I fell head over heels for Cynthia Timoti’s writing when I had the honor of reading her debut novel as an ARC. Now, with her second release, How to Find a Guy in Five Weddings, I was absolutely ecstatic to return to Port Benedict, where we last left Alec and Ellie, and move on to another shop on the strip – this time hanging out with Kim and Rob. The best part about a continuation, even if it is technically a standalone, is getting the chance to check in with some of your favorite characters from the previous story, and Cynthia didn’t disappoint.

The most important thing in the world to Kimiko Halim was family. She would do anything and everything for the two people who raised her, her Opa and Oma, even if that meant honoring the ridiculous condition left behind by her late grandmother: finding someone to spend her life with within two years of the will reading. While Kim couldn’t care less about the relationship aspect, she did care about what would happen if she failed. If she didn’t satisfy the clause, she risked losing ownership of her grandmother’s yarn store – and that simply wasn’t happening.

After one terrible online date match after another, Kim finds herself trapped in a disaster loop until one fateful evening when Rob Carmichael comes to the rescue. Talk about right place, right time. Rob steps in to save her from yet another awful date and ends up presenting her with a brilliant idea: he will help her find her true love and fulfill her grandmother’s wishes. Feeling guilty that Rob only knows part of the plan and being aware that she tends to dump whoever is in her life once the yarn shop is hers, she agrees to his plan – five guys, five weddings. 

As each wedding passes, Kim finds herself spending more and more time with Rob, discovering there is far more depth beneath the beautiful surface and beginning to wonder if she has been looking everywhere except directly in front of her for the happiness she doesn’t believe she truly deserves.

Like Cynthia’s debut, I was completely consumed by this book. The antics of the blind dates, the outlandish results from the wedding setups, and the growing friendship between Kim and Rob were exactly why I could barely put it down.

That being said, I definitely had a love-hate relationship with Kim. Cynthia did an amazing job developing her background and helping us understand why she was so closed off and resistant to relationships, but I’m not going to lie – it was infuriating watching her constantly argue against her feelings for Rob. He was sweet, attractive, could cook, great with kids, into construction, loving, and caring. At one point, I genuinely felt like he could do better considering how hard she fought her attraction to him. Any other sane woman wouldn’t have needed nearly as much convincing!

Cynthia also kept the intimacy fairly minimal throughout the book. Readers get enough detail to create a low-level sense of spice with an R-rated word here and there, but nothing that tips the scales into overly hot and heavy territory.

While I think most women can understand Kim’s fears and resistance toward relationships, my heart honestly went out to Rob. Whether it was his father or the family of the woman he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with, he spent far too much of his life being told he wasn’t good enough. And when enough people repeat something to you over and over, eventually you start believing it too.

The one thing that didn’t fully land for me was Rob’s reaction when he initially found out Kim had a deadline to be in a relationship before losing the yarn store. He accused her of using him just like everyone else had, but I didn’t fully see the comparison between Kim, Lucy, and his father. Lucy and her family didn’t think he was good enough, and his father never believed he was enough either, but Kim’s situation felt more complicated than outright manipulation.

Now, if Rob’s real fear was that Kim didn’t see him as someone worthy of genuinely dating, then I can absolutely understand how that would connect back to his insecurities with Lucy and his father. I just think the emotional trigger needed slightly clearer wording to make the scene hit as hard as it was intended to. Especially because the later blowup – when Kim discovers Rob knew about the property acquisition all along – was extremely well written and emotionally charged. That confrontation landed much more naturally for me.

I will say, though, it did irk me when Kim believed she was justified in being angrier at Rob than he was at her. What he did honestly wasn’t worse in my eyes. He was legally bound and contractually obligated not to say anything. More than likely, he didn’t even know the full situation until after signing the NDA, meaning that even if he wanted to back out later, he still legally couldn’t disclose anything.

Meanwhile, Kim intentionally withheld the truth about her own motivations and was initially using Rob as a pawn to help secure the yarn store. Yes, she eventually fell for him, but her original intentions were still rooted in personal gain under false pretenses. So while both characters understandably felt horrible for lying, I personally didn’t think she had the moral high ground to look down on him more harshly – especially considering how hard he consistently tried to help her.

I’m also going to be honest and say I wasn’t fully sold on the reconciliation between Kim and her father. To me, she felt more like a consolation prize. He was being forced into retirement, and suddenly, now that he had nothing else competing for his attention, he decided to finally become a proper father and son to the people in his life.

I understand the reasoning behind the change, but I still viewed it two ways: if he hadn’t been forced to retire, would he have changed at all? And if he was always capable of becoming this version of himself, why didn’t he choose to do it sooner?

I also felt like the resolution itself was a bit of a stretch. Rob helping push through the Historic Preservation application didn’t feel like the massive grand gesture Kim made it out to be because he had already been helping her every step of the way long before the fallout. Honestly, if she had told him about the application before the fight, I fully believe he still would have helped her.

To me, it also didn’t feel like Rob was suddenly choosing Kim over his father. His dad had no direct way of knowing Rob helped push the application through since Rob wasn’t the one submitting it himself. During the epilogue, it’s implied that Rob eventually confronts his father about everything, but when Rob mentions that he technically could have said something about the project earlier, I still strongly disagreed with that interpretation given how NDAs realistically work.

Even with those concerns, I genuinely enjoyed how the ending wrapped up Ellie and Alec’s storyline alongside Kim and Rob’s. And if we’re lucky enough to continue following this friend group, I would absolutely love to see what happens with Jenna next.

More than anything, though, I appreciated that the core undercurrent of this story centered around forgiveness, family, sacrifice, and the complicated ways love shapes people – both positively and negatively. Sometimes we need reminders that situations are not always as simple as they appear from the outside. What feels like an easy solution for spectators can feel impossibly complicated for the people actually living through it. A little grace and understanding can go a very long way.

I truly enjoyed yet another wonderful story by Cynthia Timoti, and I cannot wait to see what she writes next.