Diary of A Mad Bride
Grade : B

This book is for anyone who has ever been to a wedding, been in a wedding, known a bride or has been a bride. Weddings bring out the best and the worst in people. Brides want their wedding to be the best there ever was: the best food, the best music, the prettiest gown, and the most fragrant flowers. Diary of a Mad Bride plays on the fears and foibles of the bride-to-be. Told in journal form, this book is fun, lighthearted journey from the planning stages to the actual wedding itself.

Amy Thomas is getting married. No sooner has she just told her best friend Mandy and Mandy's soon-to-be husband that she is not "the marrying kind" then she discovers that she is just that. Her boyfriend Stephen has just proposed and thrown Amy's world into a tailspin. She swears she won't be like Mandy, driving everyone crazy with wedding plans. It won't interrupt her work as an Associate Editor for Round Up magazine, the least read magazine in New York. Not only will she the absolute epitome of the calm bride but her wedding is going to be stunning! The event of the year! She'll have good food, not beef medallions. Her music, flowers and dress will all be the most stunning a bride ever wore!

Unfortunately many things stand in her way; money being the top problem. How can Amy be expected to plan a wedding in Manhattan with a mere $10,000?! Well, she can't. After many bumps in the road, Amy is not only going to have her wedding at her mother's house, she is going to wear her mother's wedding gown...even though the gown looks like a reject from an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Amy also has to contend with a grandmother she is sure is out to ruin her wedding, a sister who is not quite the June Cleaver Amy thought her to be, and a fiancé who seems uninterested and unmotivated about wedding arrangements. And - oh yes - she is trying not to lose her job in the process. Life is a juggling act at best and Amy starts to juggle a little much. For the most part, I sympathized with Amy and identified with her too. But sometimes her predicaments were a little too unbelievable. While I admit that finding a venue is tough, I absolutely could not buy the fact that Amy could not find a dress in all of New York. It's one of the few times Amy lost my sympathy. Amy agonizes over invitations (almost forgetting to order them in enough time), the caterer (who is a pot head it seems) and all manner of things great and small. She is the bride from Hell on acid! So much for her goal to remain calm and composed.

Amy is the definite star of the show here. The secondary characters sometimes come off more like composites than actual people and we don't really get to know Stephen too well. However, the story itself is extremely amusing. At times you may find yourself saying: "Oh please! Get over yourself already!" But stress like this is always much funnier when it's happening to someone else.

Diary of a Mad Bride may seem very much like "Bridget Jones gets married," and the book does capitalize on the whole phenomena of Bridget Jones, but it works here. Laura Wolf is a capable writer who basically tells a funny story. You're drawn into Amy's plight even when you want to shake her. I found myself wishing I could go to the wedding just to see how it all really turned out. In the end, you'll root for Amy because really, every bride deserves the wedding of her dreams.

Reviewed by Lori-Anne Cohen
Grade : B
Book Type: Women's Fiction

Sensuality: Subtle

Review Date : January 9, 2001

Publication Date: 2001/12

Review Tags: 

Recent Comments …

Lori-Anne Cohen

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
What's your opinion?x
()
x