Katie Simpson, the heroine of Mina Ford’s debut novel, somehow retains her sense of humor as she watches her life fall to bits about her. That admirable quality makes the not-so-aptly titled My Fake Wedding worth reading. While at times the humor masks a tinge of emptiness that isn’t nearly so engaging, the book earns a qualified recommendation.

Katie thought she was happily engaged and ending her streak of dating absolute losers until she came home one day and caught her fiancé with his shorts down, so to speak. Now she is adrift yet again. Her relationship is over, she hates her magazine job, and she doesn’t really know what to do with her life. The only thing that she really relies on are her friends – the shapely (and gold-digging) Janice, self-obsessed George, and the ever-faithful Sam.

From this point, the plot develops in a manner rather unlike the cover blurb (which is full of spoilers, by the way) would lead one to believe, so don’t be surprised if you notice a dissimilarity between the two. After her betrayal, Katie decides that relationships just are not the way to go, so she vows that she will not have another one. From here on out, hanging out with friends and having one night stands will be her way of life.

True to her vow, Katie does manage to hook up with a few men (or at least she tries), but her new approach does not really work out quite as well as she planned, especially since her life is changing in other ways as well. She basically attempts to craft an identity for herself and reinvent her life to a certain degree as she tries out new sorts of relationships, new career paths, and so on.

Katie is an entertaining, if disorganized, heroine and watching her reconfigure her life is fun for the most part. Her way of describing people and scenes is vivid and often humorous, something that is apparent in the very first chapter when she introduces herself as a “gawky ginger spinster, with lard addiction and weird gay man obsession” and later when she describes her friends, co-workers, and other acquaintances.

Because Katie has a sense of humor about life, she is able to get away with self-destructing ever so slightly – it’s hard to judge her when you like her, after all – and her dry humor and the way in which she ingratiates herself with the reader makes you want to root for her. Even if Katie doesn’t want it yet, the reader finds herself cheering for Katie to find her calling in life and to finally meet her soul mate.

However, the novel is not without its rough patches. Much of the book is filled with British slang that may be difficult for American readers to understand and, while I wouldn’t downgrade the book based on this fact, American readers should be aware of it. Of more serious concern, however, is the manner in which relationships are portrayed here. Almost all of the characters in this book have sex with others whom they do not love or even really know all that well. This can be somewhat disconcerting, and the lack of concern for real love or affection made the lives of Katie and her friends seem disturbingly hollow.

Katie tells this part of her story with a sort of cynical humor, but it is a serious enough issue that the reader cannot take it so lightly. Partway through the book, Katie’s cynicism nearly overwhelmed me. There is a selfishness to it that is off-putting at times and it’s pervasive enough that it makes it hard to empathize with Katie throughout the middle portion of the book, causing it to drag a bit.

That said, My Fake Wedding tells a story that is basically good with some wonderful comical moments thrown into the mix. Though the tone of the book sometimes makes it hard for the reader to really sink into it, it is still an intriguing debut novel. Hopefully, there will be more to come.