Summer reading is supposed to be like a hot summer fling — easy, fun and purely for entertainment. Queen of Babble Gets Hitched strives to be all of those things, but with cliche characters and plot that reads like adolescent fiction, it unfortunately falls flat. We suggest bridezillas tote a different book to the beach house this summer.
Written by Meg Cabot (author of The Princess Diaries), the third installment in the Queen of Babble series centers around weddings. It takes place in a posh, French-style bridal shop in Manhattan. While Lizzie is busy retrofitting vintage gowns for wealthy brides, her mind is on her own engagement to Luke — a “good on paper” guy with a lot of cash, but not a lot of heart.
Enter Chaz – Luke’s yokel best friend who seems to have a thing for Lizzie, Ava Geck – a Paris Hilton-meets-Britney Spears trainwreck, and Lizzie’s supportive best friend Shari and you have something that’s been done before. Queen of Babble Get Hitched is the literary equivalent to an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,” – it’s entertaining, but not earth shattering, and the characters get on your nerves. The best part about this book are the wedding tidbits, love quotes, and wedding disaster advice at the beginning of each chapter.
Despite its predictable plot and poorly developed characters, the book brings to light an important lesson for bridezilla: before you go after what you want, wedding or otherwise, you have to decide what that something is. Lizzie has to decide if she wants a three-carat Cartier ring from a man she might not love, or no marriage at all from a cargo-pants-clad guy who makes her heart flutter. Seems like bridezilla can have too many choices after all!
