Originally posted at My Book Musings.Amanda’s Wedding took me by surprise. As I stated in my previous review of another work by Jenny Colgan (Meet Me at the Cupcake Café), I really enjoyed that book and looked forward to reading another one of her books.Well, Amanda’s Wedding took me by surprise… and not in a good way. I was expecting the book to be funny as it is, after all, a book about friends trying to sabotage their ‘friend’s’ wedding. But it was just a whole mess that I was so bored reading it. If it wasn’t written by Jenny Colgan, I would not have finished it at all (and I was really bored).So Mel is a copywriter and lives in a flat with a quiet woman named Linda. She gets piss drunk every so often and has been left by her old wannabe-musician boyfriend, Alex, who went gallivanting off to America. In the meantime, she gets drunk with her friend Fran, until she receives a message that 1) their bitchy friend is getting married to the man Mel really liked before and 2) her ex, Alex, is coming back to her.Fran, on the other hand, is someone who has Mel’s best interests in mind and tries to keep her from making a ‘man mistake’ every time, but of course Mel doesn’t listen to her. She and Mel are best friends and she practically lives in Mel’s flat. She also seems to be over-sexed because, well, she has sex with almost every guy she comes across (with the exception of Fraser).Amanda, who I cannot even call ‘poor’ despite the antics of the others against her, is a real piece of work @_@ She is condescending to Mel and Fran, she’s so bossy, she is disrespectful to the family of her fiancée, Fraser, and she is just so…fake. While I am not saying she deserved what she got, no one deserves to be leg-shackled to someone like that. And Fraser seems so nice…although I still wonder how they got engaged in the first place. Really.I have to say that I was not able to relate to them. Mel has a good enough job that she blows off when she feels like it. She’s like a doormat for Alex, even waiting about nine hours at the airport for him. She rents a room with Linda, who actually owns the flat, but she doesn’t really do her share of house chores, she eats/drinks Linda’s stuff without permission, and she’s always noisy. And I don’t know why in the world she’s so gung-ho on Alex when he is a total loser? Seriously. He runs off to America and for 10 months you don’t hear from him. When he gets back, you’re there at the airport waiting for him? Talk about doormat.I thought Fran was nicer but in the end, I was just surprised. I mean, you do not do that to your best friend and expect to be immediately forgiven. That was just undoing several years’ worth of friendship for a guy you didn’t even love.The only characters that I actually liked was Fraser and his younger brother, Angus. They both seem to be nice and they actually look out for each other. I don’t know how they are looks-wise, although I’m not expecting Angus to be a looker since he wasn’t described as such.The book was unexpected because it wasn’t what I was expecting of her. I didn’t even find the book remotely funny and the characters just seemed a little…sad. The love angle of Mel’s love life was just so confusing as well as the love lives of the other characters. It’s as if not one of them can get it right. Mel ends up with someone unexpected, Fran does something unexpected and ends up with someone unexpected as well, and Angus is…well, you’ll see.Some people liked the book but I really did not. However, I am still going to read other books by Jenny Colgan in the hopes that her later works are better as this is actually her first work. Meet Me at the Cupcake Café was loads better so I’m hoping Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop of Dreams would have that Colgan magic I’d been expecting.Ciao!
I don't know what people think they're getting into upon picking up this book, but it's crap.To be honest. However, delicious-nummy-nummy crap, it is. It's stupid, it's stereotypical with it's plot arc and character choices blahblahblahblahWhat's that? It's fun and you don't have to think? I'm pretty down with that. Sometimes, it's nice to sit down with a book that requires no brain power. Sometimes, you just want to laugh. I've read this book many-o-times (admittedly, it was ten years ago. I was fifteen and LOVIN' THE CRAPPY CHICKLIT.) It's dumb and fun. Just relax into it. Read it on a beach, after a glass of wine (or two). Life isn't always serious, or it shouldn't be. Let Jenny Colgan lead you by the hand into the world of sub-par literature. It's ok, she won't hurt you.
What do You think about Amanda's Wedding (2002)?
Marian Keyes would beat meup with one of her hardcover bestsellers for daring to suggest that chicklit is of substandard quality, but ... this book was of substandard quality. It didn't have to be, but I'm basically certain that Colgan fell into the lazy trap of knowing a pastel cover and the word 'wedding' would sell her book better than the perfection of her prose. I picked this up in the radiology department, where abandoned patients' books go to die, mainly because I'd read Talking to Addison and found it quaint and charming. This one started out with possibility, but quickly lost it. The main character, Mel, is the staple fare: dead-end job, terrible dress sense, awful hair and low self-esteem. I'm not sure if chicklit writers pander to themselves or to their readers in creating these characters, but speaking as a woman with - I can admit it - great clothes, a lucrative and well-respected job and a groomed head, I want to read about people like me who still FUCKING SUCK at relationships. (view spoiler)[The plot, what there is of it, is borderline insulting. Mel and her friend Fran try to sabotage Amanda's wedding because she's a bit of a cow who also - surprise! - happens to be successful and well-groomed. She's never more than two-dimensional, because of course those two qualities are more than enough to qualify her as a bitch supreme. Her fiance Fraser is Mel's ultimate love interest, although you could be forgiven for forgetting that, as she spends ninety percent of the book chasing after two other men. There's also a cripplingly bad, tacked-on subplot wherein Fran gets off with one of Mel's exes. For a book this long, that wasn't necessary, and left me blinking in surprise.My last thought goes out to all chicklit writers, and it is: AIM HIGHER. (hide spoiler)]
—Rachel
I liked this one, another cute UK book about mates, boyfriends, shagging and love. This book reads like a British romantic comedy movie.It reminded me of the Rolling Stones' song You Can't Always Get What You Want, which you know you are now singing in your head. Ehm, life happens!I mean really, who can turn down a comic read with a James Bond imitator (of the Sean Connery bent of course!)?*If you don't like Brits, swearing or stories that don't end with a wedding and the lead characters becoming fru-fru love-puppy dolts, you might want to steer clear...otherwise, read on!
—Woman In Gold
It's no secret that I'm a massive Jenny Colgan fan, and her debut novel ' Amanda's Wedding', published back in 2000, is a real classic.90s girl-about-town Mel is adjusting to life without posh-boy Alex, whose attempts to make it big in the music biz have propelled him to the land of the free and Bruce Springsteen. Having omitted to mention his grand tour to Mel however, he has left our heroine a tad disturbed--grounds indeed for taking comfort in the arms of smelly, over-sized accountants with juvenile tendencies. Alex's emotional return coincides with the news that Mel's old "friend" Amanda, social-climber pas excellent (sic), has succeeded in getting herself hitched to Scottish laird Fraser for whom Mel has long harboured feelings of an X-rated nature. Before long, Fraser's brother Angus and Mel's friend Fran--an evil-mouthed, scary, man-hater--join forces in an attempt to rescue the scruffy Scot from the talons of the wannabe "It" girl, whose only interests lie in a double-barrelled aristo title and an ancestral pile.This was the first chick lit book in which I felt I could truly relate to the characters. The protaganist of Mel isn't just a dull, 'nice' girl to whom something bad happens. She's self deprecating, sometimes sarcastic and has a bit of 'oomph' about her. This book has it all. Wit, an excellent plot, emotion, and lots of gorgeous Scottish Men. As soon as I read it, I became a confirmed Colgan fan. I would completely recommend it to those of you who have not yet read it. It will have you laughing out loud by the end of the first page.Rating 5/5http://www.novelicious.com
—Kirsty Greenwood
