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3.59 AVERAGE
3.59 AVERAGE
This one is slightly better than the others in the series so far. It has a big drama situation that kept me more riveted.
I love Kinsella's standalone novels and have read the more recent ones. So the Shopaholic series sort of feels like a most.
I'd rate this one a 3.5 . . . it's well-written with no distracting issues in the writing. It's funny and often endearing.
However, it's also more than a little stressful to follow Becky as she keeps quiet and lets bad things happen to her rather than standing up for herself and/or making a decision. In the first book, I'd expected Luke (the husband-to-be in this one) to be a fun character. Instead, he's a barely-there workaholic (which does get tackled a bit at the end), and I find myself wishing Becky would find a partner who's not mostly a ghost.
All that said, I'll keep reading the series. Slowly, though, since they're just too stressful to read in bed. :)
I'd rate this one a 3.5 . . . it's well-written with no distracting issues in the writing. It's funny and often endearing.
However, it's also more than a little stressful to follow Becky as she keeps quiet and lets bad things happen to her rather than standing up for herself and/or making a decision. In the first book, I'd expected Luke (the husband-to-be in this one) to be a fun character. Instead, he's a barely-there workaholic (which does get tackled a bit at the end), and I find myself wishing Becky would find a partner who's not mostly a ghost.
All that said, I'll keep reading the series. Slowly, though, since they're just too stressful to read in bed. :)
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This is the last Shopaholic book worth bothering with. They just go downhill quickly from this point.
oh I really thought the whole time how stupid can you be? but at the end...nice solution ;)
Read July 2022
Where the previous two books were entertaining, this one was just frustrating.
Also, I really don't get why these two wanted to get married.. Most of the time they're terrible together.
Where the previous two books were entertaining, this one was just frustrating.
Also, I really don't get why these two wanted to get married.. Most of the time they're terrible together.
Same old stuff but entertaining just the same...
Besides you really cant hate a book with "emergency rose petals" !
Besides you really cant hate a book with "emergency rose petals" !
After years of dating Becky and Luke have decided to tie the knot. Becky’s parents are absolutely thrilled and her mother has already started planning them the perfect wedding in England. Surprisingly, Luke’s biological mother is also pleased and has decided to gift them an elaborate wedding at the Plaza in New York. . . for the very same day. Becky must now choose between two wonderful weddings scheduled for the same day . . .
While I normally have nothing but love for Becky, I found her to be so annoying and selfish in this book. I thought she was completely blowing off her family and all their hard work they were putting in to plan her wedding day. She got so caught up with the glitz and glamour of a lavish wedding.
The first two thirds of this book was Becky getting all caught up in the wedding day that she lost site of what a wedding is supposed to mean. It wasn’t until the last arc of the book that we saw her really interact with Luke.
What I liked about this book was the different depictions of families and family dynamics. Becky grew up with both her parents in a very loving home. Luke grew up with his father and step mother. And while they have always loved and cared for him, Luke felt such a need for his biological mother. Now that Luke is living in the same city as his biological mother Elinor things aren’t working out as he hoped.
I thought this was by far a more interesting story line. I wish we could have explored these family dynamics more.
I give this book a C+
While I did have issues with some of the characters, I absolutely love Kinsella’s writing. She has such a funny writing style and her books are filled with great dialogue that makes these stories so hard to put down.
While I normally have nothing but love for Becky, I found her to be so annoying and selfish in this book. I thought she was completely blowing off her family and all their hard work they were putting in to plan her wedding day. She got so caught up with the glitz and glamour of a lavish wedding.
The first two thirds of this book was Becky getting all caught up in the wedding day that she lost site of what a wedding is supposed to mean. It wasn’t until the last arc of the book that we saw her really interact with Luke.
What I liked about this book was the different depictions of families and family dynamics. Becky grew up with both her parents in a very loving home. Luke grew up with his father and step mother. And while they have always loved and cared for him, Luke felt such a need for his biological mother. Now that Luke is living in the same city as his biological mother Elinor things aren’t working out as he hoped.
I thought this was by far a more interesting story line. I wish we could have explored these family dynamics more.
I give this book a C+
While I did have issues with some of the characters, I absolutely love Kinsella’s writing. She has such a funny writing style and her books are filled with great dialogue that makes these stories so hard to put down.
