Wedding Party
Charlene Dugan started her day as usual — single. Then, all in the space of a few hours:
Her daughter announced she doesn’t want to “end up like her”
Her absentminded mother got lost in a parking lot
Her ex-husband accused her of being afraid of commitment
Now her decision to utter those three little words — let’s get married — has everyone around her in a tailspin. The maid of honor is in a tempest over a man of fifteen years her junior. Her daughter, the official bridesmaid, has decided to reinvent herself. The groom is spending all of his free time with the wedding consultant. And her ex-husband, a man who still drives her crazy, is making some pretty convincing arguments for a second chance.
The wedding party is out of control, they’re calling for rain and the bride has cold feet. This isn’t exactly what Charlene had in mind.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
This story rings true!!, November 7, 2001
By Cindy “ChaosInBlue” (Jackson, WY USA) –
This review is from: Wedding Party (Mass Market Paperback)
Who hasn’t panicked that they aren’t living the life they should be? Robyn Carr has captured this worry with all the angst and hilarity it can involve!! I found myself laughing and crying as I read and that means this book is a true winner! The relationships in this book–famililial and romantic–ring true over and over again….
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
amusing romantic romp, September 23, 2001
By Harriet Klausner –
This review is from: Wedding Party (Mass Market Paperback)
After a disastrous marriage when she was too young, family attorney Charlene Dugan has no plans to marry ever again. Now forty-five and seeing someone for five years, Charlene appreciates the status quo of having her own home and a significant other in that own home. With her nerves on edge from a couple going through a horrific divorce, her daughter stuns Charlene when she tells her that does not want to end up like her mom, all alone. On top of that flogging, her mom seems to be showing signs of mental instability and her former spouse Jake, who seems to be around a lot, accuses her of not being able to commit. To prove they are wrong she proposes to Dennis and he gladly accepts.However, preparing for the wedding turns disastrous. Denis seems more interested with the wedding planner than Charlene. Stephanie seems into a deeper funk because her mom is marrying before she is. Then there is Jake, who makes it clear that he is he one who should be her groom not Dennis. Can a marriage take much more of a spiral downward than this mess that Charlene wants to escape from before she goes insane.THE WEDDING PARTY is an amusing romantic romp that slowly develops the cast so that the audience understands everyones reactions and actions. Once the characters motivations are established, the plot turns into a wild humorous ride down the aisle. Fans of contemporary craziness will want to attend Charlenes wedding reception as the story line has several additional subplots augmenting a delightfully funny novel.Harriet Klausner
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
A Bit Too Much, November 6, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Wedding Party (Mass Market Paperback)
While I enjoyed Carr’s wittiness, I felt that there was just too much going on in this book at once. The insight into each character’s life was enjoyable at first, but after a while I began to wonder what the point was. The author begins to delve into Pam’s life (Why, though… what, in the long run, does her romantic life bring to Charlene’s wedding story?), only to leave her hanging for a while. Then the story read like a hasty game of catch up. This seemed the case also with Stephanie, Charlene’s daughter, and her boyfriend, Grant. Grant was given no character at all until the point where he decides to leave Stephanie. Then we’re bombarded with him. I would have to say also that, though Carr defines each character’s relationship with the others, their interactions seem forced.Carr jumps back and forth between a myriad of characters yet they are never fully developed. Instead, she gives to them all a “everyone is happy now” ending that just doesn’t ring true. In fact, much of this book rings false. Dennis is – continuously – described as a rock, steady, trustworthy, etc. But the second Charlene’s back is turned he’s after Agatha… and completely ignoring Charlene’s hour of need.Additionally, the book is repetitive. We spend pages reading of Charlene’s “traumatic” childhood in detail, only to have her daughter give a thoroughly parrot-like recap (of her mother’s THOUGHTS) to her father later (and the long-lost-father story was too much – let’s face it… after a certain period of time, people need to stop whining about their childhood woes and Charlene can’t really use a ragabout father as an excuse for being even more self-absorbed than her daughter). We are also told Merrie’s life story several times (yet another character with no substantial purpose in the book; her story is convoluted and becomes even more difficult to track – Carr doesn’t seem to know where she wants to go with it and it flies completely out of bounds).I was very let down by this book; I had looked forward to reading it and to be honest I couldn’t believe how much I disliked Charlene by the end of the book. She not only does NOT get over her controlling nature, nor does she curb it; she uses it on someone else. Truly I found her even more disgustingly self-absorbed than her daughter (why didn’t Carr go into THAT aspect of things when discussing, quite unnecessarily, everyone’s psyche?).In all, for such a short book (I read it in one sitting) there were just too many characters and subplots at once (the stalking by Fred is completely erroneous here, as is Dennis’ sister, Merrie, the woman with the goose, etc. and each lends precisely nothing to the plot which, according to all reviews and the book jacket, is supposed to be about Charlene). For the author to have thrown so much into so few pages served only to dilute the point she was trying to make (kind of like condensing “Gone With the Wind”) and considering that no wedding actually gets planned, calling the book “The Wedding Party” is misleading.Glad I only borrowed this one.
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