I like the idea for this book, and I'm a fan of Jens Lekman, but it felt a bit repetitive after a while. I was frustrated with the characters (J&V) and how they both handled their relationship. I was a bit disappointed in this but I could see someone looking for a cozy, lighthearted book enjoying this one.

This made me sad but it was a good journey. It was very well written and the songs were, of course, beautiful. The book was very true, and I appreciate that but I don't know that it what I was in the mood for when I began reading it. Still, if you are Jens Lekman fan (like I am) and/or a David Leviathan fan (like I am), you will enjoy this immensely!

Songs for Other People's Wedings comes out next week on August 12 2025 and you can purchase HERE.

J is a somewhat successful Swedish singer-songwriter. If you live outside of Sweden, it's unlikely you've heard any of his songs on the radio... unless you are one of the bookish, folkish sort who listen to bookish, folkish stations that play bookish, folkish ditties. Then you might know exactly who J is.
The reason he's here tonight is not a longstanding friendship with Jun and Arthur. Until they emailed him out of the blue, J had never met them. This may seem like a strange thing to do, but for J, it is not that strange, because on his debut album there is a song called "If You Ever Need a Stranger (to Sing at Your Wedding)."

Thanks to NetGalley and Abrams Press for the advance read.

I absolutely adored and devoured this title. Being a huge Jens Lekman fan, I was sold before reading a word. Ultimately I found Mr Levithan’s storytelling to be emotionally moving and that it kept me on edge eagerly reading to find the book’s endgame.

Jens Lekman’s lyrics ring true and are on par with his previously recorded masterworks. I’m happy his tour is hitting my metropolis.

A final note, meant as a compliment, is just how eerily Mr Levithan’s writing reminds me of Nick Hornby’s best work. Perhaps this book could be made into a great movie?

Requested this because I have enjoyed David Levithan’s earlier books. This one was a miss for me, however. Slow pacing and characters I didn’t care for

This book isn’t a romance, but it is a book about love. The main character of this book reminds me, somewhat, of 500 days of summer. It’s a man trying to understand love as it’s changing, while constantly reflecting on the density and complexity of love because of being a wedding singer. This book is thoughtful. It’s interesting and contemplative. It is not a romance.

There are few positive things I can say about this novel. The premise sounded promising, but the execution was disappointing. The pace is excruciatingly slow and the prose verbose and repetitive. I found myself skimming and then skipping whole paragraphs.

The most challenging aspect was my lack of engagement with the primary characters – J and V. Neither were likeable and both seemed self-absorbed for distinct reasons. There was an occasional wedding couple that piqued my interest and an equally occasional insight into the complexities of love and relationships. I enjoyed J’s process of interviewing the prospective bride and groom to develop a unique, personalized song, but even this was dampened by the challenge to find meaning in the subsequent lyrics.

Overall, this was a tedious read - the author’s style was not a match for me.

I appreciated the opportunity to receive an ARC of this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

This was a strange sort of book, but a pleasant read. It's not a love story, but it is about love. It's hard to describe, but it's fresh, and intellectual.

I love David Levithan’s writing style, but in a departure from his other books I found most of the characters insufferable. I was initially rooting for the protagonist J, a wedding singer with a small international following, but by the middle of the novel he was so self-centered that I kind of wanted bad things to happen to him. The book also provides a few chapters from his girlfriend V’s point of view and she was so singularly focused that it was hard to relate to her until very late in the book.

I’m usually a huge fan of David Levithan and the blurb for this one was really intriguing. I wish it was more of a rom-com. The songs were fun and the overall concept was what intrigued me, it just never really grabbed my attention as much as his other works have.

I've read a lot ofDavid Levithan books as a high school librarian, but I found this one better in concept than execution. The story was slow and sad--the weddings interspersed within the story were fun, but not enough to really to change the vibe. I was especially put off by the way the story began, it was strangely confusing and I couldn't tell what was going on and who was who--it took awhile to get into the flow of the story. I do like the creatively of the songs and the ideas behind it all, but overall it was just fine, not great.

Well, the first thing to know about this book is that it is not a romance novel, and you should not expect it to be one. You will be very sad if that's what you think is happening. But it's charming, and meandering, and I like the conceit of the weddings and how we wander in and out of other people's lives. Parts of it are very melancholy and a real bummer, but in a lovely way. 3.5 rounded up, I think?

I received a free ARC from NetGalley.

