Dual Review: IT HAPPENED ONE WEDDING by Julie James

Sydney is thrilled for her sister when Isabelle announces a sudden engagement, but also kinda bummed. You see, less than a year ago Sydney herself was about to get married, before she found out her fiance was a cheating bastard. Now she has a 32-point list of everything a man has to have before she'll date him: a steady job, friends with steady jobs and/or families, etc. Too bad her future brother-in-law doesn't pass the test, because he's super cute and has a sexy job (FBI agent). Maybe they can just be fuck buddies instead. Yeah. That'll work out.

As regular readers of this blog know, I have some issues with Julie James novels. I loved Just the Sexiest Man Alive, but many of her other novels have irritated me with their unbelievably perfect heroines, gender issues, and complete and utter lack of anything resembling a plot. Since I knew Anachronist from Portable Pieces of Thoughts has had similar issues with James' books—only with an added soupçon of hatred—I thought it would be fun if we discussed James' latest, It Happened One Wedding.

So what did Anachronist and I think? You might be surprised. Read on to find out:

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Anachronist: When it comes to novels of Ms. James one saying comes to my mind: the more it changes the more it is the same thing (a famous epigram by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr). Would you agree with me?

Tasha: Yes, but maybe that’s a good thing. It Happened One Wedding is a romcom twist on Pride & Prejudice, but fortunately James does that kind of story really well.

Ana: Define ‘well’. The one thing that makes me rather angry and disappointed about her books is the fact that they feature plastic-perfect heroines and heroes, people who deal with artificial problems while they are unvaryingly beautiful, successful, rich, relatively young and desirable. Real life calling  Ms. James: it never happens.

Tasha: Totally agree. I suppose that was the point of all those work scenes we had to sit through, just so we knew Sydney and Vaughn were both successful.

Ana: To tell you the truth I would love to have a chat with Sydney’s ex, that guy who left her almost by the altar and had had sex with his fitness instructor before that. I kept wondering why he cheated on his girlfriend if she was so perfect, pretty, rich and so good...

Tasha: In bed? Presumably because he’s a playa playa. Tigers can’t change their stripes (unless they’re romance heroes of course). Speaking of which, what did you think of Vaughn’s sudden realization that he wanted to get married and have a parcel of kids?

Ana: Option A - his hormones switched on during that wedding preparation period and he hit the early male menopause. Option B - Sydney was feeding him a fidelity drug all the time. Option C - he was UNREAL from the first page to the last and the poor author never had any idea how to make him change from a sexual predator into a family man so she went all deus-ex-machina and ta-dah! Here you go, all of a sudden Vaughn becomes a serious guy who loves kids and wants nothing better than a wife and a family of his own. Tigers can’t change their spots, hein?

Tasha: Why’d he even have to turn into a family man is what I wonder. Uhg that ending was so dumb. If only they’d had a double wedding, then AT LEAST someone would have saved some money. That’s a conclusion I can get behind.

Ana: By the way tell me whether wedding preparations in the USA are really so ridiculously arduous and long as described in this novel (and many other novels as well)?  I admit I half-laughed half-snorted reading about those rehearsals, practices, choosing the dress, trying on the dress, tasting the dishes in a restaurant, stag parties, hen parties and so on. Honestly people, so much fuss and then you divorce after a year or two…

Tasha: lol Actually, yes, that’s pretty standard. Is it not in Europe?

Ana: Not really. Some people do like copying the rehearsals from our lovely American cousins but it is hardly common or widespread. It takes too much time and too much effort I suppose.

Tasha: I don’t know why people have rehearsals—all you have to do is walk down an aisle slowly! Is it really that difficult? But I guess it’s an excuse to go out to dinner afterward.

Ana: Oh, now I see. Dinner at somebody else’s expense. It sounds reasonable at least ;p. Let return to the book, though. What do you think of Sydney’s sister pretending that she wasn’t pregnant before her marriage? Preposterous? Normal? Both?

Tasha: Another deus-ex-machina to get the wedding to happen quickly instead of over the course of a year like normal. It seemed a little old-fashioned, honestly. Like anyone would care, even a Catholic mom? Probably not, but if Isabelle wants to make life miserable for herself…

Ana: I live in a very Catholic country but a bride with a bun in her oven going proudly to church in a white dress is quite normal here. Nobody cares as long as there is a wedding because sometimes there is not. That’s why such a plot device was shocking to me - it sounded so quaint and not in a positive way. I thought the author was hard-pressed for fresh ideas or rather joking...anyway it didn’t make me liking this one more.

