Once I was a sane, levelheaded professional woman. Then I said “yes.” Now I am the lunatic bride I always made fun of!
What is it about getting married that turns normal people into total freaks?
A savvy, riotously funny novel, Diary of a Mad Bride is for anyone who has ever been a bride, is about to become a bride, yearned to be a bride, or suffered the sheer indignity of appearing in public in the world’s ugliest bridesmaid dress....
My wedding was starting in less than twenty minutes, and I was stuck in a 7-Eleven parking lot with popcorn kernels wedged in my gums and vanilla ice cream melting on my dress. It was a disaster too large to comprehend. After an agonizing year spent planning my wedding, could it really end like this? The voices chronicling a year of wedding hysteria swirled in my head....
— My grandmother upon viewing my engagement ring:
“What do you mean he gave you an emerald! Diamonds are eternal, emeralds say, maybe five years.”
— My future father-in-law on the night of my engagement party:
“To a happy marriage and, if necessary, a painless divorce!”
— My best friend, Anita:
“Oh, screw congratulations. Of course I’m happy for you. Stephen’s a major piece of ass and he’s got a sense of humor. Just as long as you’re certain this is what you want.”
Would I survive this day after all....?

Amy Sarah Thomas, a magazine editor, is going to marry Stephen Stewart, a computer programmer that is, if planning the wedding doesn't kill the romance. Told in diary form over the course of a year, with many iterations of a 70-point Things-to-Do list, Wolf's first novel seems determined to provoke an epidemic of elopements. The pre-wedding jitters are endless: obscenely expensive shoes and humiliating dresses, in-laws even more upsetting than one's own parents and siblings, bitchy co-workers and a stoned caterer, and the inevitable onslaught of redundant kitchen gadgets. At moments, there's an antic charm at work here, and the narcissistic Gram is a deliciously insidious little old lady, but Amy's narrative voice is more predictable and less funny than she seems to think. She's absolutely, positively never going to get married and the next thing you know, she's engaged. She's absolutely, positively going to keep her name until she decides to change it. There won't be chicken on the wedding menu, no way and guess what? Punctuated by gift cards, thank-you notes and line drawings, this breezy novel emits plenty of hot air, but until the rhapsodic last scene, there's little bliss to enchant brides-to-be. (Jan.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Categories:

• Romance
  • Romantic Comedy