4 Star
Meryl Becker is living a mother's dream. The oldest of her three beautiful daughters, Meg, is engaged to a wonderful man from one of the country's most prominent families. Of course, Meryl wants to give Meg the perfect wedding. Who wouldn't? But when her two younger daughters, Amy and Jo, also become engaged to celebrated bachelors, Meryl has to admit that three weddings is more than she and her husband, Hugh, can realistically afford.
The solution? A triple wedding! At first, it's a tough sell to the girls, and juggling three sets of future in-laws is a logistical nightmare. But when Hugh loses his teaching job, and Meryl's aging mother suddenly moves in with them, a triple wedding is the only way to get all three sisters down the aisle. When the grand plan becomes public, the onslaught of media attention adds to Meryl's mounting pressure. Suddenly, appearances are everything - and she will do whatever it takes to keep the wedding on track as money gets tight, her mother starts acting nutty, and her own thirty year marriage starts to unravel.
In the weeks leading up to the nuptials, secrets are revealed, passions ignite, and surprising revelations show Meryl and her daughters the true meaning of love, marriage and family. Jamie Brenner's The Wedding Sisters invites readers to the most unpredictable wedding of the year.
Kathryn - 4 Star
I adored the plot of this novel- I just wish it had been longer. There were so many great ways the story could have gone and threads that were taken that it could actually have been a story for each daughter which was then woven into this one from the perspective of the mother. I found the family reactions to each other fascinating and the little jealousies between the sisters true to life but there was also a sense of loyalty between the three that I liked.
Meg has a huge weight of responsibility she seems to have put on herself. She’s the eldest and her parents seem to expect her to succeed in all aspects of life. The middle sister Amy is typically always trying to keep up with her elder sister and feels she is falling short which creates obvious jealousy and pettiness. Youngest sister Jo is marching to her own drum and completely happy to let the elder two stick to convention. They were perfection.
I found it hard to grasp the father’s position- he was so oblivious and detached that it was hard to see him as anything but a distant relative and yet it seems as if he’d once been an involved parent, more information as to how that had happened may have helped me warm to him.
The mother was great- I found her equally charming and annoying but you could see that her entire purpose was to make sure her daughters had the best that she could provide. I also liked that she was given her own tricky things to overcome, mostly with her marriage.
All in all the novel covered too much ground in too short a book! There was so much in there that the end result could have been double the length and still kept my interest! It seems unfair to not give a full 5 star review to a book I liked so much but I did feel a little let down that it was too short- I just don't know how that could have been avoided.
Thank you to St.Martin's Press for our review copy. All opinions are our own.
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