Gypsy Wedding

by Kate Lace

[Leah]

Kate Lace is an author I’ve enjoyed in the past. She’s probably best known for her Little Black Dress novels but now that the imprint has closed down (for the time being!) Kate has been snapped up by Random House and her first novel with them is Gypsy Wedding. Obviously, gypsy-mania has been spreading through the UK recently, what with Channel 4′s My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and similar programmes. I loved the sound of Gypsy Wedding so when my copy finally arrived (it only took two weeks, thanks postal service) I was thrilled. The bright pink cover with the mutli-coloured writing really stands out and I couldn’t wait to read it.

The gypsy culture is one I know little about. I know they live in caravans (or trailers), they tend to like horses and they stick to themselves. My own personal idea of a gypsy is someone with long flowing clothes, a beautiful swirly skirt, tons of jewellery and beautiful curly long hair. Despite all the negative press for gypsies, I find them fascinating. Though I probably like the idea of a gypsy – and my own personal view of them – than what they’re really like. What I wasn’t aware of is how young gypsies are when they marry; when I saw the synopsis of Gypsy Wedding and saw Vicky was marrying Liam at 17 after getting engaged at 15 I was stunned. Really? They marry that young? Apparently so. Yet strangely, despite the fact Vicky is a teenager, this is a Chick Lit novel. And I suppose that’s correct because Vicky is one of the oldest-sounding teenagers ever; it was only Vicky’s petulance and constant referring to her being in college that reminded me of her age. She could easily have been in her twenties!

Despite my fascination with all things gyspy, the novel wasn’t what I expected it to be. For one, the whole marrying-as-a-teenager thing has put me off; there’s just something so weird about it. I was also a teensy bit surprised at how rich all the gypsies were. I mean, for example, Vicky’s dad was a retired prize-fighter and from what I could tell, didn’t currently work during the novel and gypsy women aren’t allowed to work(!) yet he was able to pay for two weddings (Vicky’s and Vicky’s younger sister Shania). I was a bit baffled by that. Again, Liam (Vicky’s fiance) was able to buy a new trailer (caravan to you and me). I know he worked as a chippy, but really? At such a young age (in his twenties) he was able to buy something so expensive? Though, what do I know? Mainly whilst reading the book I just felt a sense of disbelief. That gypsy girls aren’t able to see the real world, that they’re so cossetted and wrapped in cotton wool that the real world is a shock to them. That they have to marry so young, that they don’t have a choice or else they’ll be left out in the cold. I know that’s the gypsy way, but it felt harsh. It felt clinical. The way they HAD to stick together, the way they HAD to marry someone from their trailer park. It was like reading a book set in the 50s, with women not able to work once married.

I also found the synopsis to be ever so slightly misleading. Vicky doesn’t ‘fall in love with someone else’. There’s no falling in love in the novel at all, not really. Marrying Liam is a fait accompli as the novel opens; no romantic proposal, no declarations of love… It was all very civilised. And unromantic. Then at college Vicky meets Jordan, who is most definitely not a traveller. It was like there was something there, but there wasn’t really because he had a girlfriend. It was all a bit teenagerish for me. Quite frankly, Jordan was a bit of an idiot. I certainly didn’t see what Vicky allegedly saw. He had a girlfriend, his girlfriend, Chloe, was a total cow to Vicky but instead of breaking up with her because she was a cow, Jordan gave her ‘one more chance’ and told her to lay off Vicky. If Jordan HAD liked Vicky then he wouldn’t have been with Chloe; wouldn’t have allowed her to treat Vicky like crap. I found that entire storyline to be completely silly. Mainly because I was expecting a lot more. I was expecting Vicky to go to College and actually fall in love with someone, not just feel wobbly because some really quite gross boy kissed her. That’s not love, that’s just… A kiss.

I would very much have preferred if Gypsy Wedding just focused on Vicky and Liam’s wedding. I can see what Kate Lace was trying to do with Jordan, but it fell flat on its face the first time we learned he was with Chloe. And continued to be with her. This could have been a wonderful novel, a novel that showed us the gypsy culture in a lovely light. But instead it didn’t really work for me. There wasn’t enough to ground it. Vicky supposedly had this amazing, stupendous talent for dress-making… which was irrelevant because gypsy wives can’t work, so it just didn’t go anywhere. Vicky didn’t want to leave her family, leave her camp, so anything else was a moot point. The whole book was, if I’m honest, a moot point. I got to the end and I felt disappointed in all that had happened because nothing of note had really happened. It all sort of just tailed off. It’s like Gypsy Wedding wanted to be about a gypsy girl finding love outside of her family, outside of her camp… But then Kate Lace changed her mind halfway through and what we got was something that went neither here nor there. The book was a quick read, but it didn’t tell me anything. The gypsy-side of it was mainly all bad things frankly with everything Vicky couldn’t do. Gypsy Wedding wasn’t what I expected, sadly and I’m disappointed I didn’t enjoy it more.