April 29, 2018

Book Review | Prince in Disguise

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prince in disguisePrince in Disguise by Stephanie Kate Strohm follows Dylan, a American high school student who is whisked away to Scotland during her Christmas vacation for her sister’s wedding to a nobleman. The couple had met on a Reality TV show called ‘Prince in Disguise’ and now their wedding and the planning process will be televised. Dylan does not like being in the spotlight, nor does she like being in her sister’s limelight. All she wants is to go home…until she meets the dashing Jamie and sparks begin to fly. Christmas, stolen kisses in the snow and new love with a cute boy with an accent? This is one contract away from being the next Hallmark movie.

Honestly I think this would have been a great movie. For a book though the pacing felt a little off to me. The romance in the book moved really fast. Jamie and Dylan had known each other for like a day and half before they started making out in the snow and sleeping together in a barn.  Also the main character was kind of annoyingly naive/uninformed about this country she was visiting and was about to have a brother-in-law from. I also could not relate to the disdain that Dylan felt toward her other sister, Dusty. She was very judgmental and catty toward her. I understood that she was tired of being in her sister’s spotlight (literally in this case), but that’s still your sister. Maybe it’s just because my own younger sister and I are very close, but I found myself annoyed every time Dylan talked smack about her sister.

The author definitely captured the feeling of Christmas in this book. I felt very festive, even though I was reading this in the spring. I was ready to curl up with a spicy candle and some cocoa and spend the day reading. She also really made me want to visit Scotland at Christmas (or really at any point of the year).

Overall, this was a cute book, and I might read it again, but, as I said, if this had been a movie I might have enjoyed it more.

Rating: 2.75 of 5 Stars.

What did you think of this book? Do you have a favorite rom-com story (whether it is a book or a film)? Please share in the comments below!

Thanks for reading!

March 10, 2018

Book Review | Bridget Jones’s Diary

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bridget

Bridget Jones’s Diary is one of the more widely recognized titles in the romantic-comedy genre. A modern re-imagining of Pride and Prejudice, we follow a year of Bridget’s life as a woman in her mid-thirties looking for love and a fulfilling career in London in the early 2000s.

I first saw the movie last year and thought that, while not my favorite rom-com, it certainly lived up to its reputation of being a cute and lighthearted film. After watching I was eager to read the book and get a better feel for Bridget’s character and her adventures as an adult during a time period when I was still a child. Unfortunately, I was a little let down.

Much like Legally Blonde, all the charm of the story came from the performance of the actress who portrayed the main character. Renee Zellwegger gave Bridget so much more personality than Helen Felding did. As is the case with most novels told in a diary format, we are only able to learn about the things that are happening through the limited viewpoint of the main character. That’s not always a bad thing. Obviously you are going to see things as the character sees it. However, most authors take this to mean they can make their main characters moan like children. Bridget sometimes felt like a teenager and not an independent woman in her mid-thirties. She was constantly complaining about minute details about her relationship with every person she interacted with and obsessively calculating how much she weighed.

If I had not seen the movie beforehand I would not have been able to tell this was a Pride and Prejudice retelling. The only true indication that this story is a retelling of the classic is there being a character named Mr. Darcy, who is basically non-existent during this book. He appears at the very beginning when Bridget is home for Christmas and disappears for roughly 120 pages, only to appear briefly at an event her work is hosting and resurface close to the end of the book. The fact that he likes Bridget is obvious, but she does not seem to even pay him any attention until she suddenly falls in love in the final third of the book. I really feel like the book did not have enough build-up for Mark Darcy and Bridget’s romance to have a believable payoff.

Overall, I didn’t hate this book and I can sort of appreciate what Helen Felding was trying to do, but I was expecting more. I have seen and enjoyed the other movies in this series, but as to the question on if I will continue reading the other books, I would have to say I’ll be giving them a pass for now.

Rating: 2.75 out 5 Stars.

If you have read this book or seen the movies, please share your thoughts below!

Thanks for reading!