The Reluctant Bride
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A hilarious read"
'This is a gem of a book: a perfect antidote to all the mawkish, unfunny chick-lit on the market. Let's hope this is the first of many'
(Woman's Way )Product Description
Will Lucy make it down the aisle? It's going to be an uphill struggle . . .
The bride: A late starter in life, Lucy always swore she'd never get married. But now she has to find a caterer who doesn't charge a fortune for a cupcake, a dressmaker who doesn't make her cry and a way to bring Great-Auntie Betty down from Dundee for the sixpence she is willing to spend - isn't it meant to be HER special day?
The groom: Christopher has spent twenty minutes compiling his guest list and checking his suit fits before returning to his newspaper - this wedding business isn't so hard after all.
The mother of the bride: Armed with colour-coded wedding planning folders she is all set. However, twice-daily conversations with her daughter don't seem to be shortening the 'to-do' list she's drawn up.
The father of the bride: A wedding? My daughter? Who's she marrying?
The best friend: Gillian has stood by Lucy through thick and thin, but she is refusing to be a bridesmaid and wear a daft dress.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
I enyoyed this. It is certainly not "great literature", and for me, not the sort of book I'll want to re-read repeatedly, but its a feel-good light holiday-type read, and anyone who has ever been involved in planning a wedding will find common ground with Lucy's story. (For those who are about to embark on creating their dream wedding, it may provide you with a bit of useful insight and maybe a sense of perspective, and should probably be on any recently-engaged woman's reading list!)
It is the based-on-true-life story of Lucy's wedding preparation, as she juggles the chaos of managing cupcakes, bridesmaids and dress fittings while pacifying relatives and co-ordinating her guest list and venue. It is witty and fun, well written and compelling.
So, don't expect Shakespeare, but enjoy an entertaining and wry smile-inducing read, pass it round to all your girlfriends for their fortnights on the beach, and buy new copies as engagement presents!
It is the based-on-true-life story of Lucy's wedding preparation, as she juggles the chaos of managing cupcakes, bridesmaids and dress fittings while pacifying relatives and co-ordinating her guest list and venue. It is witty and fun, well written and compelling.
So, don't expect Shakespeare, but enjoy an entertaining and wry smile-inducing read, pass it round to all your girlfriends for their fortnights on the beach, and buy new copies as engagement presents!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Vine™ Review
(What's this?)
This isn't really a guide to getting married, it's an affectionate look back at how it was for Lucy, starting with the first time she met her husband-to-be and ending back at the hotel immediately after the wedding.
Along the way there are myriad trials and tribulations. Neither Lucy or Christopher, her fiance, are particularly conventional or well-organised and although they've been to plenty of weddings, don't really know where to start. What follows is a mostly witty and entertaining account of the journey from the proposal to the altar.
I love Lucy Mangan's Guardian column and feel like I already know her family so I was thrilled to get the chance to read and review this book through Vine. And it is a good book, it's an easy read and very funny in places. But I did find the whole, slightly-self consciously clever dialogue began to grate after a while. Every time Christopher spoke (in the book) I couldn't help thinking of Boris Johnson who is the only person I've ever heard actually talk like that.
The best parts are Lucy's lovely descriptions of her gorgeous, gentle father whose mind is always elsewhere, her controlling, but still adorable mother and her truly delightful sister - and her best friend Gillian who I loved too.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As Lucy's dad said when his early morning peace and quiet was about to be disturbed by his guests getting up: "Ah well, it was lovely while it lasted."
Along the way there are myriad trials and tribulations. Neither Lucy or Christopher, her fiance, are particularly conventional or well-organised and although they've been to plenty of weddings, don't really know where to start. What follows is a mostly witty and entertaining account of the journey from the proposal to the altar.
I love Lucy Mangan's Guardian column and feel like I already know her family so I was thrilled to get the chance to read and review this book through Vine. And it is a good book, it's an easy read and very funny in places. But I did find the whole, slightly-self consciously clever dialogue began to grate after a while. Every time Christopher spoke (in the book) I couldn't help thinking of Boris Johnson who is the only person I've ever heard actually talk like that.
