Celia Laskey

This was all over the place. Fittingly, different people advertised it as different things. Some people insisted it was a dark comedy. Others said it was a thriller. Yet others said it was a mainstream comedy. It was none of the above. This book is dedicated to everyone who's been a bridesmaid, and then the novel has the story and themes it did. I was disgusted. It's not a revenge fantasy towards bridezillas, which may have been what the author was going for and what I admittedly wanted. This is a mean-spirited, hateful collection of pages that mocks thrillers and fatal attraction stories. I like thrillers and fatal attraction stories! That is not in this book. The book is mostly just mean-spirited social commentary. The thriller stuff amounts to Big Lipped Alligator Moments: they come right the fuck out of nowhere, have little to no bearing on the rest of the book, and when they're done, no one ever speaks of them again. Credit to Lindsay Ellis for the term and description.

There's no foreshadowing. No beat-for-beat stuff that is essential to a good thriller. Even the bride's unhinged behavior follows no pattern. The bridal rituals mean nothing and are just there for shock value. The kidnapping thing was indeed a real practice in the 1600s in Europe, and Russia in the 1700s. The best man was there to help with the kidnapping, and the reason wedding trains were so long was so the men could step on them and prevent the bride from leaving easily. Here, it's played for laughs. I was horrified.

It's not funny, makes no sense, doesn't work as a thriller or fatal attraction, and the narrator is a stuffy, judgmental woman who sees herself as above it all because until really recently, gay people couldn't get married in the USA. And -I- am a stuffy, judgmental, Queer person. She does acknowledge that marrying for romance is super recent, and here it's reverted back to its original use as a business deal or political arrangement. But somehow it's not really, because both adults negotiate rather than their fathers? Um...author, this doesn't work. There's a variety of gross-out scenes and activities, which makes me think the author knew she couldn't write scary stuff well. Sometimes people will use gross-out maneuvers and shock humor instead of the horror they're trying to write.

Abortions and women's rights are demolished in this narrative, and I read this the day Roe got struck down. I was so sad when the news hit. IT DIDN'T WORK WELL, AUTHOR. YOU SUCK. I was shaken every time references to it appeared on the page, because the author simply sneezed it at her audience as a shorthand for "things are so awful", but it DOESN'T FIT HERE. It all could really have been taken out and the book would have actually improved. Just do more world-building about women and their weddings, and bizarre social expectations for something that's a huge party where you dress in fancy costumes, exchange expensive trinkets, and promise lifelong commitment. While a few days ago, were celebrating all things sexual to express your lifelong commitment. Bachelor/ette parties are so weird. Weddings and their rituals are not a marriage, and do not acknowledge it as so. They don't acknowledge it's a partnership. Write a book about -that-, and have it be better. I might try to find a better author who focuses on it differently than here.

Don't waste your time reading this.… (meer)