The Wedding Machine Book Review
About the Book
Welcome to Jasper, South Carolina. A place where Southern hospitality thrives. Where social occasions are done right. And where, for generations, the four most upstanding ladies of this community ensure that the daughters of Jasper are married in the proper manner.
Friends from school days, “the gals” have long pooled their silver, china, and know-how to pull off beautiful events. They’re a force of nature, a well-oiled machine. But the wedding machine’s gears start to stick during the summer their own daughters line up to tie the knot. In the lowcountry heat and humidity, tempers flare, old secrets leak out . . . and both love and gardenias bloom in unlikely places.
My Thoughts
I really don’t know how I made it to the end of this book other than to say that I finished it. There are TOO. MANY. CHARACTERS. Once I made it about halfway through, I finally started to get a handle on who was who. But then there are flashbacks all over the place, some that are notated with a date, others that have no other indication other than there was a page break.
I guess some might say I’m a prude, but I really didn’t care for several things in the story. And after later discovering it was a novel endorsed by Women of Faith, it doesn’t lead to me to give much credence to that organization, either. There were mentions of homosexuals, wine drinking, beer drinking, smoking, bad language, stealing property, assaulting another person…all like it was no big deal to people that were supposed to be professing Christians. It made me question if I was reading a novel published by a secular publisher (news flash, it wasn’t). Believe me, I’m not naive to think that Christians don’t struggle with those things, but most individuals read Christian fiction because they want to read something wholesome and about people with values. These characters were more preoccupied with their self-imposed Southern etiquette rules and what was socially acceptable of themselves and their families. Church was barely mentioned until the last chapter, and I would consider most of the characters lukewarm Christians at best.
All in all, it just wasn’t my cup of tea, and I will start to be more selective with books I read published by Thomas Nelson.
1 Star