Tasha: Yeah, I think she was using it for comic relief to a certain extent. Not to mention that the kid and the wedding is basically the plot. I thought for sure Sydney and Vaughn would connect over a case—I mean, he works undercover in white collar crimes, she’s an investment banker—but James totally missed the boat on that one. Kind of a let-down, even if it would have been a predictable way to bring them together.

Ana: You’re right - so far in the series there has been a crime, a case and there have been two protagonists forced to cooperate in order to solve it. No more of it in this one.

Tasha: Maybe she’s realizing suspense isn’t her strong suit. Kind of like writing about food isn’t her strong suit. Did you catch the tomato cutting scene? Pretty sure that wouldn’t have worked out the way she described it.

Ana: I am not a chef or a good cook but I did wonder how you can cut a tomato into even squares without using some super-extra-outer-space-technology kitchen tool instead of your ordinary knife...perhaps it can be done in James’s America where tomatoes are grown as cubes ;p. Overall did you enjoy It Happened One Wedding? So far we’ve been criticizing it pretty consistently...

Tasha: I did like it. It had a plot (yay!), Vaughn and Sydney had a lot of chemistry, and it was a fun read.

Ana: I suppose the book was better than the previous novels because I managed to finish it at all (yay seconded!) but still I can’t get over the plastic Barbieland all James characters come from. It gives me creeps, really, thinking about all these imperfect readers who all of a sudden are faced with the fact that in some novels only handsome/beautiful/successful people have any chances to find a partner, marry and be happy. Not fair.

Tasha: That’s basically 98.2% of romance novels, though.

Ana: Small wonder I hate them on a daily basis.

Tasha: At least Vaughn wasn’t inexplicably wealthy.

Ana: But he was an FBI agent, they don’t have to be wealthy.

Tasha: They don’t? Oh right, because they can provide security with their shooting and fighting super powers.

Ana: Exactly. And they are handsome, all of them. It is a prerequisite I suppose.

Tasha: And Sydney manages to be the only investment banker who isn’t a sleaze. haha

Ana: If you were to recommend this novel what would you say?

Tasha: That it’s James’ best novel since Just the Sexiest Man Alive and it’s a fun and romcom-y. I think that’s what James’ audience is mainly looking for, anyway.

Ana: Now I am asking myself a rhetorical question: should I read Just the Sexiest Man Alive? Maybe.

Tasha: Since the question’s rhetorical I won’t answer. *wink*

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Lorna Doone by RD Blackmore

<-This cover bothers me.

Find this book at an independent bookseller near you (via IndieBound). (or just download it for free from GoodReads)

For Classics Month, Meghan and I decided to read Lorna Doone together.  It's the story of a young farmer in Exmoor who falls in love with the daughter of the leader of a gang of thieves who murdered his father (more or less).  This is part two of our joint review.  For part one (and a more complete summary of what the book's about), go to Meghan's blog, Medieval Bookworm.



Lorna Doone discussion, part II:

Me:  The infantilization of Lorna--her being all cute and delicate and innocent *gag*--did kind of bother me. But she's no simpering idiot. After all, when John first asks her if she loves him, she's like, "No?" which I think showed she had some intelligence and a mind of her own, anyway. And she's the one who really dictates the rules of the relationship, when they're going to see each other, when they're going to get married, etc., so she's not a powerless puppet. Even though she cried a lot.

Meghan:  I like your idea about the knight in shining armour - I can definitely see that. I thought she might leave him when she went off later in the book - not to give anything away - but sadly she did not. LOL. It was John's attitude that bugged me, not Lorna herself. I had a hard time imagining any of the women as actual, mature women just because he was always talking about how tiny they were and things like how white their skin was, that sort of thing. And it's true that he was a giant but it sort of put me off that I couldn't imagine any of them as actual people.

I didn't mind Lorna so much compared to him. I laughed when she said "no" as you just mentioned. But overall I just thought the depiction of women was annoying even if they fought it with their actions.

