''The Worst Best Man'' is a 2020 contemporary

romance novel A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Pre ...

written by

Mia Sosa Mia Sosa is an American romance novelist, best known for the 2020 novel '' The Worst Best Man''. Early life Sosa is half Puerto Rican and half Brazilian. Following her parents' divorce, Sosa was raised by her mother and her mother's two divorc ...

Plot

Wedding coordinator Carolina Santos is left at the altar. Three years later, she has an opportunity to win a dream job. She is assigned a marketing specialist - Max Hartwell, her former fiancé's brother. While working together, the two eventually fall in love.

Background

is half Puerta Rican and half

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian. She was raised by her divorced mother and her mother's two sisters, whose marriages had also failed. Sosa's first book was published in 2015. The novel is a contemporary

romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...

, set in Washington, D.C. It follows the

trope Trope or tropes may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Trope (cinema), a cinematic convention for conveying a concept * Trope (literature), a figure of speech or common literary device * Trope (music), any of a variety of different things ...

of enemies to lovers. While Sosa's previous books contained Latino characters, the heroine of ''The Worst Best Man'' shares Sosa's Brazilian heritage. Like her other novels, the book has sharply drawn supporting characters. Sosa noted that "Relationships with family characters are a familiar theme in all my romances. Friends and family aren’t just part of the background. Incorporating them into the romance makes you see the way two people who have promised happily ever after will still interact with each other as part of a larger group. In Brazilian and Puerto Rican culture, family and tradition are a ‘thing’, whether people screw up or not."

Reception

Both ''Publishers Weekly'' and ''Kirkus Reviews'' awarded the book a starred review. ''Publishers Weekly'' noted that the book's "soap opera premise" was "fantastically fun" In ''Kirkus'', reviewer Kate Voorsanger Ryan warned that the book is "so funny you might not be able to read it in public without making snorting noises". ''Publishers Weekly'' noted that the book is more than just a romp; the heroine "is masterfully nuanced, depicting her experiences as a woman of color, her struggle to balance her parents’ expectations with her own happiness, and the double bind of being accused of being overly stoic when she controls her feelings and overly emotional when she expresses them."

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Worst Best Man, The 2020 American novels Contemporary romance novels American romance novels