I get a little annoyed with Becky in this book because she's so completely indecisive and can't stand up for anything most of the time. But in the end, at the wedding, I really liked it.
Jane Espenson, writer for Buffy and Firefly, wrote a blog post about the first spec script she ever wrote as a pre-teen. It was for M*A*S*H and the whole episode was just Charles trying to decide whether to marry a girl he'd gotten engaged to. First he made one choice, then the other. Jane called the episode "The Seesaw," and in her post, she warns against mistaking alternation for advancing the plot.
That's this book. It's just a seesaw. Becky has to decide whether to accept her parents' offer to throw them a wedding or Luke's birth mother's. First she makes one choice, then another. Ad nauseam. I can't get invested in this decision. Nor can I continue to be particularly interested in Becky, who is not, despite her friends' assurances, a plucky good-hearted optimist. She continually proves herself to be a weak-willed, short-sighted coward with a very shallow understanding of other human beings.
Look, you know what you're getting into with a Shopaholic book by now, and it's not like I had towering hopes for this one, but I had a basic expectations based on the premise. Wedding drama seems like a natural progression for this series, what with the real-life pitfalls of overspending on a wedding that so many folks fall into. You come to the Shopaholic books for money drama, at least I do, but there's barely any money stuff here. There's decadence, but no budgeting choices, since both of Becky and Luke's wedding options are all-expenses-paid. Don't come to this book looking for something that you, as a person who may have planned their own wedding, can relate to.
Don't come to it for romance, either. Luke and Becky's relationship is not central to the plot. At all. It's literally just wedding stuff. Luke might as well not be there. Which is fine, since he's basically a non-character, but it seems thematically inappropriate in a wedding book, doesn't it? This is the book where Becky should be learning to operate together with Luke as a team, especially financially, but despite a few comical references to their joint account, none of that happens. In fact, their communication is worse than ever and just gets worse and worse as the book progresses. Becky not only manages to hide from him all of her problems and concerns, including the most basic rough-outlines facts about their wedding, she actually ends up unilaterally making a number of decisions that profoundly affect his life, and either not telling him at all or telling him only after it's all decided, as a surprise. When she's not hiding things from him out of childlike fear of the scary father-figure, she's hiding things from him out of protective nuturing for the vulnerable child-figure. At no time is Luke an equal or even very much of a presence in the book. This should be the most romantic installment in the series, but it's the least.
+1 star because I still like Suze.
That's this book. It's just a seesaw. Becky has to decide whether to accept her parents' offer to throw them a wedding or Luke's birth mother's. First she makes one choice, then another. Ad nauseam. I can't get invested in this decision. Nor can I continue to be particularly interested in Becky, who is not, despite her friends' assurances, a plucky good-hearted optimist. She continually proves herself to be a weak-willed, short-sighted coward with a very shallow understanding of other human beings.
Look, you know what you're getting into with a Shopaholic book by now, and it's not like I had towering hopes for this one, but I had a basic expectations based on the premise. Wedding drama seems like a natural progression for this series, what with the real-life pitfalls of overspending on a wedding that so many folks fall into. You come to the Shopaholic books for money drama, at least I do, but there's barely any money stuff here. There's decadence, but no budgeting choices, since both of Becky and Luke's wedding options are all-expenses-paid. Don't come to this book looking for something that you, as a person who may have planned their own wedding, can relate to.
Don't come to it for romance, either. Luke and Becky's relationship is not central to the plot. At all. It's literally just wedding stuff. Luke might as well not be there. Which is fine, since he's basically a non-character, but it seems thematically inappropriate in a wedding book, doesn't it? This is the book where Becky should be learning to operate together with Luke as a team, especially financially, but despite a few comical references to their joint account, none of that happens. In fact, their communication is worse than ever and just gets worse and worse as the book progresses. Becky not only manages to hide from him all of her problems and concerns, including the most basic rough-outlines facts about their wedding, she actually ends up unilaterally making a number of decisions that profoundly affect his life, and either not telling him at all or telling him only after it's all decided, as a surprise. When she's not hiding things from him out of childlike fear of the scary father-figure, she's hiding things from him out of protective nuturing for the vulnerable child-figure. At no time is Luke an equal or even very much of a presence in the book. This should be the most romantic installment in the series, but it's the least.
+1 star because I still like Suze.
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes