'Revenge of the Wedding Planner' is the story of Mags Grimsdale, a 40-something woman who works at Dream Weddings, a small wedding planning business run by her best friend Julia Sultana. But Mags isn't your average 40-something mother of four - she's a goth with long black hair, has gargoyles in her house and is keeping a secret or two. Julia sends Mags' life into disarray when she dumps her latest boyfriend, can Mags keep it all together - her family, friendship and of course, Dream Weddings?The plot sounded pretty interesting to me, and was pretty good to start with. Mags was quite a fun character to read, and her first person narrative made very pleasant reading, which stumbled along, describing well Mags' life and her thoughts as well. However, that's really where the good things about this book ended for me. All of the other character in the book (perhaps apart from Mags' husband Bill) were all hideous - they were whiny, selfish, rude and generally not very nice people! Julia was the worst offender, and you have to wonder why Mags' would still stay friends with someone who treats her like that! She was very selfish and quite a user towards Mags. Her background is explained (quite extensively I must add) by Mags early on in the book, but this didn't make me any more sympathetic to her, quite the opposite actually. I think it was supposed to evoke sympathy from the reader, but just didn't from me.We also get to meet 2 of Mags' children, Alexander and Alicia-Rose. Her daughter leaves the book a little way through (not through death!) so we don't see much of her but Alexander on the other hand, seems to be the son from hell. I feel Owens has rather exaggerated with his character, to the point of being so incredibly annoying I found myself wanting to skip his parts because he was so irritating to me! Other characters through the book included Mags' sisters, Jay; Julia's boyfriend, and the odd wedding couple.Now, the awful characters isn't my biggest gripe with the book. I had a real problem with the amount of narrative in the book! Usually when I read a book, I expect to have an equal amount of dialogue and narrative from the author, but this book was so heavy with the narrative, it became very hard going after a while. I found myself checking how many pages there were until the end so that I could move onto another book because reading it at times was a real chore, and I was just bored with it. Dialogue betwen the characters was quite rare, and when it did occur, it was pretty short, and it soon launched back into its pages and pages of Mags' narrative once more. Owens' writing style itself is pleasant enough, Mags being quite funny to read, but the long narrative just wasn't sustainable from the characters and just went on far too long for me, and therefore really dented my enjoyment of the book overall.The story was pleasant enough, with a couple of twists and turns throughout, not to mention a quite explosive ending, but it just didn't really do it for me unfortunately. I felt it was a little bland, far too narration-heavy, and the title didn't really make much sense for me - where was Mags' revenge?! I couldn't see it anyway. I was really looking forward to this book but I was actually relieved when it was finished. I hate reading a book when it feels like a chore, and that is what this was for me. Very disappointing, I'm quite unsure about trying any more of her work after reading this.PLEASE NOTE: This book was published in Ireland under the title of The Trouble With Weddings, so don't read both!
This book is a great light read, with a bit of laughing...even during the sad times. There were times that I would get distracted by things outside of the cover, but with this book it didnt matter. Which is prob what I needed! Margs is Julie's PA for her business 'Dream Weddings', the story is told from Margs POV and is almost like reading someones thoughts. The story takes place over a year, as such. Though it jumps back and forward abit, it doesnt matter as Margs tells it like someone having a chat over coffee. eg."Oh the wedding was gorgeous, even after all that happened in the lead up. Did I tell you about ..." (not an actual quote)
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I just loved this book! I thought it was brilliant! The first thing that caught me was the main character Mags. She was really interesting, being a goth in her early years and still not really shaking it when older.. and the fact that her husband was a punk! Her house seemed really cool to me, guitars on the walls, a MASSIVE record collection and a room that had a stone gargoyle and gothic candle sticks some at 5 feet tall?! It made me decide that when i have a house of my own it will always have a biscuit jar fully stocked with chocolate biscuits! The fact that the book was based in Belfast in my home country of Ireland made it a bit of a comfort, as i could relate to some of the slang she was using and the 'ulster fry' and 'cups of tae'! :) The story itself was so funny i thought, with Julies crazy parents and her relationships with guys, mags family antics such as her son having a baby with his anorexic girlfriend who has false eyelashes and designer shoes! All in all it made me laugh and it made me feel like i really knew the characters. Love it :)
—Andrea
