Bridesmaid Lotto

Image courtesy of
www.itunes.apple.com

Bridesmaid Lotto
Rachel Astor
2011

The Summary
Josephine McMaster finally has her life in order.  A group of great friends, a nice apartment, a good job, and a long-forgotten nickname put in the past has officially rounded out her immediate goals.

But when she is selected as a bridesmaid for the celebrity wedding of the century (thanks to her meddling mother), her orderly life is suddenly anything but.  And with the growing interest of famous movie star Jake Hall interrupting her life, Josie has more than just old nicknames and secrets about which to worry.

The Good
Rachel Astor's novel offers a quirky protagonist with a hilarious story that's both amusing and entertaining to read.  Moreover, Bridesmaid Lotto is short, sweet, and to-the-point.  It's short enough to read in an evening and easy to read, providing just the right diversion for a handful of unused hours.

The Bad
In reading this novel, I noticed a handful of grammatical and spelling mistakes.  I know, it happens.  Everyone makes mistakes, so it's fairly minor.  However, I did find Astor's work a little lacking in its command of vocabulary.  To put it simply, having a narrator who uses the phrase "and stuff" seems like a poor choice, especially since said narrator is supposed to be a professional woman in advertising.

From what I could gather, the narrator's job is to make her projects sound wonderful and stream-lined, to make them seem better than ever before and come up with clever, witty advertisements to help her company's clients win over consumers or appeal to a certain audience.  One would think she should have a grasp of language and hyperbole and vocabulary to make her a force to be reckoned with.

But her use of terms like "barfy" and "sucky" sound a little juvenile, especially given her supposed qualifications.  It seems like a huge break from the design of the character, and it's pretty annoying.

The Ugly
Josie's "disaster diary" is, in a word, frustrating.

While I understand this particular digression - it tells more about the character, gives her a relatable history, and offers her a burst of humility.  She is supposed to be the sweet, socially-awkward heroine that everyone will love - Astor appears to go out of her way to make Josie appear as embarrassing and ridiculous as possible.

But, more than that, it's as if the author has created a character intent on deliberately sabotaging her own dreams and murdering her self-confidence.  Embarrassing moments happen, I understand that; however, I don't see why this novel must be one long flashback to high school embarrassments and unnecessarily awkward digressions.