Books,  Reviews

Review: The Wedding Game by Amy Matayo

The Wedding Game by Amy Matayo theweddinggame
Reviewed by: Lori Twichell
Genre: Romance
Published Date: Amazon Digital
Date: November 15, 2013

Cannon James is the most self centered, obnoxious and rude person that Ellie McAllister has ever met. In fact, she’d love it if she never had to see the man again. Except…she just won a reality show and agreed to marry him. On television. And live the first six months of their lives in front of the cameras. Yeah, that gets a bit sticky doesn’t it?

She’d love to throw her hands up and quit but she had a good reason to audition for the show in the first place; she needs money. A lot of it. And fast. It’s a need that’s desperate enough to push her into marriage with a man she doesn’t love, and in front of a national audience no less. So she’s pretty much stuck.

So is Cannon. He had been assured by his father that it would be a done deal for him to come on this reality show and marry a pre-arranged candidate. Except it didn’t happen that way. Ellie, the woman who reminds him of nails on a chalkboard, managed to capture the heart of America and with it, the repeated popular vote on the show. On top of that, at the moment when he was given a choice of Ellie or the pre-arranged candidate, he gave in to a surge of rebellion that resulted in Ellie being chosen. So he’s pretty much stuck too.

What happens when two people who can’t stand each other are forced to live together and appear happily married? Chaos!

I was intrigued by the Wedding Game from the moment the email landed in my box. Reality shows are permeating every portion of television and I’ve even had several friends who have been involved with them. I know what things run like behind the scenes and the story intrigued me. Seriously, the entire world watched you date on television – can it really be that good in real life? With our celebrity culture running rampant in nearly every aspect of life, this is an idea that captured my imagination and wouldn’t let go. But was the book good?

Thankfully I can say it was. I spent a great deal of my Thanksgiving holiday immersed in the celebrity crazy world of Cannon and Ellie and I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Now I won’t lie. There were moments that I really didn’t like either of them. Both Cannon and Ellie really needed to get over themselves and figure out how to be grown-ups. But I liked their characters enough to care about whether they could actually make things work and that’s key when you’re reading something like this.

The pacing was fast and ran much like a real reality show. In the entertainment industry, you need to be ready to move quickly and adapt at the drop of a dime. The book’s twists and turns kept me interested enough to stick around and see how things would come together and in the end, a few things still managed to catch me by surprise.

This was a fun, light read that kept my brain from melting down in the middle of holiday stress. It provided the perfect getaway with laughter, creativity and romance.

Rating: PG-13: There were some older thoughts in this one, so I’d keep it out of the hands of younger tweens. Nothing major and definitely no scenes to worry about. More a matter of the questions that may be asked.

Review copy provided by Blythe Daniel Agency.