This was recommended to me as a book I would love and would be unable to put down. It mostly made me annoyed.
This book burns slow which is frustrating because a “can’t put down page turner” should definitely move with more haste in story telling. It is also hard to follow what is happening at times because the point of view shifts pretty rapidly and not in a way that suggests the intricacies of the storylines coming together.
The book opens on a central premise of small yet fancy AF wedding on a random, tiny island off the coast of Ireland. Apparently Will ( hot but terrible groom) and Jules ( hot but terrible bride) are so beautiful that no one can handle how their hotness lets them glide through life. Jules and Will have terrible families, friends, and various hangers on from their lives before their hotness collided.
The remote nature of the island is sold to us as “exclusive” with an air of wealthy hipster. My mind immediately pictured Moscow Mules in mason jars with flower crowns and a clergy member named Cricket who got ordained on instagram.
I would have preferred Cricket’s hipster wedding to whatever the F happens in this book.
Everyone hates the bride. Everyone hates the groom. The bride and groom haven’t known each other very long which, in book world, equals SECRETS. The secrets are boring and as they are revealed, you will still hate both the bride and the groom. You will wish you were drinking moonshine from a mason jar at points of this book.
Oh yeah, the island is subject to BAD STORMS, as is reiterated so often that you would think this book were trying to be a Farmer’s Almanac. And in a storm, at the twee wedding, someone gets murdered, BUT WHO?! It’s pretty obvious from about 30 pages in.
This book is infinitely more interesting if you swap out the characters for real life celebrities. During the sections on hazing at the prep school; picture John Hamm and Mark Wahlberg. They were both real life horrors in their “youth” and I can see them pulling the same shit as Will plus his awful friends.
When dealing with Charlie and Hannah, just picture Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.
Johnno is absolutely Chris Pratt.
Jules is a less emotionally developed Ivanka Trump.
Things in this book that were fun as is:
-How absolutely wrecked everyone is at this wedding. The pandemic made me wish I was getting completely wrecked with this group of horrible people just to have something to do.
– How the bride’s dress is described as this super insanely expensive number that is basically just a silk slip. Seriously. I googled the words the author uses to describe the dress to see if what I was picturing translated to an actual dress. They do, a very basic white slip dress.
– How miserable the little sister Olivia is because she starts off so privileged and annoying; like every ennui filled 15 year old you’ve ever met. Olivia ended up being the only person I gave a hoot about and wanted her to turn out o.k.
Overall, the book is pretty “meh”. I don’t regret reading it, but I do regret paying for it. I should have waited for the library to have a copy.
Welcome! Happy First Review!
I think I’m going to apply this characters-as-celebrities approach to future books I hate. I imagine it will make them infinitely more interesting!
“…so beautiful that no one can handle how their hotness lets them glide through life” had me laughing out loud. I loved this book and yet I also concur wholeheartedly with your review. No lie I would have loved it even more if I were picturing Chris Pratt as Johnno. And Jules is one thousand percent an Ivanka-in-training. Excellent review!