unhappycarrie's Full Review: Karen Schwartz - Clearing the Aisle
I recently started planning my wedding. It is still a year away, so I thought I would start out small by making a guest list and establishing a budget. I mentioned to my mother that I was starting a guest list, and she promptly emailed me a list of people I should invite. The list was about 250 people long and included second cousins on my father's side. I politely told her that I needed to trim the list down because I was sure that my fiance, Mike, would want to invite some people too. Besides, both sets of our parents had agreed to give us set amounts to help pay for the cost, and food alone for all of these people was going to far exceed this amount. Then, Mike's parents told us they were getting divorced. So, now we didn't want to bring up the subject of money with them. I needed to revise my budget and get some sort of a plan down.
I like to read books, so I went to my local bookstore for a book on wedding planning, or help for weddings on a budget, or something along those lines. What I ran into was Clearing the Aisle by Karen Schwartz. I flipped it over and two sentences stood out to me (Probably because they were bold) "They're getting hitched. She's going insane." Then it blurbed on about guest list wars, dress shopping, and flighty in- laws. It looked interesting and fun so I bought it.
I am introduced to Rachel Silverstein and Dan Gershon (the love of her life). They live in New York City together and have just gotten engaged. Now it is time to plan the wedding. They also have a slim budget to work with.
The book is set up in a wedding planning time line. As you move through the book, the wedding day draws nearer and things get more messed up. You are introduced to Rachel and Dan's strongly opinionated parents, friends, and co- workers. some of these characters are believable while others simply are not. I think if this many people are going to be included in the book, there needs to be more character development. Like, why is Dan's best friend so anti - marriage? Why is he so annoying?
I didn't like this book for several reasons. First, as I said above, some of the characters are not very believable. Dan's best friend, for instance, is very rude to both of them all the time. Why is Dan friends with him? Also, the author made Rachel's father, stepmother, and mother too over the top. It just didn't ring true. I also didn't like Rachel. What a whiny brat! Their parents are paying for everything and all she does is complain about the stupid stuff they do. She can't even talk to her own father on the phone if Dan isn't in the room because she is incapable of sticking up for herself. Come on, grow some Rachel! She also seems very judgmental and pigheaded. 'Nuff said.
Another reason I didn't like this book was that it was a Jewish wedding that they were planning. I have never been to a Jewish wedding and don't know anything about the differences. Instead of explaining what things were, the author just rattled on and on about Ketubah and Torah and what not. I needed a damn dictionary next to me every time the subject of the ceremony came up. I bought this book to read for fun! I hate looking stuff up! Oh yeah, and my dictionary didn't contain half the words I wanted to look up. Now I will never know!
The last reason I am going to give for not liking this book, is the cheese factor. Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert! If you actually want to go read this book, just skip on down to the next paragraph right now. Thank you. Example: Dan and Rachel get married. At their reception, they sing a duet. As they are leaving the reception site at the end of the night, everyone sings "We Go Together" you know, that song from that Grease movie? Gag. Gag. I seriously wanted to throw the book across the room. I mean, what is that crap?! Ugh!
Anyway, I suppose I should say something positive at this point, because as my mother would say, "Nobody likes a negative Nelly." (Gagging again) I liked one character in the book. Rachel's mother was a total borderline personality. Even though her character seemed a little over the top like everyone else's, I liked it on her.
In closing, I would like to say that Clearing the Aisle is the worst Chic Lit book I have ever read. It is a predictable, (except for the singing - didn't see that one coming!) boring, and cheesy 368 pages.
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