Summer is the season for beach reads, and what could be more appropriate than the latest offering from chick lit virtuoso, Sophie Kinsella? It's titled Wedding Night, and it is absolutely bonkers.
As expected, there's a ridiculous heroine who is prone to extreme flights of fancy. The novel opens with Lottie expecting a romantic proposal from her boyfriend. When he doesn't propose, she breaks up him and storms out. The next day, she runs into Ben, an old flame who is going through some serious emotional upheaval himself. As the saying goes, fools rush in, and the two get engaged and married within a fortnight. This is where the title comes in - part of the reason for their rush is that they foolishly agreed not to sleep together till their wedding night. So naturally, they have to get married as soon as possible.
Fortunately, Lottie has a sister, Fliss (short for Felicity), who is the voice of reason. Unfortunately, Lottie is not going to listen to that voice. Fliss is a cynical divorcee with a young son, and her pleas for caution and restraint fall on deaf ears. Meanwhile Ben's best friend, Lorcan is similarly set against this marriage (albeit more for business reasons) and he teams up with Fliss to travel to Greece and interrupt the impetuous couple on their honeymoon. What he doesn't know is that Fliss is so committed to protecting her little sister that she has a whole scheme devoted to making sure Ben and Lottie's marriage is never consummated. And that's where most of the novel's hilarity lies.
Wedding Night isn't a literary masterpiece but it certainly has laugh out loud moments and a rapid-fire pace that will keep you flipping pages. It's told from both Lottie and Fliss' perspectives, which gives you a nice balance between these two extreme characters, and also allows for some marvelous juxtapositions when the reader has all the information but the character is still operating under major misconceptions. If all you want is a funny book to read on a hot summer day, then this is the book for you.
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