This is a wild ride of thriller with dystopian elements. We follow two best friend’s who over the years have grown distant as one of them is getting married. We have Ellie the bridezilla who is determined to get married before society deems her 'rotten' and we have Robin who is against marriage and is happy just living with her longterm girlfriend. The wedding industry is spiraling out of control and more and more brides are doing wedding charms to try and secure a happy marriage. Despite not wanting to Robin agrees to be Ellie's Maid of Honour after she confirms she won'tdoany wedding charms, but as the big day approaches a series of ominous occurrences happen leading Robin wonder if she made the right decision and it stars to feel like the bridal party is out to get her.

The first half of the book we get to know the history of Robin and Ellie's friendship with all of the ups and downs and Robins decision to accept being maid of honour. This set up is important for the second half of the book where the craziness kicks in with the lead up and the big day itself.

This book was fast paced and an easy read. I loved that it gave black mirror vibes. It really does focus on the complexities of female friendships and the pressures society puts on women. This is a solid dystopian thriller.

I am giving it 3.5 ⭐️ but rounding up.

Thank you to Netgalley and HQ for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Weddings and brides and what is supposed to come after is what this novel is about. I think it’s cleverly written by the author. Enjoyed it from start to finish a good holiday read.

I’d describe this book as realistic fiction. The author has done an amazing job at creating imaginary characters and situations that depict the world and society. The characters focus on themes of growing, self-discovery and confronting personal and social problems. This is a first for me by the author and one I enjoyed and would read more of their work. The book cover is eye-catching and appealing and would spark my interest if in a bookshop. Thank you very much to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this ARC.

3.5/5.

A brilliant book with such a different form to what I usually read but really loved this book. So well written with mystery, twists and turns with also humour that I did laugh out loud at . It had a bit of everything with a dark mystery humour. Would really recommend this book , so easy to read and also hard to put down.

So Happy For You by Celia Laskey is a gripping read, right from the opening sentence you are hooked and drawn into an all too plausible world where the intense focus on the perfect wedding and bridezillas are no longer just the stuff of your worst nightmares This is societal pressure ramped up by governments and social media to new horrors. An entertaining dystopian novel with intense black humour which I am glad that HQ and Netgalley let me read in return for an impartial review.

This is a very strange story. I think it’s a satire about the whole wedding culture and societal pressure to marry and have kids. Also very bizzare how the plot went out to be. I did enjoy interesting dialogues and observation on culture and human behaviour though. So I’m happy to give 3 stars but I cannot say I completely understand the point of this book to be completely honest! I think this would be a great book for lovers of satire and weird books!

Overall, this is an entertaining read about the relationship between two best friends and a wedding from hell. It’s almost dystopian in that marriage is pretty much a state diktat and around the late twenties people are expected to be married or considered rotten. It’s unusual as this is the second book I’ve read in a couple of months with this premise. The story goes back and forth between the present day and the wedding preparations, and the back story of the two main characters. The crazy extremes of the wedding rituals will have you gasping and there were some amusing anecdotes from the backstory. I found I read through it pretty quickly but wasn’t sure I was totally hooked with this one. That said, I think my daughters in their twenties will probably really enjoy it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for a review.

Queer, satirical, FUN FEST incomingggggggggg 🌈🔪💍

This book gave me The Return/Bunny vibes & I loved it! I wasn’t sure what the tone was going to be but I’m so glad it ended up bringing the tongue in cheek creeps & the Black Mirror style futuristic elements were spot on 👏🏻

This story felt part black comedy, part horror, part contemporary queer goodness.. & it mashed up wonderfully 😁 I loved the feminist undertones & the way in which they were threaded with SUCH skill & subtlety that the story was able to retain it’s hilarity & sense of fun. Can’t wait to read more from this author 🏳️‍🌈

So this is one of the most insane books I've read recently... but thats what made it so good! Like we all know or have known a total bridezilla right... its really not that far fetched that they would kill to have the perfect wedding and long lasting marriage...

It probably wouldn't take much to convince a bridezilla to kill someone in order to break some curse or please the wedding gods etc.

If you are in the wedding party or specifically the maid of honour this wedding season.. brace yourself for this dark satanic take on all things wedding and at what cost a bride will go to for the perfect day!!

A great hilarious but dark.. fast paced read!!

When thirty-four year old Robin begrudgingly agrees to be the Maid of Honor for childhood best friend Ellie, she has her reservations.

Set against a dystopian modern America, the society the women inhabit is obsessed with ageing, fertility and above all marriage... and making it last at all costs.

Robin struggles with the ever-widening emotional gulf between her and her 'best friend' Ellie, who seems hell-bent on having the perfect day at the expense of everyone around her,. especially Robin. As the big day looms closer, Ellie's behaviour towards Robin seems more and twisted, causing Robin to question everything until darker truths rear their heads...