I had a tough time getting into this book—it started off pretty slow. But I’m glad I stuck with it until the end.

2.25 stars

It breaks my heart to give a David Levithan book such a low rating, since I’ve loved his books for close to a decade. Maybe that’s why my expectations were so high, and unfortunately they were not met.

I hated J. I didn’t care about V and J’s relationship, and was very much rooting for them to break up and stay broken up. I found J to be whiny and insufferable, and I wished V would just end things and put him out of his misery. I hated being inside his head and having to hear his constant needy thoughts. I also found this book extremely repetitive, both with the constant fighting and circling back and rehashing of J and V’s relationship and the weddings themselves.

Overall I would not recommend this. There are some good moments and profound ideas hidden among all the things I didn’t like, but it is not worth sifting through to get to them.

I was quite excited for this book because of its blurb but this book missed the mark for me. I just couldnt tolerate the characters and the plot started to feel repetitive after a while

(Actual: 3.25⭐) Ahhh.... as someone who's read and enjoyed a lot of Levithan's previous works (both in the YA and Adult genres), I wish I liked this book more than I did. I didn't hate or even dislike it or anything, I just felt like.... for such an interesting premise, the execution could've been a lot better/stronger, especially in light of Levithan's past works (like, I know he is fully capable of it!). I think the parts I enjoyed most about this story and the message I know it was working hard to convey just unfortunately got buried & lost under the minutiae of everything else. Would still recommend out to others because, again, I've enjoyed Levithan's work in the past, still look forward to whatever he comes out with in the future, and know this will still find and enrapture its core audience!

cool premise, nice, well written book. the vibes are genuinely interesting and the feelings are definitely intriguing. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

This book had some really profound ideas and funny lines but it felt like it was buried and you had to search for those nuggets. It was okay overall; the overall idea and songs were great but the slow death of J and V's romance got a bit exhausting.

Kindly received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to like this book but I just couldn’t. Tried twice to read it. Wasn’t able to finish either time. I think the premise is a good one and it might be a great read for some. Just not me.

Any fan of Jens Lekman will adore this book. It's hard to know how someone unfamiliar with the Swedish singer-songwriter will enjoy it though, as its so specific to his twee, melancholic persona. Some might find it repetitive and grating, others will love it for the same reasons.

“Songs for Other People’s Weddings” is David Levithan’s latest love story, this time in collaboration with Jens Lekman. This book tells the story of J and V, a Swedish couple navigating growth & change within and outside a partnership, with the added pressure of distance. J is a songwriter and wedding singer and he specializes in crafting custom love songs for couples that he sings at their wedding celebration. The novel follows J over the course of a year, composing songs for 10 different weddings and discovering universal truths about love in the process.

Levithan has always been very skilled at distilling the universal through the very specific experiences of human connection. This book is no exception—he highlights a wide variety of love stories, through each of the ten weddings that J is invited to sing and write for. What I most enjoyed about this book was how quickly the authors are able to have the reader rooting for these couples who have chosen to commit to each other for a wide array of reasons and whose stories look very different from one another. Each of these vignettes offers the reader a new insight into why we love, how love works, the complexities of love, and the maddening simplicities of love, all at the same time.

Where this story didn’t land as well with me was with the central love story of J and V, who we follow throughout the book. Their story certainly feels very real and their dynamics are familiar. What is difficult is that we mostly see their relationship from J’s vantage point and when we hear from V’s perspective, it’s hard to understand why V has loved J until now. This is actually what makes it hard to root for them as the central couple in the story, because we are asked to see the heartbreak from J’s perspective so extensively that it’s hard not to judge V harshly.

Not every love story needs to have a happily ever after—something that anyone familiar with Levithan’s work will recognize easily—and I appreciate the honesty and hope this story leaves the reader with, even as it ends the story with unanswered questions.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read, albeit sometimes a meandering story that left this reader not always sure where the narrative was going next; my main critique about having a hard time rooting for V and J doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the writing or the reading experience. There were many lines I highlighted and underlined several times for how resonant they were and how powerfully they conveyed big ideas about what it means to be human—this is what makes this book worth reading: those beautiful insights that are unearthed at unexpected moments.

While I wouldn’t rank this as highly as The Lover’s Dictionary (one of my all-time favorite David Levithan books), this was a well-written exploration of the drawn-out moments in relationships where things change and we can’t quite put our finger on what’s changing and why.