The best parts are Lucy's lovely descriptions of her gorgeous, gentle father whose mind is always elsewhere, her controlling, but still adorable mother and her truly delightful sister - and her best friend Gillian who I loved too.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. As Lucy's dad said when his early morning peace and quiet was about to be disturbed by his guests getting up: "Ah well, it was lovely while it lasted."
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Lucy Mangham is witty. You can smirk all the way through this book. At the beginning of the book she decides to pretend that she works in shops and begins with a supermarket, but by the end she has forgotten about this pretence and admits to having been a lawyer whose friends are barristers and doctors like you might expect. It looks like an editing mistake because the book was pushed out in a hurry. In fact the editor should be shot as Uncle Alan is obliged to coast down every hill to save petrol twice on page 60. Never mind the sloppy editing, who needs perfection when you have so much to enjoy? It starts out as fiction and ends up as probably non-fiction. Maybe that's why it makes you laugh initially and then cry at the end, because reader, she really does love him. The wit is brittle British wit, never far from vulnerability, tragedy cloaked in irony and never that far from tears, except we manage, most of the time to veer towards laughter.
I think Lucy Mangham has a lot to tell the middle classes who they are and she does it as wittily and as gently as EF Benson (Mapp and Lucia) and EM Delafield (Diary of a Provincial Lady) and like them our life and times are described without mercy and yet with affection. They wrote in the 30's and we have had to wait until now to see their like again.
Don't call this chick lit, it is more affectionate and less affected, and don't call it holiday reading, because you'll want to read it more than once. I like to imagine that underneath all her entertaining banter she is really is trying to understand. Or maybe she does understand and yet she's making the reader feel clever for getting there first. Either way I think this book is a tad more complex that it pretends to be. Or not. Anyway read it and talk about it. Its fun.
I think Lucy Mangham has a lot to tell the middle classes who they are and she does it as wittily and as gently as EF Benson (Mapp and Lucia) and EM Delafield (Diary of a Provincial Lady) and like them our life and times are described without mercy and yet with affection. They wrote in the 30's and we have had to wait until now to see their like again.
Don't call this chick lit, it is more affectionate and less affected, and don't call it holiday reading, because you'll want to read it more than once. I like to imagine that underneath all her entertaining banter she is really is trying to understand. Or maybe she does understand and yet she's making the reader feel clever for getting there first. Either way I think this book is a tad more complex that it pretends to be. Or not. Anyway read it and talk about it. Its fun.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Was this review helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A perfect partner.
I've never been the big-fat-wedding type, and never really saw myelf getting married, nor thought my attitude would ever change. However, I really enjoyed reading this book. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Guitar Heroine
Bit slow
I adore Mangan's newspaper/magazine writing but this one was just too slow and seemed amateurishly written and poorly edited. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Miss Smith
Guilty Pleasure.
No, I'm not in the target demographic. Yes, I loved this. Lucy has a light, enjoyable style, she knows how to make a chuckle out of a drama, and you'll do a lot worse for a holiday... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Michael Mooney
And so it goes.
My Dad read the first hundred pages of this (despite me taking it for Mum) on the strength of the first page. After a hundred pages he gave up. Read more
Published 19 months ago by Stuart Burns
The Perfect Antidote to Wedding Hysteria
This book was recommended to me by my daughter who read it on a transatlantic flight. She hardly noticed the time pass, but embarrassed herself by laughing aloud in several places. Read more
Published 20 months ago by M. M. Johnson
Reluctant read
I enjoy reading Lucy Mangan's column in the Saturday Guardian, but sadly this book did not live up to the promise of her shorter work and felt dragged out, kicking and screaming to... Read more
Published 20 months ago by J. Charlesworth
Laugh out loud as you share Lucy's day
Having read a few magazine and newspaper articles by Lucy before, I was familiar with her style of writing, but not overly so, so I went into this book not fully knowing what to... Read more
Published 21 months ago by J.E.T
The non-reluctant reader
As a lover of frothy novels, and a woman in her mid-20s who is currently planning her own wedding, I am surely the exact target market for this book, and therefore it is no... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Miss
True, true, true
Sometimes laugh out loud, others it soars with excitement, dread, concern, anxiety...it's all here and it's all true to life! Read more
Published 21 months ago by mutlien
Witty and fun - an enjoyable read
I've been a fan of Lucy Mangan's writing for sometime and couldn't resist picking this book to read. Read more
Published 21 months ago by RC
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