The book explores the strain that female friendship can endure when it exists within a patriarchal structure as well as how friendships can diverge when people seek out their own identity in adulthood.

This book was campy, thrilling and funny, in spite of its darker themes- a perfect beach read that forces you to turn the page!

I enjoyed Celia Laskey's last book, Under The Rainbow. Though I found the writing style tricky, I wanted to give her work another shot, and I like to read LGBT books, so I thought I would give this one a try. While I enjoyed Under the Rainbow, I liked this one even more.

Since childhood, Ellie and Robin have been best friends but have grown apart in recent years. So when Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honour, Robin is quite unsure and emotional about her decision, both due to having grown apart and what it might entail, particularly for someone who is so against the governmental pushing of marriage. In addition, she dislikes Ellie's fiancé and doesn't think they are a good match, making things even more complicated.

Robin eventually agrees, and it seems primarily because it will help with her PhD thesis about the commodification of marriage.

At first, I was confused about what period this was set in. However, it's a dystopian version of our reality which I found intriguing. Marriage is the 'done thing' advocated and pushed by the government. While Robin doesn't seem so keen, despite Gay Marriage being available, she is happy with her girlfriend, Aimee. However, her best friend Ellie can't wait and doesn't want to be left 'rotten'.

Everything surrounding them is wedding related. A proliferation of websites, dating apps, pressures and programmes to bring people together to encourage their union, including some very lucrative tax breaks, mean the wedding craziness reaches an all-time high. Everyone wants to get married as soon as possible. Many brides and their mothers are turning into Bridezilla, which sounds like a nightmare. Then add in some crazy rituals or superstitions the brides want to carry out to ensure a good, long and happy marriage, and you have what seems like carnage. I can see why Robin wants to stay as far away from it as possible.

I loved this concept and could picture myself being part of their world quite easily. Despite being married, I'm pretty sure I would be on robins side too! So happy for you is a lot of fun to read. The levels thought of for the bridezilla scenes were brilliant and very imaginative. The extremes she will go to are outrageous!

I enjoyed the relationship between Ellie and Robin. Exploring their friendship from its origin through evolution and dissolution was fascinating. I enjoyed the ending of this bought and the troubles in between. Both of the main characters were well developed, they weren't people I would want to be friends with, but I did enjoy reading about their lives and experiences.

There is a bit of something for everyone here, a bit rom-com, a dark thriller, dystopian new worlds, friendships, love, and humour. It's a little bit crazy, but I read it in one sitting, and I loved it.

So Happy For You by Celia Laskey is a dark thriller set in a future that feels only a couple of steps removed from the one we are heading towards today.
Ellie and Robin have been best friends since childhood though they have grown apart somewhat as the years went by , so when Ellie asks Robin to be her Maid of Honour , Robin has mixed emotions, especially since she is not the biggest fan of Ellie's boyfriend, has no interest in weddings or marriage , and is happy living with her girlfriend Aimee. She eventually agrees despite her misgivings, thinking it may be of use in writing her PhD thesis about the commodification of marriage. This emphasis on marriage and weddings is what brings a slightly dystopian feel to the book. In this world the government strongly encourages marriage to help counteract a falling birth rate, and there has been a proliferation of dating apps, websites and programmes to help bring couples together. Wedding craziness has reached an all new height with brides being prepared to carry out crazy rituals and follow strange superstitions if they think it will bring them a happier marriage and it is against this backdrop of wedding madness that we see Robin getting increasingly wrapped up in the craziness of Ellie's wedding preparations.
This is a book that has a lot of fun with the concept of the Bridezilla and takes it to a whole other level in a way that often feels disturbing. I also really liked the way that the origins, evolution and eventual dissolution of the friendship between Ellie and Robin was explored., but I have to admit that neither of them were particularly sympathetic or likeable characters.
Overall this was a fun entertaining read, perfect for someone who wants something a little different by the pool this summer.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

Wow what a dark thriller book this was , This book tells the story of childhood friends Ellie and Robin and what follows is an incredible book about friendship and everything else that follows, if you like black mirror you love this book without giving any spoilers away

Thanks to netgalley and the publishers for the arc of this book in exchange for this heist review

One of my all-time favourite book titles, which the voice in my head insists on reading in an increasingly passive-aggressive sneer.

Bizarre and gripping, So Happy for You somehow manages to be both thriller and savage critique of the modern-day heterosexual marriage industry, all wrapped up in one dark and satirical package. The blurb described it as Bridesmaids meets Black Mirror, and that honestly hits the nail on the head.

Set in a dystopian version of our own reality, from the very first line we know that the two main characters, Robin and Ellie, are going to try to kill each other. Bridezilla Ellie has (in her infinite wisdom) decided that her high school best friend Robin (Known Marriage Sceptic, PhD), is going to be her maid of honour. Excellent idea, can’t go wrong.