Me:  The portrayal of Lizzie was annoying, just because she was the only female in the entire book who would actively stand up to John and he hated her. But I just wrote that off as sibling rivalry. I was surprised at how John's mother was depicted, because in the miniseries she's a very strong woman, and in the book she seems a lot weaker. But I don't think John was as misogynistic as you do--I think he does respect the women in his life, even if he occassionally denigrates them. I don't think John would view it as denigration; he was just raised in a time and place to think like that. I admit I would have liked it better if he questioned those beliefs.

Meghan:  I do agree that he was a product of his time. I tried to treat him as that, but it just made it hard for me to like the book and to like him. I know I've read Victorian novels where such things really didn't get to me as much - I think Blackmore laid it on a little too thick. I didn't think he was consciously doing it but I guess I still got annoyed!

Me:  Was there anything you liked about the book? How about those descriptions of nature? ;)

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Meghan:  I genuinely skipped the nature bits as I got towards the end. So I probably shouldn't count myself as having read the whole book, I just skimmed them to see when the action started. But then I have always really disliked anything with in depth descriptions of nature, especially when it just goes on and on, LOL. I generally liked it better when something was happening and there wasn't too much wordiness going on. So, the fighting scenes were better and I loved the drama at the end, just because it was such a change from the painfully plodding pace of the entire book.

I wish I could say I liked the romance part as well. I thought John and Lorna were sweet occasionally but I just had too many issues with him to really care, and I never understood (as we mentioned) the basis of their relationship besides his obsession with a pretty girl.

What were your favorite parts?

Me:  The parts with Lorna in them were definitely my favorite. I have to admit that I did like the romance and the way Lorna and John interacted, but then I didn't have a problem with John. I don't think he was just obsessed with her because she was pretty; that for me was the point of the whole Ruth thing. Even if it did seem like he was leading her on, it seemed like Blackmore was trying to tell us that John isn't just a sucker for a pretty face or someone he can get along with, or he doesn't like Lorna just because she's there and willing. You know, he has options and stuff. :P

I skipped the battle parts of the book. lol The nature descriptions weren't too bad. I did love how all the animals had their own personalities, just as if they were people, and John got along more with some animals than with others--like Winnie and that one horse he rode at the end of the book. Knucklecrusher or whatever its name was.

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Meghan:  I liked Winnie, too. I thought that was a nice touch. And John had options, but everyone complained about Ruth and how she was too small (because being a little bit small is okay but not very small??) so I felt a little sorry for her, being a small person myself. They would have made a funny-looking couple but it was pretty clear she liked him.

I'm not always the person that hones in on the action, I just think that I found the rest of the book so boring I was happy when something else happened! I really think it was about 200 or 300 pages too long.

Me:  Definitely. This thing's a chunkster. I do have to admit that by the end I was skimming practically everything. I can't imagine anyone sitting down and writing this out long-hand.

Meghan:  Me neither! I really just wanted to get it finished. I hate reading books that take longer than a few days as it is. This one took me practically a month and I can't even remember the last time that happened. I think it would have languished forever if we hadn't been reading it together.

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Me:  I know! The only reason I kept reading was because you were reading it with me. :) I'm really happy I finished it, though. In the end I think it was worth it.

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Meghan:  I still haven't decided if it was worth it for me. I hadn't really heard of it until I got this set of books but apparently it's pretty big over here in the UK, my husband had thought it was really famous. He kept asking me why it was a classic when I complained about it so much! But I'm glad I can cross it off my list permanently now, and I do intend to watch the mini-series when I get a chance.

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Me:  I think he should read it, then! ;) The only reason I'd heard of it was because of the mini-series, and the first few times I watched that I had no idea what the setting was. I thought maybe Appalachia? The Doones are super red necky.

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Meghan:  He'd never get past the first page unfortunately. He's not too patient with books (or anything). There are a lot of British classics I never heard of until I actually came to England, but so many book bloggers know about them that I wonder often if it's just me. This was definitely one of them and I can see why it hasn't hit the American high school or even college curriculum.

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Me:  This book is a pretty hard sell. I haven't had so much pain over reading a book since... Hmm, Dickens? I don't even remember. But I actually would recommend it to people with patience and those who've seen the miniseries.

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Meghan:  I would say that I liked Dickens better. ;) I might recommend it to someone who really enjoys lingering in a book for a long time, though. I'm just not that person.

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