Reviewer: Rowena The Best Day of Someone Else's Life by Kerry Reichs
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Publication Date: May 6th 2008
Pages: 431
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Despite being cursed with a boy's name, Kevin "Vi" Connelly is seriously female and a committed romantic. The affliction hit at the tender age of six when she was handed a basket of flower petals and ensnared by the "marry-tale." The thrill, the attention, the big white dress—it's the Best Day of Your Life, and it's seriously addictive. But at twenty-seven, with a closetful of pricey bridesmaid dresses she'll never wear again, a trunkful of embarrassing memories, and an empty bank account from paying for it all, the illusion of matrimony as the Answer to Everything begins to fray. As her friends' choices don't provide answers, and her family confuses her more, Vi faces off against her eminently untrustworthy boyfriend and the veracity of the BDOYL.
Eleven weddings in eighteen months would send any sane woman either over the edge or scurrying for the altar. But as reality separates from illusion, Vi learns that letting go of someone else's story to write your own may be harder than buying the myth, but just might help her make the right choices for herself.
I was really excited to read this book because let’s face it, I’m a cover snob and this cover was just too cute. It’s all chick litish and adorable so when I saw it, I was glad that I got it.
There’s already a blurb about what the book is about above so I’m just going to jump into what I liked and what I didn’t like about this book.
The book starts off sort of like 27 Dresses where we see how Jane got addicted to weddings. Well in this book, we see Vi’s wedding beginnings. Vi’s in 3 different weddings for her childhood friends and even more important is she’s the Maid of Honor at all 3 of them. Weird? Yeah, but hey, she must be a popular girl.
Anyway, so in the beginning of the book, we meet a whole slew of characters. Say what? Say who? That was the bulk of what I was thinking through the first few chapters. Throughout the book there’s an onslaught of weddings, family, friends introduced and I was seriously having to write all of the characters down in an effort to keep them all straight.
And the characters just kept coming to. There was an Imogen, an Ethan, a Mona, a Jen, Amy, Mom, Dad, Maeve, Butch, Al and the names just kept coming and coming until I was coughing up characters.
The more I read the story, the more I liked it. The book was a little slow to start but for the most part, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Vi’s voice and thought she told her story quite well. She had a great set of friends, both childhood and adult, that brought more depth and just…more to the story. I had a soft spot for her adult friends though with the way they pulled together to help Vi with her wedding toasts because after that first one, I could not stop laughing. I was seriously embarrassed for Vi after she delivered that first wedding toast. You know how when you’re watching a movie and you know the main characters are going to do something stupid and you don’t want to watch it because you know that stupid thing is coming and you cringe right before it happens? That’s how I felt when I read Vi’s first wedding toast. Her second toast was much better. It was actually my favorite of them all, corny but still good.
What I really liked about this story is watching Vi grow and learn from her past. Watching her find the courage and the power to walk away from her first love, Caleb was liberating, even for me. I’m the same age that Vi is and I could totally relate to everything she was going through in this book. Her problems and her fears are real and I’m sure every woman at that age felt the same way Vi did which is what made this book good.
Besides the whole too many characters that threw me off, the only other issues I had with the book was that it was slow to pick up for me. I picked it up and put it down a total of three times before I got to the meat of the story and from there on, it was easy to read. All in all, this book was good and I’m looking forward to more from Kerry Reichs.
Oh and the guy she ends up with? Yeah, totally hot and the perfect boyfriend, EVER.
Grade: 4 out of 5
This book is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.