Reviews

The One with All the Bridesmaids by Erin Lawless

emmascr's review against another edition

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4.0

This review was originally posted on Star Crossed Reviews I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.Thank you to HarperImpulse for my copy of this book via Netgalley. This is a wrap up of 4 short stories on these characters. I'm at that age where weddings are the thing. I have 3 this year and 2 hen dos, so this book is perfect for my life right now.

Nora has just got engaged and the story is the build up to the wedding and the day itself. The story is told from the women's view and its about the four main events, the engagement party, finding the dress, the hen party and the day itself.

There were a lot of characters to get to know. Nora has a big friendship group as does the groom, Harry. Nora picked four bridesmaids, Cleo, Bea, Daisy and Sarah. Cleo was my favourite, especially Drunk Cleo. She was funny and didn't take herself too seriously. 

The Hen do was my favourite part of the book. I loved the fancy dress, the games and the presents. It's really got me excited for the hen do's I have this year.

Some of the chapters started with wedding anecdotes which I LOVED! They were so funny.

While there are some love interests in this book it is really a story of friendships.

This book is funny, romantic and real. From what I hear planning a wedding is stressful and Erin really captures all the elements of this process.

I loved Erin's writing style and will definitely be reading more of her books soon.

zooloo1983's review against another edition

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5.0

I really do not know where to start with this book apart from the fact that I loved it!

Last week I was getting ready to go on my best friend's hen party and couldn't decide which book to start reading in our downtime, until I saw this little gem. I have recommended this to the whole hen party. It is such a fun, feel good, entertaining read especially as real life and the book at times crossed over!

This is a story of Nora and her four bridesmaids (Bea, Sarah, Daisy and Cleo), it starts with the announcement of Nora's engagement all the way to her wedding night.  Although the wedding is about the bride, this book changed that and made it about the bridesmaids. You learn how the bridesmaids know the bride and their opinions of each other, and the focus was on them and their lives and perceptions. I thought I had a favourite with the bridesmaids but then I just kept changing my mind with each chapter and decided I loved them all equally. 

Reading about Nora's wedding day, made me think of my own which in turn made me emotional. The morning conversation with Bea and the wedding speech by her mum completely reflected my own wedding morning and day, I did have to take a moment when reading that. (I won't spoil it here, but those who know me will know what I mean)

The book is written in a way where it flows perfectly and I was not bored at any point of the book, or wishing for chapters to hurry up so I coud move on.   What I loved about this book (and told the author so) was how realistic it felt, the conversations that were held, the treatment of the bride when dress shopping, the nicknames they had for each other, we all felt could be applied to us. When I got to the hen party section of the book, we all had to giggle as we were in the same city!! (surely this book couldn't be based on us) I loved the references to Whats app chats and Instagram as we were all doing the exact same thing, and when reading this book you feel as though the author is there with you and is writing your story....or maybe we just thought that as we were on a hen party. (Side note not everything that happened in the book happened in our life!!) We spent our time trying to figure out who was Bea, Sarah, Cleo or Daisy, I think we have got it down to a tee! (I was Sarah by default)  The inserts at the beginning of most of the chapters were lovely, reading true stories of other women and they set up the chapters perfectly.

The chapters were to the point with no long played out scenes that were unnecessary, however a couple of times i do wished they were a little bit longer but at the same time I viewed it that in real life you won't be there for every minute of the day so why would you in the book.

This book was an absolute delight to read, it had me laughing and crying and agreeing with everything all the way through.

Definitely a perfect read for anyone especially in wedding season!



*I received a free copy of this book from Net Galley in return for my review*

cookiedoughkisses's review

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4.0

I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for my review.

I honestly loved this book!
I especially loved the anecdotes at the beginning of each chapter. I really liked the chemistry between all the characters and I appreciate the kind of relationships they had with each other. It was very real. I found the book to be a little slow, but I loved everything else. I can't believe I hadn't come across this book before. This book is perfect for a bit of lighthearted fun in the evening.

wordsofclover's review against another edition

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5.0

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Nora gets engaged to her childhood friend turned love of her life, it’s only natural that she gets some of her best friends together to be her bridesmaid. The only problem is, while all the girls love Nora, they don’t always get on with each other. This book follows the bridal group from engagement to wedding day and involves a lot of wedding dress shopping strops, secrets revealed and problems shared.

This book was just a great big heap of light-hearted refreshment and I really, really enjoyed reading it. It didn’t take me too long into the book to be able to separate out all of the girls from Nora, the bride-to-be, Bea, the childhood bestie, Cleo, the college bestie, Daisy, the back packer friend and Sarah, the one who married into it all. All the girls soon had their own unique voices and I was able to fall into each part of the story with not much difficulty in knowing straight away who I was following. The only few stumbles i had was between Cleo and Bea and only because for some reason, my mind sometimes felt like their names were the same.

I will say that as a 25-year-old, I’m not yet in the friends getting married years of my life so I have never been part of a wedding party, so I have never had to deal with the woes of being a bridesmaid, organising hen dos and potentially dealing with wedding day disasters. This book did sometimes make me hope I would never have to be a bridesmaid because it was slightly overwhelming how much they were doing, even though it all seemed like great fun.

I loved the chemistry the group had together, especially near the end of the book and the night before the wedding. Even though they started out a bit so-so with each other, the girls really ended up becoming a solid unit and being there for each other and I absolutely loved it. By the end of it, I wanted to be their friend. I didn’t really want the book to end to be honest, and just wanted to follow their lives forever.

While the main relationships in this book are the girls’ friendship, there are obviously some romantic debacles in this book too and I totally was a sucker for them. My favourite character was Cleo and I really loved her romantic storyline, and Bea’s made me very happy by the end too.

I’m also calling out for a Nora and Harry getting together for the first time novella, because that would be the cutest. Or just more novels about all of the girls because yes please!

julesg's review

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4.0

A wonderful story of friendship, bridesmaidzillas, finding love, getting married.

The story, as the title says, is about the bridesmaids. About their relationship to each other and also about their relationships.

camila_caminioca's review

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3.0

*This book was given to me by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review – all opinions are my own.*
A funny and light-hearted novel about a group of bridesmaids preparing for a friend's wedding. I enjoyed some of the romantic arcs and especially the real life funny anecdotes about weddings. I'd recommend this book if you feel like a light wedding-based read, perfect for a summer holiday.
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