There Goes the Bride

by Holly McQueen

[Leah]

I like Holly McQueen. I loved her Isabel Bookbinder books, because they reminded me of Sophie Kinsella. They were funny, they were warm and although they were a bit daft sometimes, I generally enjoyed all three of Isabel’s novels. So when I heard Holly’s new book was not an Isabel book I was worried – after all, Holly does Isabel well and even though I thought Confetti Confidential was only OK, I’d have still happily read a fourth Isabel novel. However I liked the sound of There Goes The Bride and was pleased that it finally arrived – only a month of so late (thanks Spanish post!). It was my weekend reading, but sadly it failed to impress me.

I hate writing bad reviews. Truly hate it. There’s nothing worse. I like Holly, she’s a lovely person and the last thing I want to do is offend her, especially since she’s a fellow Manchester United fan, but There Goes The Bride didn’t hit the mark for me. It may be almost 500 pages long, but I didn’t feel that anything actually happened. I’m sure things did happen, but it felt as if nothing happened. It was like, here are a few plots, lets chuck them in and see where they go… and they went nowhere. I thought the book would be all about Polly and her big secret as to why she couldn’t marry Dev, but surprisingly that takes a backseat. To what? You ask, well to Bella (Polly’s sister) trying to adopt a child and Grace (Polly’s best friend) contemplating cheating on her husband. There weren’t many pages dedicated to Polly and Dev and their crumbling relationship, certainly not enough for the synopsis to revolve around Polly.

What was worse, is that Bella, Grace and Polly were all like wet weekends. Bella was consistently whinging about her boyfriend Jamie and his lack of interest in the adoption process, without actually doing anything about it – going so far as to ‘let him’ go to a Manchester United match when the adoption social worker comes around. That didn’t wash with me because surely, surely, surely both of the people interested in the adoption has to be present for the initial – and subsequent – visits? A social worker’s hardly going to be OK with only dealing with one half of the couple. Grace went on and on and on about how patronising her husband Charlie was without doing anything about it. Don’t get me wrong, Charlie was horribly patronising but it was up to Grace to do something about it instead of fawning over someone else. Then there was Polly, who snapped at everybody who asked her about why she called off her wedding. I get it, it’s her life, it’s her right to do whatever the hell she likes, but I’m sorry, if your sister has been planning most of the wedding for you, you might have the decency about you to tell her why it’s off. I thought she was selfish.

I’m quite disappointed, because I expected a lot more. I expected a ‘Runaway Bride’ sort of plot, not what I got. I wanted my characters to have more backbone. I shouldn’t get annoyed by the main characters, I should be on their side, want them to succeed. I didn’t care for Polly, I didn’t care for Grace, and after a while I didn’t care for Bella. The men weren’t much better. Even Liam, a widower, wasn’t someone I liked. Describing someone as a hairy monkey is not going to appeal to me in any kind of way, especially if he’s meant to be a hero of the novel. To add insult in injury, the book didn’t even make me laugh! Not once. Every Isabel book made me laugh, but there was nothing funny about There Goes The Bride. I’m really gutted, I expected more, I expected something different. The ending doesn’t even redeem it in the slightest, because it showed that Polly is one of the most selfish, horrible characters I’ve ever come across. What made it worse was Grace and Bella’s justification for it. If I’d enjoyed the novel up to then, that would have turned me off completely. I wanted to enjoy There Goes The Bride but it wasn’t for me. It happens, sadly.