I really wanted to like this book. It was on so many lists of great romance novels, and was even mentioned on a podcast that I enjoy, but it just didn’t live up to the hype.
Aside from the really bizarre character names, the whole thing reads like a rough first draft. Turns out, this was Crusie’s first novel after she read 100 romance novels for her dissertation. The bones of the story are good and have a lot of potential, but the descriptions are bad and the characters flat. I had a really hard time picturing almost everything. I can’t for the life of me conjure an image of those bridesmaids dresses. The side plot with David and Cynthie was exasperating and way too mustache-twirly. When I start rewriting scenes in my head as I’m
going, that’s not promising to me.
Despite my inability to imagine anything going on, the book was a fast read and the plot moved along at a pretty good pace. There were some points that I was thinking “oh, just get on with it”, but those were few. It just needed to be heavily massaged by a good editor. Considering that she has gone on to write many more books, I hope that her craft has improved, but I don’t know if I’ll be checking out more of her books.