There’s a genre specific to British fiction which the British call chick-lit and everyone else doesn’t quite know how to define, but usually they call it romantic comedy. For me it’s typified by the TV show Coupling (the British version, not the appalling American remake) and authors like Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones’ Diary) and Sophie Kinsella (the Shopaholic series). Think Four Weddings And A Funeral, think Notting Hill, and you’ll be in the perfect mood to sit down and thoroughly enjoy Bridesmaids.
Jane is a thirty-ish wannabe photographer trapped working for a diva social media maven and still in recovery from a nightmarish breakup where her fiance dumped her at her hen party (bachelorette party, for Americans). Invited to be the bridesmaid at her best friend Rachel’s wedding, there’s no way to say no - and definitely no way to express her doubts about Michael, the groom-to-be, not without sounding as though she’s just bitter about her own failure to walk up the aisle. Roped in by Rachel to act as a buffer between the three other warring bridesmaids, Jane ends up digging herself into deeper and deeper holes.
There’s a charming slow-burn friends to lovers romance in this between Jane and her flatmate, Freddie. Freddie’s such a sweetheart, I was hoping all along for him and Jane to get their wires uncrossed, but I did feel for poor Jane, who constantly seemed to be dealing with about ten sticky situations at once. She really didn’t have the time and space to process her own emotions, something which Freddie to his credit did try to give her, though I felt like strangling him when he threw the suggestion of moving to Scotland at her unexpectedly.
In the end, of course, all the secrets come out and things turn out just as they should… though not without a few disastrous mishaps causing much hilarity along the way!
I loved reading this so much. I laughed more times than I can count, and I closed it feeling that joyous sense of completion and satisfaction which all too few authors can make you feel at the end of a story. If you’re in the mood for a great British romantic comedy, you should absolutely check out Bridesmaids - and maybe, like I did, imagine a young Hugh Grant as Freddie. He’d have been absolutely perfect!
5 stars for one of the funniest books I’ve read in ages!
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book for review through Rachel’s Random Resources.