(Spoiler alert: it definitely goes wrong)

Laskey surrounds Robin and Ellie with some sharply rendered takes on marriage rom-com staple characters, and skewers many.a tradition (both real and imagined) as the characters all spin dangerously towards a gloriously messy finale.

I thoroughly enjoyed this - if you want something a little more interesting for your poolside read this summer, this should be a contender.

Thanks so much to NetGalley and HQ for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A wedding weekend spirals out of control in this bold, electrifying, hilarious novel about the complexities of female friendship. Robin and Ellie have been best friends since childhood. When Robin came out, Ellie was there for her. When Ellie's father died, Robin had her back. But when Ellie asks Robin to be her maid of honour, she is reluctant. Robin is a queer academic and is dubious of the elaborate wedding rituals that are now sweeping the nation. As the wedding weekend approaches, a serious of events occur that lead Robin to second guess her decision to accept. It seems everyone in the bridal party is out to get her.

How far will a bride go to have a perfect wedding?

This book is laugh out loud funny but equality strange and creepy. The concept of wedding hype hooked me in, and the lengths individuals will go to capture the 'perfect' day is scary. In a bizarre way this book explores the dark side of the wedding industry and the pressure a bride endures to reach perfection. I admit it was uncomfortably strange at times, but it was hilarious and I was hooked wanting to know what twists and turns were coming next. I particularly enjoyed how the story was a mixture of present day wedding drama and a step back in time looking at how the friendship developed.

Thank you NetGalley and HQ for the chance to review.

This one is hard to quantify. It's essentially about the difficult friendship between two very different women who have grown apart after an intensely close relationship through their teens. There's a half-hearted dystopian that revolves around a sky-high divorce rate which had led to increased misogyny, attacks on reproductive rights and a government pushing marriage at all costs. As women's worth ties to their marriagability more and more extreme ways to secure and presevre marriages emerge, including arcane charms and animal sacrifice. But it's not developed enough to really stand up and the strongest parts of the book are Robin and Ellie's earlier friendship. The impact of time, different values and different goals on this relationship would have been more satisfying without the OTT events.

This book was crazy, I had no idea what was going on at any point but I think I liked it.

It’s set in a slightly dystopian world where everyone is obsessed with marriage and will do whatever they can to have a perfect one.

Robin has been asked to be maid of honour at her best friend Ellie’s wedding and as the day comes closer things go from weird to weirder.

This is a slightly mental but intoxicating look at female friendship and relationships and everything that comes with them.

It’s sort of a thriller and is very fast paced (I read in one sitting) but you’ll be left wondering what the hell just happened.

So Happy for You is all about the pressure women feel to get married, settle down and have a family, and the lengths they'll go to in order to make that happen. We feel that a lot in life as it is, but in So Happy for You, its ramped up several notches, with weddings being a national obsession.
We meet Robin, our narrator throughout the book, when she is catching up with her oldest friend Ellie.
Robin is lesbian, in a longterm relationship with Aimee, and has never felt the wedding pressure in the same way. She has been vocal about this, and is writing her PHD about the commodification of marriage.

Ellie has a pretty dull boyfriend who Robin has never warmed to, and when Ellie announces that they are engaged, and she'd like Robin to be her maid of honour, Robin cant hide her disappointment in how the relationship has developed although she also knows its what Ellie wants more than anything. This leads to a huge falling out and rift between them.

The story flits back and forth between the current day and wedding preparations, with more being revealed about the strong friendship between the women as well as the overriding differences in their fundamental perspectives. Ellie in particular doesnt come across as particularly likeable in the book and I found myself wondering what the story would be from her perspective.

Its not too much of a spoiler to say that Robin ends up in the wedding party as requested but she still has misgivings about weddings generally and this one in particular. The wedding preparations ramp up - I really enjoyed this section of the book and Ellie's obsessive tendencies.

Then there was a section about 2/3 through that completely lost me - Im not sure if I was missing something but it felt like an unnecessary sub-plot that then ended after a couple of pages.

So overall - I really enjoyed the writing style and the societal set up as a whole; there were some political viewpoints in there that were good to read about, as well as the commodification of marriage and women's desires. But the random plot dragged it down for me - so 3.5 stars rounded to 4.

When I first thought of requesting this novel on Netgalley, it was the cover of the book that first caught my attention. What a pretty cover I thought. I’m glad I requested this book and got approved to read this ARC.
I liked this book. It wasn’t what I expected. In places this Bridezilla story was laugh-out-loud funny and I felt so sorry for the maid of honour throughout. I liked the location of the story, and I liked the characters, maybe the bride not so much.
It was quite a quick read but an entertaining one for sure. I give it 4 stars because it wasn’t what I expected at all.

I've heard so many great things about this book, but for me it fell short and I just couldn't get into it. I didn't gel with the main character from the beginning (I felt like she was very opinionated and needed everyone to feel the same as she did, and judged those who didn't). Had to DNF this one.