The Trouble With Weddings by Sharon Owens

[fionnuala]

This is Sharon Owens' fourth book and deals mainly with the lives and loves of two characters - Julie Sultana and Mags Grimsdale.

Julie and Mags are wedding planners and run their business - Dream Weddings - from a disused lighthouse on the Antrim coast. Julie thinks that she is the perfect wedding planner as she has never been in love - a direct consequence from having an extremely weird childhood at the hands of parents who share a loveless marriage. Julie is engaged but one day decides that she can't marry Gary Devine her fiance. She runs away to a Galway Spa, asks Mags to break the news to her fiance and embarks on a passionate affair with barman Jay O'Hanlon.

Mags, who is a goth and very proud of her collection of candles, is at her wits end as to what to do as she has enough on her plate with her own family troubles. Her son is going out with a girl who has an eating disorder and gets pregnant and her father who likes nothing more to talk endlessly about the political situation in Northern Ireland dies very suddenly. On a happy note though, she is very happily married to Bill Grimsdale who used to be a punk rocker.

The girls are faced with plenty of challenging weddings along the way but one wedding is particularly bizarre as the bride and groom want to get married in a castle with bats, dressed in black, with all guests wearing vampire outfits and 5 ft cake which could send you to space with the electric volts that it contains. This will be the wedding that will either make them or break them.

I finished this book last week and had to admit that I found it slightly hard to get into at the start. I believe, however, that this was largely due to the fact that I had pre-conceived notions as to what it was going to be like having thoroughly enjoyed Sharon's other books. The style of writing is very different but the book itself is extremely humorous with some wonderful one liners! Sharon mentions lots of places which I am familiar with in Belfast which is a nice touch and her flippant references to politics are quite funny!

I would reccommend that you read it! Oons my copy will be posted to you this week and anyone else who wants it is more than welcome to read it afterwards!

[megan]

Thanks Fionn.

[claire]

sounds like a good read

[megan]

I am very interested to read this too.

[fionnuala]

You can have it surely Megan - have promised to send it to Oonagh (who must think that its got lost in the post its taking that long to reach her) but she can pass it on after. I think that susanmay had expressed an interest in it as well.

[megan]

That's great Fionn, thanks.

[Oonagh]

I got half way through this book and i just said to myself life is too short to read a book Im not enjoyingat all. I loved Sharon Owens other books. Trouble with weddings done nothing for me. I found the two female characters really irrating julue and Mags. Mags was just a door mat for her kids and her husband. I was just bored with it to be honest. thanks Fionn for passing it on. If u didnt i would have bought it. I will be interested what the other girls think of it. Ill pass it on to megan this week. thanks again fionn. xx

[fionnuala]

Only spotted this review today Oons - that's v interesting! I had a funny feeling that you wouldn't like it! I stuck with it until the end and was glad that I did as the second half is actually better than the first - I think that that the book's weak start will turn a lot of people off! What do you think Megan?

[susanmay]

I was really looking forward to this book but I too gave up half way through.

I agree with you about Julie and Mags, Oons. I suppose there's women out there that could relate to Mags with her annoying husband and family but Julie for me was the most irritating

Look forward to hearing what you think Megan.

[fionnuala]

I think these comments are v interesting girlies! I have to say that I grew to like the book but ultimately was bitterly disappointed that her writing style changed so much! I always raved about her first three books which I adored - don't know if I would be as quick to buy her next book though!

[Oonagh]

I have a confessiopn to make the book is still in a bag on my floor in my bedroom. Im sorry girls will sent it soon to megan i promise.

[fionnuala]

Tut tut!! Naughty Oons!

[oons]

I know Im brutal. still have not unpacked yet. oons

[megan]

Well, I finally read this book and it came as a welcome relief after 'The Memory Keeper's Daughter'. (Not enough action) . Sharon Owens has produced a different kind of novel; told in the first person and with lots of humour. If you don't like the main character, Mags, you won't like this book because much of it is her opinion on everything and anything. I was interested that you thought she was a doormat, Oonagh, and Susan thought her husband, Bill, was annoying. I found different. I thought Mags was too interfering; she took on too much responsibitity for others and in the process did not treat her husband very well. To me he was a lovely man; dependable, loving, understanding, gentle. But she went behind his back spending money they didn't have, screaming at him for always being right. I liked him much more than her. Another difficulty I had with, Mags, was that she seemed much older to me than she actually was. I visualised her as fifty-five instead of forty and had to keep reminding myself she was a forty-year-old Goth. That didn't fit.
Julie, the other main character, came across as ridiculous. I think humour was given priority over reality in writing her character. I didn't care about her or who she ended up with in the end. She was like a cartoon character.

The best thing about this book for me was the humour. It had me laughing out loud many times. Other than that the plot was pretty silly. Once again, I liked Bill, the husband. He is an example of a decent guy' . I loved the advice he gave to his son, Alex, on how to keep his girlfriend interested. That was very sweet and true.
Susan, why did you think her husband was annoying? Can you remember? I'd be interested to know.
One more thing. I've noticed that a really good happy marriage is almost a trademark of Sharon Owens stories. I like that. Of all her books I like 'The Tea House on Mulberry St.' the best by far. This most recent one, is the least substantial. I read it in about 24 hours. I'd recommend it for anyone on a long haul flight - easy to read and not too taxing on the brain!

