Customer Reviews

Other People's Weddings

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In the genre of "chick lit" usually characterized by poor writing, poor plots, no characters and predictable happy endings, this book definitely ranks higher than most. The premise is all too familiar. Laurie is a 30-something wedding photographer who attends countless "happy" occasions but always as an outsider, never as a participant. As the book goes on, she broadens her perspectives, tracking down couples whose weddings she photographed years ago to see what happened to them, taking pictures in divorce court, a marriage counselor's office, and finally in one preposterous scene, hanging out with a stalker.
Laurie's love interest is the stupidly-named Gilligan Ford, whose name the author mistakenly chose perhaps to suggest that "no man is an island." Both he and Laurie are damaged, lonely, unhappy people, scarred by tragedy. Can they, will they find happiness together? Can there be any doubt?
On the way to the predictable ending, various complications ensue as they must, and we discover the source of our heroine's unhappiness. Despite its faults, I did feel that this book contained a tough center where usually nothing but mush resides. The author, while an ardent advocate of married bliss, recognizes that it takes work to achieve and he also has some tart observations about the nature of our instant gratification society that lifted his story above average.

this book is definitely worth reading! The author does an absolutely amazing job using the feminine voice and perspective. I was very impressed! The dialogue and mental chatter that the main character Laurie has is just so raw and real. It is not at all chick lit or fluff - which is what you would probably expect given the cover design. Laurie is a jaded wedding photographer. Having suffered her own heartbreaks in life, she spends her time capturing the wedded bliss of others. She wonders what becomes of all the happy couples that she takes pictures of and she sets out to get answers. She does follow up work on her clients -- sees if they are still married 10 years later. She interviews adulterers, wife beaters, widowers, battered women, etc.. Reading this book was a look at the private pain others have endured. Sometimes life isn't happily ever after and this book sets out to show that. It's not all doom and gloom though. This book deals with finding love in hard world. Letting go of fears and continuing to believe in love; not a fairy tale love, but a real, true love that transcends the self. Highly recommended.

From the jacket cover, you would suspect that this is just another chick lit, rainy afternoon read. Instead of the usual mental popcorn, you instead get some questions to ponder: What is the nature of love? Do you lose the essential you when you love someone else? How do you let your barriers down to let someone in-especially when you have more baggage than a Delsey factory?

We met 37yr. old photographer Laurie in the midst of a wedding, posing the bride and groom for the best possible effect. We follow her as she begins to wonder on how the couples she has photographed over the years have fared and starts to follow up on their status. Using the medium of photography to address her inner questions, she begins not only to photograph her original clients but widowers, the "other woman", domestic abuse victims and even stackers. Along with a on again, off again romance with a wedding crasher she meets during her gigs, you watch her begin to throw off the isolation she's built around herself and re-engage with the world at large.

A lovely surprise...

I bought this book randomly in barnes and noble because it was only 5$ yesterday, i finished it today. I could not put it down i really like it, it intrigued me. the cover doesnt fit the inside text very much at all, maybe that makes sense, how pictures are deceiving, and the main character hides behind her photography, distances herself frome everyone around her, and pictures are just moments frozen in time etc, which is a key point of the book. I really enjoyed the writing, and the depth the author described the character was amazing. I have bought many books based on reviews other people wrote on amazon and have yet to read past the first 50 pages of each, none of them kept my interest...but honestly this book is not one like that, i would really recommend it. Keep in mind it is dark and depressing at times, but true and honest, which is maybe why it is depressing.... i knew it was a male author and at first it freaked me out how a man could write this, it doesnt seem like it could be anyone other than a woman who can write all this, which must show something.

Despite the beautiful cover and engaging title, this book isn't romantic. At first, I thought the writer was a female, and I was pleased to find that a male did such a good job writing from the female perspective. The book is about failing romances. A wedding photographer - Laurie - lets us into her life and we follow her as she captures photos not only of weddings, but also of people who have broken up, divorcees, widowers, stalkers, etc. The book was about love and the many forms it can take - from syrupy to obsessive. The story also includes chapters about Laurie's own parents and their dysfunctional love story. Those chapters were quite disturbing at times, as were some of the speeches her photography subjects gave. I think the disturbing nature of the scenes is because a lot of what was happening in this book happens to people regularly; they were feelings you could easily identify with. I did find the writing slightly `choppy' - the sentences were rather short and non descriptive.. the book was a `state it like it is' type of writing style and reflected the main character and her harshness. Laurie isn't all that likeable at first, but towards the end I was hoping she would find her own happiness too. She was well-written and very complex. This book was hard to stick with, but worth it if you keep going and can appreciate some of the layers in the story.

Wow. I only made it to page 48 in this book. It is so blah and depressing. This is the opposite of a book you'd read for pleasure. It seems as though the author was trying to be poetic and dark, writing "literature" that sees into the sordid and lonely soul of the world's singletons.

Interestingly, the voice of the book sounds like a guy, even though the character is supposed to be a woman. So, maybe the male author should have written his character as a man, since he can't convincingly do a female voice. In fact, it seems as though he, himself, is lonely, mourning his last breakup, and channeling it into this depressing, repellent fiction. Skip this one. Unless you like to punish yourself.

Despite the beautiful cover and engaging title, this book isn't romantic. At first, I thought the writer was a female, and I was pleased to find that a male did such a good job writing from the female perspective. The book is about failing romances. A wedding photographer - Laurie - lets us into her life and we follow her as she captures photos not only of weddings, but also of people who have broken up, divorcees, widowers, stalkers, etc. The book was about love and the many forms it can take - from syrupy to obsessive. The story also includes chapters about Laurie's own parents and their dysfunctional love story. Those chapters were quite disturbing at times, as were some of the speeches her photography subjects gave. I think the disturbing nature of the scenes is because a lot of what was happening in this book happens to people regularly; they were feelings you could easily identify with. I did find the writing slightly `choppy' - the sentences were rather short and non descriptive.. the book was a `state it like it is' type of writing style and reflected the main character and her harshness. Laurie isn't all that likeable at first, but towards the end I was hoping she would find her own happiness too. She was well-written and very complex. This book was hard to stick with, but worth it if you keep going and can appreciate some of the layers in the story.