Rambling About... The Wedding Date by Jennifer Joyce

So, NetGalley has completely thrown my original plan for what I was going to read this month for a loop. I'm not really complaining, though, since without NetGalley (and the ever-so-kind folks at Carina) I wouldn't have just finished this darling gem!

Title: The Wedding Date Author: Jennifer Joyce Publication: 28 March 2016, Carina UK Amazon Description: Delilah James, singleton and smoothie-addict, has six months to find a date for her oldest friend’s wedding. Oh, and to prove to her ex, best man Ben, that she has totally moved on since he dumped her out-of-the-blue nine months, eight days and seventeen hours ago… So, with her two BFFs playing Cupid, Delilah launches herself into the high-tech, fast-paced and frankly terrifying world of dating. Luckily there’s the hot new guy at work, Adam Sinclair, to practice her flirting on – even if, as a colleague, he’s strictly off-limits! Yet time’s running out and date after disastrous date forces Delilah to tell a little white lie – and invent a fake boyfriend! But will her secret crush on Adam ruin everything? Does she even care about Ben anymore? And is it too late to untangle her web of lies and take a real date to the wedding…?

First Lines: I hitch up my skirt - why oh why did I choose to wear the tightest pencil skirt known to man this morning? - and scuttle along the pavement as the bus trundles towards the bus stop ahead.
Favorites on 4s:
14% - So I'd gone for a pair of nude ballet pumps (thankfully), black skinny jeans and a floaty top, Not too casual but not too smart either. It was the Baby Bear of the fashion world.
34% - He doesn't see the wide eyes turning to stare. Doesn't see me rising from my seat. Doesn't see me scuttling across the restaurant, pressing money into the hand of a passing waiter and instructing him to knock it off our bill.
64% - "You are completely nuts. Dangerously so."
94% - Logging onto Facebook, I type out my message and press send before I can change my mind.

Ramble: I absolutely cracked up reading about poor Delilah James and her dating woes ... because I've been there and done that. I've done the disastrous set-ups and the even more disastrous online dating. (Here's a hint : when someone says they have an "athletic build" and a "competitive nature," they may be under the impression that actually eating all-you-can-eat at a buffet is a sport ... and a man claiming to be 5'7" is quite likely to be 5'4".)
Luckily for me, I stumbled on Tom and 10+ years and one awesome kid later we still actually like each other. Luckily for Delilah, she's a character in an adorable chick lit and you know before you even start that everything will be okay for her, too. After all ... that's how these things work.
Sure, I pretty much knew within the first couple of chapters who she was going to end up with kind of like how you always know with the made-for-Hallmark or Lifetime movies before the first commercial break. It didn't matter, though, because the journey to her "happily ever after" was such fun! (Except, of course, for when it broke your heart a little and you wanted to invite Delilah over for a good cry over a pint of Ben & Jerry's.)
I loved the text message conversations that started most of the chapters (there's one between Delilah and her dad that especially made me hoot with laughter). I loved her friends, Lauren and Ryan, and everything that they were willing to do for her. I loved her highs and her lows and how pretty much anything could, at least mentally, be turned into a scene from a musical. She's a girl after my own heart. She even had to deal with a lifetime of name jokes just like I have (my last name is Quick ... which got real old real fast). In fact, the only things that I can think of that I didn't love about this were the people and situations that I wasn't supposed to love to begin with!
If you like romantic comedies at all, I highly recommend you give this one a shot. It's the first book of Joyce's that I've read but it definitely won't be the last!