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A review by mackenzierm
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
2.0
Phoebe arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn in Newport, Rhode Island, wearing a green dress and gold heels. She is immediately mistaken in the lobby as being one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall Inn who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe has come to the Inn because it’s been her dream for years to stay here with her husband, only now she’s here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every possible disaster, except for Phoebe, which makes it even more surprising when Phoebe and the bride continually confide in one another.
THE WEDDING PEOPLE is receiving rave reviews but I am not one of them. This is just not my cup of tea shall we say. I can see and appreciate some of the dark, comedic humour shared and while it did elicit a soft chuckle from me from time to time, the story as a whole ended up missing the mark.
I think my biggest issue with the story was moreso structurally – why are the chapters so long? THE WEDDING PEOPLE is told by day over a week span and each chapter is one of those days, but these chapters are very long-winded and winding. I think I would have appreciated it more if the story pertaining to Phoebe’s past would have been separated into its own chapters as flashbacks rather than during the chapter of a specific day of the wedding week. For me, this would have improved the pacing as I felt it was really dragging along within many of the chapters.
As for the characters, the story is told in Phoebe’s POV, and I really didn’t much like her. I couldn’t really connect with her, and I found her to be quite hypocritical in certain circumstances (I won’t say anything further about this as I don’t want to spoil the story). Lila (the bride) was another central character to this story and while she was entertaining to a degree, she was too self-centered for my liking. Overall, the characters aren’t very likable and border on annoying.
No one really talks about this, but please check the trigger warnings as there are some pretty hefty ones right out of the gate. Alas, I am definitely an outlier so take my review with a grain of salt!
THE WEDDING PEOPLE is receiving rave reviews but I am not one of them. This is just not my cup of tea shall we say. I can see and appreciate some of the dark, comedic humour shared and while it did elicit a soft chuckle from me from time to time, the story as a whole ended up missing the mark.
I think my biggest issue with the story was moreso structurally – why are the chapters so long? THE WEDDING PEOPLE is told by day over a week span and each chapter is one of those days, but these chapters are very long-winded and winding. I think I would have appreciated it more if the story pertaining to Phoebe’s past would have been separated into its own chapters as flashbacks rather than during the chapter of a specific day of the wedding week. For me, this would have improved the pacing as I felt it was really dragging along within many of the chapters.
As for the characters, the story is told in Phoebe’s POV, and I really didn’t much like her. I couldn’t really connect with her, and I found her to be quite hypocritical in certain circumstances (I won’t say anything further about this as I don’t want to spoil the story). Lila (the bride) was another central character to this story and while she was entertaining to a degree, she was too self-centered for my liking. Overall, the characters aren’t very likable and border on annoying.
No one really talks about this, but please check the trigger warnings as there are some pretty hefty ones right out of the gate. Alas, I am definitely an outlier so take my review with a grain of salt!