★ 04/10/2017
Ginder (Driver’s Education) takes family dysfunction to its hysterical limit in this joyously ribald, sharply cynical, and impossible-to-put-down examination of love and loyalty. Mining the rich vein of comedy and drama inherent in a lavish, over-the-top wedding, Ginder spins the stories of siblings Alice and Paul, half-sister and bride-to-be Eloise, and their mother, Donna, as they make their way to Eloise’s nuptials in a quaint hamlet in the southwest of England. For Alice and Paul, the trip is fraught with a troubled family and personal history: they’re both in poisonous and doomed relationships and see Eloise as the snotty daughter of a rich, absent dad, and Donna as a coldhearted widow who quickly ditched all remnants of their father after his death. During the boozy prewedding days, the resentment and secrets come tumbling out in outbursts and dangerously, hilariously bad decisions. As a happy ending seems to slip further out of sight, Ginder provides far better: laughter and hope. “Love may disappoint,” Paul tells cold-footed Eloise before she walks down the aisle, “but that doesn’t absolve us from the duty of loving.” (June)
The People We Hate at the Wedding: A Novel
Narrated by Khristine Hvam, Dan Bittner
Grant GinderUnabridged — 11 hours, 17 minutes
The People We Hate at the Wedding: A Novel
Narrated by Khristine Hvam, Dan Bittner
Grant GinderUnabridged — 11 hours, 17 minutes
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Overview
The People We Hate at the Wedding is now a major motion picture starring Kristen Bell, Allison Janney and Ben Platt!
"It's for the same audience that flocked to The Nest, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? or dare I say a little book you might be a fan of, Crazy Rich Asians."
- Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians
Relationships are awful. They'll kill you, right up to the point where they start saving your life.
Paul and Alice's half-sister Eloise is getting married! In London! There will be fancy hotels, dinners at “it” restaurants and a reception at a country estate complete with tea lights and embroidered cloth napkins.
They couldn't hate it more.
The People We Hate at the Wedding is the story of a less than perfect family. Donna, the clan's mother, is now a widow living in the Chicago suburbs with a penchant for the occasional joint and more than one glass of wine with her best friend while watching House Hunters International. Alice is in her thirties, single, smart, beautiful, stuck in a dead-end job where she is mired in a rather predictable, though enjoyable, affair with her married boss. Her brother Paul lives in Philadelphia with his older, handsomer, tenured track professor boyfriend who's recently been saying things like “monogamy is an oppressive heteronormative construct,” while eyeing undergrads. And then there's Eloise. Perfect, gorgeous, cultured Eloise. The product of Donna's first marriage to a dashing Frenchman, Eloise has spent her school years at the best private boarding schools, her winter holidays in St. John and a post-college life cushioned by a fat, endless trust fund. To top it off, she's infuriatingly kind and decent.
As this estranged clan gathers together, and Eloise's walk down the aisle approaches, Grant Ginder brings to vivid, hilarious life the power of family, and the complicated ways we hate the ones we love the most in the most bitingly funny, slyly witty and surprisingly tender novel you'll read this year.
"Sinfully good."
- Elin Hilderbrand
Entertainment Weekly's Summer Must-Read
A Publishers Weekly BEST SUMMER BOOKS, 2017
New York Post Best Books of Summer
Redbook's 10 Books You Have To Read This Summer
Editorial Reviews
"Fact: best title of any novel ever. This story about a dysfunctional blended family and a wedding in England is sinfully good."
— Elin Hilderbrand
"A feast of bitchy characters, dysfunctional family dynamics and hilarious, over-the-top catastrophe."
— People
"Ginder takes family dysfunction to its hysterical limit in this joyously ribald, sharply cynical, and impossible-to-put-down examination of love and loyalty."
— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"The summer’s most compelling fictional exploration of affluence and envy, it skillfully mingles the introspective ways of a domestic novel with the juicy stratagems of a page turner...Especially well-suited to this summer of our discontent. Like all the best beach reads, it eats the rich like so many frozen grapes."
— Bloomberg BusinessWeek
"An over-the-top dishfest that atones for the sins of its characters with sly humor and a surprisingly big heart."
— Departures
"Reading this book is like watching a really good indie rom-com...It’s a dysfunctional family saga; sort of like Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney’s “The Nest” last year, but funnier... Ginder finds that careful balance of making fun of his characters while maintaining affection for them; by this saga’s end, you wish them all well."
