance, Andrew, decides the day of the wedding that he can't go through with it because of what his brother, Max, had said the night before. Three years later, Lina is given an incredible opportunity to expand her business by working with the Cartwright Hotel Group as their Wedding Event Planner. However, she must work with a marketing consultant to give a mock-up of what she can offer as their hotel's wedding coordinator. The catch? She either has to work her ex-fiancee, Andrew, or his younger brother, Max.
  Max has been hellbent to get out from underneath his brother's shadow. After having his heart broken by a woman who wishes she had met his older brother first, to his work being accredited to Andrew, Max is hellbent in using this opportunity to  show just how capable he is on his own. This romance has the enemies-to-lovers trope (this may constitute as a spoiler but it's a romance we all know where it's gonna go) with tons of representation: Latinx, more specifically Brazillian; LGBT, two different clients being LGBT couples and her cousin Rey being not straight, not sure what representation is exactly but I know he's not straight; and disabled rep, another one of Lina's clients being in a wheelchair.

Probably my favorite things about this book were the character development and the Brazilian culture that is heavily mentioned throughout. None of the characters felt overly perfect, all of them had faults and for the most part, these faults aren't just pushed under the rug. Max is overly competitive with his brother that he's afraid that anyone that knows his brother will constantly compare the two of them. Lina is so concerned in making her mother proud of her after everything she has given up for Lina, and Lina is terrified in being seen as overly emotional and "womanly;" she keeps everyone at a distance, unwilling to let people get too close.

My biggest issue with the book is that while this is a romance, there still is a competition between Lina and Max, and Andrew and Henry (honestly I'm not even sure if that's his name). Of course, the focus is going to be on Lina and Max, but Lina's competition is only ever mentioned in passing by Andrew as he's fishing for information. We get no physical description, hell no information on him whatsoever. Maybe this is just assuming, but I'm sure Lina probably knows at least who some of her competition is and whether this guy is her number one competitor or at least someone she's fairly amicable with, we get nothing! It made the whole process feel less real and more of just a competition between Andrew and Max. Another thing that I didn't like was Andrew as a whole. Now I get it, he's kinda the antagonist throughout the whole story, being Lina's ex-finance and her competition for her new job, but it felt like he was two different people. Like he was a suave mature adult one minute and then an immature child the next, maybe that was just Max bringing the immaturity out of him I'm not sure. Now I don't want to spoil things but the last time we see Andrew really just irritated me. I don't want to say more than that because spoilers but I kinda wish that was cut.