[susanmay]

Very well said Megan.

I had to put this book down half way through, as it done very little for me. Julie was my least favourite character. Well put Megan, when you said almost cartoon like.

Of what I can remember I thought Bill was a bit over powering. I can't fully remember details of why I thought so I must check it out again.

[fionnuala]

Bill was overpowering I think because Mags came across as being somewhat dependent on his opinion - he was always right type of thing?!

I agree with your comments about the book making you laugh out loud Megan as I can remember Philip wanting to kill me on several occasions for going into convulsions in the bed! There was one bit where she's talking about Jay O'Hanlon's mad behaviour and starts shouting "it's alright he's from Galway" as if this explained everything and for some reason this nearly sent me into a fit! Sharon def is the queen of the one-liners and I have to say that I'm really looking forward to her next book now!

[megan]

He still didn't come across to me as overpowering, rather gentle, sensitive and reserved. I could understand Mags being annoyed with him, though, for being always right. He DID tend to have the senisble solution while she made a mess of things much of the time.

[Shirley]

This book got a pretty good review in the Indo yesterday. The review also mentioned that SO's book The Ballroom on Magnolia Street, sparked a bidding war at the London Book Fair a week after it was published. Lucky girl! Her books were published in many different countries as a result of this.

[megan]

Wow! What a dream that would be!! She is a great writer, though, and well deserved.
Ho hum our time will come.

[Shirley]

I just read this book, and I'm a bit....bemused! It's a while since a book has rendered me speechless, but this one did! I just can't believe an entire published book was sustained around such a flimsy plot....I know she was going for the farcical approach (or at least that's my reading of it!), but honestly, I got halfway through it and said to myself "Is this for real?". Fionn is right in saying that the second half is better than the first alright, and some of the writing is very funny - I think if SO could combine a plot with a bit of substance with this humour, she'd have a killer combo....but I'm still kinda going "What the hell was that?" after finishing this book! Well, SO is obviously very talented so what do I know, but God, it was a strange book in many ways (the Goths etc. were the least strange thing in it really!). It sounds like her other books are not like that from what you guys are saying, so I'd nearly read one of them out of interest to see the difference!

[megan]

Do read another one, Shirley.

I'd recommend The Tea House on Mulberry Street.

And, you're right, this one was virtually plotless!

[fionnuala]

Oh do read them Shirley - you'll be in for such a treat! I would offer to lend them to you as I have all three but they are all out with friends at the minute! I understand completely what you're saying though - I have a notion that if any of us had produced it that we wouldn't have got very far - having said that I have to say that I liked it but as most people kick up such a fuss about having a strong opening I'm surprised that it wasn't better!

As far as her reference to 'goths' goes I think that that is because she's into that type of music - if you go to the link to her MySpace page you'll see that she loves The Cure etc etc.

[Angie]

I liked it...was a bit dubious at first but once I got into it, i enjoyed it..i loved when she went off the rails and got the blue streak in her hair and the tatoo....i thought that was a scream...i have to say I like tatoos..i have 4 of them myself...had them since my 20s....and what a very strange boss to have...I asked the girls at the library to get me her other books..her writing wasnt what I thought it would be, when i saw the covers on her other books, i thought she was like joanne harris and I get bored with them..so Im glad now I read this and am looking forward to trying a few more of hers..... ;D

[claireallan]

Have to say ladies, I read this on my holidays just two weeks ago and loved the bones of it.
I thought it was hilariously funny and I loved Mags and Bills' relationship.
Julie did need a good shake, but that was the point, no?


I've a review of it going on Trashionista soon, but this what I wrote on my blog about it:

When I went on holiday this year I was most of all looking forward to reading the new Marian Keyes book 'This Charming Man'.
Having looked forward to it for years, literally (I think it is just over two years since 'Anybody Out There' hit the shelves) I was almost delirious with excitement about it.
When I saw it was released and in the shops a few days early I made it my mission to get my mits on a copy and then had to put it in my suitcase straight away to resist the urge to read it there and then.
The thing is though, the book is big - really big - and didn't fit in my wee handbag so I popped Sharon Owens' 'The Trouble With Weddings' in my bag instead. (Now released in the UK as 'Revenge of the Wedding Planner').
I started reading it on the plane and it was, truly, one of the funniest, warmest books I've read in many a long year. It was chatty, warm, oozed delicious dresses, decadent interiors and a house on Eglantine Avenue which I covet with all my heart. (In her book 'It Must Be Love' Sharon wrote about my dream kitchen... the two of us should get together and create dream houses, honest).
It had laugh out loud moments, risque love scenes, a sexy bar man, wedding cake dilemmas and a very funny series of twists and turns. And yet at the heart of it there was a serious message about love, forgiveness, friendship and family.
It was delightful, entirely.