Please note that I gave this book 4.5 stars, but rounded up to 5 stars on Goodreads.

Don't read this book if you are even a little bit hungry. I know that previous Ballis books often incorporate cooking/baking into the plot, but this is the first one that actually made me hungry while reading. I am going to give Ballis a little bit grief though, everyone of her books except for one I think stars a women who is a certain size, with brown hair, and is usually Jewish. All of these books I think except for two that I can think of take place in Chicago too. I know a writer writes what they know, but it be nice to see her change it up in future books.

The main character in "Wedding Girl" is Sophie Bernstein. Sophie is a top pastry chef at a hot Chicago restaurant. Excited that she is about to be married to her long-time boyfriend Dexter (never trust a man named Dexter) and open a restaurant together, she thinks that her life is turning out perfect.

Though Sophie has spent thousands of dollars she can't afford on their special day, she knows that when Dexter gets access to his trust fund everything will be a-okay. Until Dexter runs off with another woman, and Sophie finds out minutes before her ceremony is about to start. Cue 9 months later when Sophie is at her lowest and is forced to move back in with her grandmother Bubbles.

I felt for Sophie. She looks back on her relationship with Dexter and realizes that he wasn't right for her. But man oh man I wanted something shitty to happen to him while I was reading this book. I am all about the vengeance. I have to give it to Ballis though, it would have been easy to write Dexter as coming crawling back to Sophie, but instead his life is great and he doesn't seem to give a crap about her (he sucks).

Though I did feel for Sophie, I also could see why her two best friends Jean and Ruth gave her a firm kick in the pants about moving on. Sophie wallowed and it cost her everything.

Though Sophie wants to run and hide, she decides to take a job at the local bakery near her grandmother's house and does what she can to help out the owner when it becomes clear a new bakery is coming to the neighborhood. And after a customer comes in looking for Sophie to bake her a wedding cake, Sophie befriends the woman and ends up getting into another business that she hopes can help pay down her debt (anonymous advice giver concerning weddings). Due to this, Sophie ends up "meeting" someone named Jake online and starts to write emails back and forth to him through the book, culminating with them finally meeting in the end.

I thought all of the other characters in this book were hilarious and funny. Sophie's grandmother has a dog named Snatch and does not seem to understand why naming the dog and screaming where's my Snatch out loud may be a problem.

Also Sophie's two hippie parents finally decide to settle down after coming into money which turns her mother into a slightly insane person and her father trying to do his best to hide out.

There are also really hilarious scenes in this book. One of my favorites shows Sophie's friend Jean with her new girlfriend and Sophie and Ruth attending a surprise party and I died. I mean seriously. I re-read that whole scene about 10 times because it was so well done that I cracked up. I don't think that I laughed through a Ballis book this much before and I laughed almost the whole way through this one.

I thought the writing was really great in this one. And I love that Ballis incorporated famous lines said in romantic black and white movies. I love, love, love, old movies and it was nice to see how they played into the overall theme of the book.

I do think that the flow could have been just a bit better. There were just a few times that the book slowed down for me and I felt like I was just trudging along.

The setting of Chicago is once again excellently captured in this book. Ballis lives there and it shows based on the way neighborhoods and buildings are described.

I did think the ending was a bit abrupt, but it ended like a very old black and white movie. I could actually picture end credits with the hero and heroine in each other's arms kissing. ( )

This is my favorite book so far this Spring! I loved Sophie! The cast of characters were great, especially Bubbles, Sophie's 80 something grandmother, what a lively and fun lady, I would love to have a relative like Bubbles. Sophie's hippy parents were great as well, their support of Sophie's situation was so endearing to me. I would have to say that to me this book was more like the Judy Garland movie, In The Good Ole Summertime, which just happens to be one of my all time favorite movies, I am a big fan of old movies. I enjoyed the old-fashioned feel of this book, the neighborhood bakery that Sophie helps to bring back to life, the old Chicago neighborhood, I felt like I was there with Sophie, that's how good the description of the setting is. Herman, the bakery owner is another favorite of mine, what a sweetheart!

Grab a cookie or a pastry and enjoy!This review was originally posted on ( )

Stacey Ballis' books are sweet stories that will always make you hungry. I was prepared with a good hot chocolate but would have loved any of the sweets she mentioned in the book and definitely the wedding foods at the beginning. Jeese.

I think this author has also written a cookbook and I definitely need to look into that.

Anyway, the story was sweet but there was a bit of foreshadowing that kind of gave a spoiler pretty early in the story.

It's about having all of your plans for life change suddenly and drastically. Sophie loses her dreams of marrying her fiancée, of having an upscale restaurant and a beautiful home.
She winds up living with her grandmother and involved in two businesses she'd never have dreamed of.
One she realizes that she might not have it all figured out but that she is happy. ( )

Sophie Bernstein is about to have her dream wedding--the perfect location, the perfect dress, and most important of all from the viewpoint of this rising young pastry chef, the perfect. And then she and her groom are going to found their dream restaurant, and tun it together.

Except perfect groom Dexter has different plans, and doesn't bother to tell Sophie. While she and the guests are wondering why Dexter is late, word arrives that Dexter and a woman they've both worked with, Cookie Kelly, are in the Caribbean, where they just got married.

Sophie insists on holding her head high and having the party with all that lovely food anyway, but afterwards her wedding photographer sells to the media his pictures of the unrestrained, drunken bash the party became. Overall, it's a massive, very public, humiliation.

And then Sophie pisses away all the sympathy and goodwill she could have had by becoming snippy, difficult, and careless at work. But that's not the story.

The story is Sophie struggling to recover from this combination of bad luck and bad jusdgment--including the fact that she spent far more on her wedding that didn't happen than she could afford, expecting that Dexter would be helping her pay it off. She's deeply in debt, and pretty much unemployable in the Chicago restaurant scene.

So she moves in with her grandmother and goes to work in the local, heavy-on-tradition Jewish bakery, Langer's. It's an institution, but Herman Langer isn't keeping up with the times as the neighborhood changes. Sophie finds herself, unintentionally and against her better judgment, trying to save Langer's, and at the same time running a wedding event advice website called WeddingGirl.

And what we have here is a vary nice retelling of a story that, in its previous incarnations, has been called Parfume, The Shop Around the Corner, She Loves Me, and You've Got Mail. It's an entertaining version, set in Chicago, though I'm unable to offer an informed opinion on how well it captures the Chicago feel for native Chicagoans. It also features not one but two cute little dogs. There are times when I want to give Sophie a whack upside the head, but she gets better as life goes on.

Recommended for a light read. Possibly approach with caution if you're from Chicago, since I can't really judge that aspect of it.

I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

This really captures the vibe of the classic romantic films from the 30s and 40s that are quoted at the beginning of each chapter. I got swept up in the fast paced story and thoroughly enjoyed every page, even though I was pretty sure I knew where it was going.

I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways. ( )