From the start, this book was absolutely annoying. The only reason I kept reading it was to see how much worse it could get.

The character (Lily) has but two brain-cells, both arguing with one another! On one hand, she hasn't a clue how to respond to a somewhat awkwardly given compliment, then claims to know all the "socially appropriate responses that she had been force-fed since infancy", then again is unable to write a simple thank-you note. I was on page 185 and STILL didn't know what her problem was.

Aside from a ridiculous story line (I don't want to get married but I'll pretend I do, then get a divorce) and paper-doll characters, why oh why does the author feel the need to quote, and match bits of history and world events on every third page?

In "describing" a hotel: "an American cousin of the Paris landmark in which Ernest Hemingway spend the first days after the liberation and Marcel Proust ate chilled melon at midnight with Leon-Paul Frague."
Other examples littered throughout: Jim Burden in My Antonia; General Giap and Vietnam; North American Free Trade Agreement; Sioux outnumbering the Seventh Calvary at Little Big Horn; Janet Cooke and the Washington Post.. etc. etc. etc.

These references somehow relate to Ohio life and wedding planning? Is Lily (or could it be the author herself?) just so so so much more intelligent, self-important, and superior, she can compare her (mother's choice of) candied almonds to the Donner Party's fate?

I don't find any romance or comedy in this book.

Though I've not read much Jane Austen, I certainly couldn't stomach it after suffering through the never-ending quotes and references. Give it a rest!!!

As for the Martha Stewart parady- hasn't that been done a few hundred times? It was junior high-school quality.

This "one month before her wedding" was the longest and most tiresome "month" I've ever spent. In fact, to borrow a phrase from the author, it reading this book reminded me of "Gary Kasparov contemplating an unsettling variation on the Sicilian defense."

I checked this book out from the library and am sorry I wasted time reading it. Ugh. Besides the main character being a whiner, the dialogue is jerky, and the ending is ridiculous. Not to mention how offended Ohioans must be. And living in New York can't be that great all the time. Save your money.

Janice Harayda obviously idolizes Jane Austen: Austen quotes preface each chapter, heroine Lily seeks guidance from and solace in Austen novels, and at times, Harayda's writing style seeks, rather self-consciously, to imitate Austen's. Unfortunately, Jane Austen this book ain't.

There are plenty of interesting things to say about the predicament of a woman swept toward the altar by familial and societal forces that overwhelm her better judgment, but Harayda just doesn't have the skill to elicit them. Over and over again, she settles for the snappy, Cosmo-girl one-liner. Worse, her characters are black and white cutouts, either all-good (everyone from New York) or all-bad (everyone who never left Ohio). There is no complexity or nuance there; for example, Lily's fiance Mark is so utterly nice and good and perfect as to be unbelievable and completely uninteresting. Likewise, her mother is so awful and carping and self-absorbed that that one wonders why Lily even speaks to her at all. (Contrast, for example, Jane Austen's characters, who exhibit their flaws as often as their virtues.) Harayda's anti-Ohio fixation is so relentless and overblown as to overwhelm the story; even the weather in Ohio (gun metal skies & tornadoes) isn't as good as the postcard-perfect sunny skies of the Big Apple. When the NYC homeless man handed Lily a flower (instead of urinating on her feet, say, as would happen in most of the five boroughs), I almost threw the book against the wall in frustration. And I'm not even from Ohio!

The novel does contain some amusing scenes and funny lines; the parody of a Martha Stewart magazine is by itself worth the price of admission. And despite the flaws described above, there is a sort of breezy charm that helps carry things along. If you keep your expectations low, and just want to while away some time on the beach or stairmaster, you might give it a try.