Book Review: The Ex Vows

One of my favorite books of this year has been You, With a View by Jessica Joyce. It came out last year, but I just read it this year and it has stuck with me. So I have been eagerly waiting for her book, The Ex Vows to come out. It came out last month. I just read it last week and it did not disappoint.

The novel follows Georgia Woodward and Eli Mora. Georgia and Eli met as teenagers when Eli moved to town and quickly got scooped up by Georgia’s best friend, Adam. The three became best friends and inseparable. When the novel begins, Georgia is 28 and we learn that Georgia and Eli eventually fell in love and got together during college, moved to New York for Eli’s job, and then broke up 5 years ago. Georgia moved back home to San Francisco and only saw Eli when he was back in town for various events over the years. They never speak about what happened between them and they have an unspoken rule to pretend that they are good to spare Adam. But now Adam is getting married and Georgia and Eli are his best people. According to Adam, the wedding is cursed because everything that could go wrong, does. With the wedding a week away, they are in scramble mode as they need to change the venue, get a new dj, new cake, etc. Adam and his fiancée, Grace, can’t make it up to their wedding venue – Adam’s family’s vineyard – until a couple days before the wedding so he implores his best people to go up a week early and help with all the last minute changes and planning.

Since Georgia and Eli have told Adam for the past 5 years that there are no issues between them whatsoever and they get along just fine, they of course go. But what happens when the person you’re still in love with is also the one who broke your heart and you have to spend a week alone with them in order to make sure your mutual best friend has the beautiful wedding he deserves? What happens when you have to come to terms with everything the two of you have avoided talking about for the past 5 years?

I loved this book so much. Georgia and Eli were so realistic and I loved their years long love story. They were such good characters and had realistic flaws. Their love for each other was so deep and pure and good. I loved the mental health representation in the novel and the real portrayal of the issues they both have gone through and how they deal with things like anxiety.

The book made my heart ache and it made it happy. Georgia and Eli were beautiful characters and their love story was too!

As a side note: I’d love a story about Adam’s cousin, Cole, because he just seems so fun, funny, and there are hints that there’s a lot more substance to him than the good time he portrays.

Read this book if you want a spicy contemporary romance with the second chance romance trope.