The Wedding Dress by Rachel Hauck- Book review BIC Book Club

[prettyinpa]

Hi all my avid readers! Let's start the discussion for The Wedding Dress, I'm not going to finish it since it's not gripping me, so let the fun begin for you others!

[Titian06]

Hi, all!  I finished the book tonight.  I wasn't planning to read it, but the abstract led me to believe it would be more intreging than it was.  It was the chick lit I was afraid it would be.  The main female character is such an idiot!  I found myself "arguing" with Charlotte on many occasions.  She preferred to play the victim than own up to her mistakes.  There were so many inconsistencies throughout the story, not to mention the typos!

[ShortErica]

Yes @Titian06! If Charlotte was my friend I would want to shake her. I also felt weird that Mary Grace and Hilary basically got cameos. The description made me think each story would be more equitable content-wise.

[quspork]

I just finished, and I have to say- I *really* disliked this book. To me, is came of as insipid, simple, and judgmental. The characters were such a mish-mash and the entire second half of the book seemed hurried to me. Full disclosure, despite being raised in the church, I'm no longer practicing so that may very well have colored some of what I took from the story. But even aside from that aspect, I just felt like it over-simplified complicated issues like marriage and racial tensions. Like @RachFace2921 this definitely won't inspire me to check out the author's other work. 

[RachFace2921]

I agree with your observations on really simplifying complex issues.   I can't say the book read like 'young adult' because I dont think the plot line would cater to that demographic, but it had a sort of childishness / fantasy element that just wasn't working for me either @quspork

[RachFace2921]

Lol, that makes me feel better  @prettyinpa@....@prettyinpa

I finished it, but the story felt kind of simple to me.  I wasn't bothered by the characters being religious, but I felt like the circumstances of the story just being chalked up to faith and God was a little weak from a storytelling perspective. I also took issue with the theme of 'the dress chooses its bride' when in fact two of the brides chose who to pass the dress onto, and in only one story did the dress just sort if appear.

The one small element that I did find kind of interesting was in Hillary's story, she questions why she was married to her husband, only to have him immediately deployed to Vietnam, where he died.  Although I'm not a religious person, I liked that the story proposed that maybe the relationship and marriage was not for Hillary's sake, but for Joel's.  We tend to ask 'why things happened ' through the lens of how they impact us, and in this case, the suggestion was to consider the value the situation brought to the other person, even if it comes at your detriment.

All in all, this one wasn't really my cup of tea, and I doubt I'd pursue anything else by the author.