Customer Reviews

Always the Bridesmaid

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

As she closes in on thirty, Amy O'Sullivan wonders how she failed at life. It is bad enough that she just broke up with her boyfriend who is sleeping with an ex friend of hers, but she now lives in her parents' home. Adding to her despondency is her younger sister Suzi has brought an Australian fiancé Matt Street to live with the O'Sullivans and Amy's best friend is engaged too. Perhaps her only satisfaction is her place of employment as the "Story Princess" telling tales to children, but depressingly to Amy none of her own.

Alcohol fails to take the edge off her jealousy that her sibling and buddy are both getting married while she will play second fiddle as a bridesmaid. Her dejection makes her miss a real opportunity with a hunk of a children's author who likes Amy even though she acts nasty towards him. Will she overcome her sad fog to see the light of love or will she remain a melancholy loser?

Sarah Webb enables the audience to see very deeply inside the soul of Amy, but that is a two-edged sword as the audience feels empathy towards her, but they will also dislike her destructive behavior especially how she treats the men in her relationships. Fans of a serious chick lit character study will enjoy this tale in spite of detesting Amy's behavior and hope she will find happiness.

Harriet Klausner

I'm surprised by all the negative reviews that this book has recieved. I will admit that it's not the best book I've ever read, but it's not as horrible as some reviewers make it out to be.

The heroine is not the typical chick-lit heroine, which is probably the reason readers don't like the book. Soon after Amy discovers that her best friend Jodie is sleeping with her ex-fiance, her sister and her best friend announce that they're both getting married within the same week - and they both want Amy to be their bridesmaid. Amy reacts the way that many people would when confronted with such a situation - she refuses to speak to Jodie, goes on drunken binges, and does her best to exact revenge. While she's dealing with this, she also has to help her sister and her friend Beth with their wedding plans.

Amy is not the typical saccharinely sweet chick-lit heroine. Like most real women, she has a mean streak, and can sometimes react to things in ways that aren't neccesarily rational. For me, this made her a character I could relate to, not a character I hated. Amy is unhappy with her job, her personal life, and her situation in general, and the book resolves all the problems in a realistic way, instead of tying them up neatly and unrealistically the way most fairytale chick-lit does. If you're looking for a book that will encourage you to change the things you are unhappy with in your life, I would recommend "Always the Bridesmaid".

to like this book, I did! However, being a big fan of this genre, this book sounded cute and I was anxious to read it.......well, after about 50 pages I gave up. As the previous reviewer noted, the main charachter is so whiny and complaining and unlikeable, if she sighed or groaned or grumbled one more time I was going to puke! Seriously, she is like one of those friends who is always negative and gets you down and drains the life out of you - aghghggh! Stay away! I think this could have been an enjoyable book, but unfortunately, reading it felt more like a chore. I recommend Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes - wonderful book!

I was a few pages into this book when it started to annoy me.
The clichéed language, and phrasing, the predictable plot, the things that just don't make sense (why does a university graduate end up in a dead-end job in a tiny bookshop?).
Some of the language just made me cringe, along with the inane descriptions, and 'filler' talk - a couple of classics:

"Beth spluttered her drink all down her top. Luckily it was black so the dark red wine didn't show."
"The Golf moved off smoothly, purring like a kitten. It was a joy to drive, responsive and nippy."

Some of the lines did actually made me cringe, and the 'modern' language and turn of phrase was just distasteful at times.

I think this was maybe an attempt at another Rachel's Holiday (Marian Keyes), except about depression. It falls short of that, as the inane chatter takes up the space that should be given over to describing feelings or actions typical of depressives. Once or twice I thought it would be developed in a more convincing way, but it never happened.

Webb must also be on a product placement retainer with every company in ireland, with all the brand names that she mentions. For me they only served to date the book back to the late 1990's/ early 2000's.

All in all, I hated this book, I only finished it because I'd started. I've also never written a review of a book, and went to the trouble of looking this up to see if I was the only one who disliked it so much.

First of all, this book is not about a bridesmaid so I'm not sure where the title came from. Secondly, the protagonist is a dippy, whiny, hard-to-like character who doesn't deserve a happy ending. I was extremely disappointed after having read this book.

The main character is whiney, selfish, and generally a b!+c#. And she STILL has a happy ending!!

I loved this book! what's not to like - it's funny, full of great characters and made me laugh out loud. I really recommend this book to anyone who likes Marian Keyes.

The Irish speak and write like poets, so this writer had to work pretty hard to write poorly, every page filled with old tired clichés and the words "kitten heel" "slagging" or "stupid."

The protagonist, Amy, is continuously moaning, groaning, or complaining. She is surrounded by caring people that dote on her, in spite of her constant rudeness to them. Every time she is sad, mad, or in any kind of bad mood, she takes it out on her caring friends, relatives, and boyfriends.

It just amazed me how these caring people kept coming back for more--with abounding patience. The most realist reaction I noticed was Tony, who lost his trust in her after seeing her use and drop Jed. Amy was very cold blooded to Jed, and she knew it. She felt a little embarrassed for herself over her treatment of Jed, but had no apologies for him--she couldn't be bothered by someone else's feelings.

Amy is always surprised whenever someone had a problem that had nothing to do with her. Oh, and the other person she liked--- (I don't want to give too much away here), I could not figure out why he liked her and kept coming back!

I always finish every book I start, that is just how I am, but this was one of the most difficult books to finish. If I had another book to read I would have switched and never finished it. If Amy was a friend I would have dropped her self-centered butt a long time ago, and if she was a relative she would hear from me once a year when I sent her a Christmas card.

Oh, and one reviewer said that this book explains how it feels to be depressed, and perhaps that might be true, but being depressed is no excuse for being rude to others.

Maybe if I were in a place where I could identify with the protagonist I would have liked it, so perhaps a woman who feels she is getting old and wishes she were married might enjoy commiserating with this book.

I gave this book two stars instead of one because of the scene descriptions, character descriptions and character personalities--The writer did an excellent job putting you in the book, you could visualize the scenes, and you felt you really knew all the characters, not just the main ones but the minor ones, too. The characters stayed "in character" and felt real.

Maybe the fact that I disliked Amy so much is a compliment to the writer, if Amy felt "made up or fake" I wouldn't have cared about her, but she felt very real, and so her self-absorbed personality really bothered me.

I loved this book!!! As the title suggests, the story is about a woman who cannot seem to find happiness in love while everyone around her does. It was well written and while some of Amy's behavior was frustrating, it made her a well rounded character. This is a really good chick lit novel that chronicles the main character's development both professionally and personally. If you are into chick lit, then you will enjoy this book.

As for the swearing - well you must not know the Irish or the British for that matter - they favor swearing far more than Americans. But if it bothers you to read a realistic depiction, then this probably is not the book for you.

I found this at the used book store and came online to check out the reviews on amazon. I saw that they were mostly negative. So, getting into this book, I assumed the worst. I expected bad writing with a main character who people hate.

Well, let me tell you that's that's NOT what I found! I found a character who is completely human and who has insecurities like the rest of us. She can be bitter about love at times, which is understandable considering what happens in the book. She may say mean things to people, but apologizes immedietly because she knows she shouldn't take out her hurt and anger on the people she loves.

This is one book I'm glad I found and picked up. I hope you do the same.
I hope to read more, assuming new releaase will come out, from this author in the future.