— The Seattle Times
"A vibrant celebration of the modern family and all the crazy, hilarious and wild ways we love each other...This is the best wedding drama since My Best Friend's Wedding."
— Redbook
"Witty and completely absorbing, The People We Hate at the Wedding is family dysfunction at its best —full of heart, humor, and jealous siblings. This novel is addicting and entertaining and I couldn't put it down!"
— Jennifer Close, New York Times bestselling author of Girls in White Dresses and The Hopefuls
"Not only does it have the best title in the universe, The People We Hate At The Wedding is wickedly smart and shamelessly funny. Grant Ginder brilliantly captures privileged Brits clashing against semi-privileged Americans in the most hilariously cringeworthy ways. Cluelessly self-absorbed, appallingly outrageous, and so very endearing, these are characters I hope to be seated with at the next wedding I attend."
—Kevin Kwan, New York Times bestselling author of Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend
"Don't be fooled by the superbly sardonic title—Grant Ginder's subject is not hate at all: it's love. Ginder expertly and hilariously shows us that real love (whether romantic or fraternal, parental or filial) is always a most complicated matter."
—Rumaan Alam, author of Rich and Pretty
"Ginder successfully captures the clash between people who are intimately connected yet deeply at odds. These characters are completely clueless and utterly self-absorbed yet highly likable, their trials and tribulations painful at times and joyful at others but always entertaining. Ginder’s latest is a fascinating exploration of family dynamics and the complex way we interact with those who know us best."
— Booklist, Starred Review
"It turns out that the people we hate at the wedding are the very people we most love reading about. Grant Ginder's smart, funny novel is madly insightful and contains some of the most delightfully difficult and fabulously flawed characters I've encountered in a long time. I found myself worrying about them as I drove to work, hoping things would turn out well for (almost) all of them."
— Stephen McCauley, bestselling author of The Object of My Affection
"Ginder has a gift for the gleefully outrageous, dishing out one over-the-top scene after another... A daisy chain of debacles makes time spent with people we hate good fun."
— Kirkus Reviews
Narrator Dan Bittner and Khristine Hvam team up for an impressive performance involving alternating perspectives. Paul and Alice’s half-sister, Eloise, is getting married, and they’re prepared to hate everything about the wedding—just as they’ve hated everything about their perfect sister. Being rich and French, Eloise is starkly unlike them and their Midwestern background. The believable dialogue requires varying accents and cadences, but each internal voice is differentiated only by gender. This tactic highlights how similar the family members are in contrast to their warring words. Listeners will be moved by insults dripping with sarcasm and voices thick with pain—and just when it all feels too dark, comedy comes to the fore, and they’ll laugh at the ridiculousness of the disputes. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
2017-03-07
An extravagant wedding is threatened by equally lavish family tensions.Paul is a cranky gay guy, and he has a lot to be cranky about, really. He has a job at a clinic where he helps people face their compulsions—for example, forcing a germophobic client who could have "been plucked from a year-old Talbots catalog" to stand in trash cans full of rotting food and maxipads. At home, his smug, controlling boyfriend wants to start inviting strangers into their bed for three-way sex. And his half sister, Eloise, who lives in England, has just sent out ridiculously expensive invitations to her wedding—she must have spent nearly five grand, as he and his other sister, Alice, determine in the phone conversation that opens the book. Paul initially refuses to attend the wedding for the same reasons he refuses to take his mother's phone calls—he can't stand Eloise, thinks their mom favors her, and has been alienated from the family since his father's death. Meanwhile, Alice is not doing great either: living in LA, she dates a married man and relies on Klonopin to get her through the days, unable to recover from a miscarriage that happened years ago. Their mother, Donna, is not too broken up about the death of her second husband (Paul and Alice's dad) and still half in love with her first (Eloise's, who will be at the wedding). She is just hoping to smooth over all these problems and get her children together for the fabulous event. Ginder (Driver's Education, 2013) has a gift for the gleefully outrageous, dishing up one over-the-top scene after another—a meltdown at the compulsion clinic, a drugged-up gay sex imbroglio, a room service debauch, an unexpected and quite unwelcome kayaking trip. A daisy chain of debacles makes time spent with "people we hate" good fun.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169109917 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Macmillan Audio |
| Publication date: | 06/06/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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