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A review by amibunk
Wedding Girl by Stacey Ballis
3.0
3.5 stars
There were lots of things I liked about this novel: the characters had some heft and were very entertaining, the writing was decent, and the plot had some good pacing to it (with the exception of the first two chapters.) So it was an enjoyable summer read and I'm glad I read it.
However. HOWEVER, there were just some things that irritated me to no end. First, the main character Sophie, despite being multifaceted, never had any real character development. After her hastily described rock bottom moments in the first chapters of the book, her growth remained fairly stagnant. Yes, her circumstances changed but not through her growth and development. And while I liked this character's pluck and determination, I wanted to shake her just a little bit.
Another thing that got on my nerves was the CONSTANT mentioning of food. I get it's a foodie kind of a book, and I love that stuff. And I truly appreciated that it seemed like the author knew her food, but man, there was so much of it in this novel. In the very first chapter the description of the wedding food goes on for PAGES. It was so out of balance compared to the time devoted to characters or action. All of which made the first two chapters feel like a huge information dump given to the reader to get them to where the author truly wanted to start the story of how Sophie pulls herself up by her bootstraps and takes back her life.
Finally, the side plot of friend Jean's romance with Hanna was underwhelming. It either needed more fleshing out like the side plot of Bubble's secret relationship or it just needed to be scrapped altogether. Sadly, it was just this weird blip in the overall plot that did more to make Sophie and Ruth seem like small jerks than it added to the comic relief.
So at the end, I am left with a book that I genuinely enjoyed, but one that I find easier to criticize than praise.
There were lots of things I liked about this novel: the characters had some heft and were very entertaining, the writing was decent, and the plot had some good pacing to it (with the exception of the first two chapters.) So it was an enjoyable summer read and I'm glad I read it.
However. HOWEVER, there were just some things that irritated me to no end. First, the main character Sophie, despite being multifaceted, never had any real character development. After her hastily described rock bottom moments in the first chapters of the book, her growth remained fairly stagnant. Yes, her circumstances changed but not through her growth and development. And while I liked this character's pluck and determination, I wanted to shake her just a little bit.
Another thing that got on my nerves was the CONSTANT mentioning of food. I get it's a foodie kind of a book, and I love that stuff. And I truly appreciated that it seemed like the author knew her food, but man, there was so much of it in this novel. In the very first chapter the description of the wedding food goes on for PAGES. It was so out of balance compared to the time devoted to characters or action. All of which made the first two chapters feel like a huge information dump given to the reader to get them to where the author truly wanted to start the story of how Sophie pulls herself up by her bootstraps and takes back her life.
Finally, the side plot of friend Jean's romance with Hanna was underwhelming. It either needed more fleshing out like the side plot of Bubble's secret relationship or it just needed to be scrapped altogether. Sadly, it was just this weird blip in the overall plot that did more to make Sophie and Ruth seem like small jerks than it added to the comic relief.
So at the end, I am left with a book that I genuinely enjoyed, but one that I find easier to criticize than praise.