Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married

So this ended up being one of the very first books that I bought on my Amazon Kindle when I was overseas. I don't know why but I manage to always read this book when I am feeling blue. Maybe it's because right now I am being hit over the head with the fact that my happily ever after may look totally different than my friends/family and I need to be okay with that. I loved books in this genre since just like with romance novels, you know that the girl is always going to get the guy in the end and that the villains for the most part will get their comeuppance.

Told in the first person, the main character is Lucy Sullivan. Lucy is in her twenties and lives with two roommates, Karen and Charlotte. We find out that Lucy has a contentious show more relationship with her mother, a loving one with her father, and an indifferent one with her two brothers. Things in Lucy's life seem to be going okay. She has a job she hates and works with people that seem annoying/tolerable depending on the day of the week. After being bullied into going with her colleagues to a psychic, Lucy is told that within a year she is going to meet the man she is going to marry. Readers get to hang on for a fun ride looking at Lucy's life and those around her for that full year.

I thought that the character of Lucy was aggravating at times. She suffers from depression, but one gets the sense that she really doesn't suffer from depression, she instead uses it to just not do things that she wants to. She is also very rude to a long time family friend, Daniel to the point I wondered about his intelligence since he kept on hanging out with her.

Eventually Lucy meets Gus who she finds herself falling madly in love with. At the same time it appears that several other people in Lucy's life are moving on with their own love lives.

The writing reads like a twenty plus year old with no clue about things. I think that Lucy's selfishness sometimes may get to certain readers. I just found myself cheering her on and unable to stop myself. I think the reason why is that halfway through the book changes gears from being a breezy romantic comedy, to an actual dramedy (comedy and drama combined) and you quickly realize that without realizing it, Lucy was a bit of an unreliable narrator.

The pacing is really good with this book and I was surprised at how fast I was getting through the chapters.

The ending was very sweet and I smiled to myself. I always wished that Marian Keyes would revisit the characters in this book and do a sequel with Lucy actually married to the guy she was destined to marry.

Marian Keyes has come out recently asking for people to not call her novels chick-lit. I guess I never saw that label as a bad thing, though I can see how some people would use that term to dismiss entire genres of books. I love this books and many of her other ones just because along with the romance aspect there is always still an underlining layer of depth and drama. show less

I started reading this book and wondered what I had gotten myself into. I'm not one to put down a book once I pick it up -- even if I don't like it. And this one is pretty thick for a chick lit book. By chapter two I was telling my mom and husband that it sucked. Still, I read on. By about chapter ten I was really into the book and had a hard time putting it down. There were times I felt like the chick in this particular piece of chick lit was someone I knew very well -- me in a former life. There were a few hoaky parts, but overall not as bad as I thought it was going to be when I first started reading it. I liked the ending, albeit a bit predictable. I don't know that I'd ever pick this book up again or recommend it to anyone, but if show more it's on your shelf and you've got nothing else to do, go ahead. show less

After the last book (nonfiction, nature) induced some very realistic nightmares, I beat a hasty retreat into the genre furthest removed: British chick lit.

And at least 50% of you stopped reading my review after the last sentence. For the other 50% (okay, okay, 10%) of you, here's my advice: next time you want something a little girly, a little romantic, something that'll make you remember a dozen funny and touching stories about your own dating history, pick up this book.

Now, a moment of sheer honesty. Why did I pick up a 600 page book in a genre that, with the dazzling exceptions of the Bridget Jones book, has never once failed to disappoint me? Well, duh. I'm mildly obsessed with weddings at the moment, and this book not only has the show more words "Getting Married" in the title, but my copy ALSO features a bride in full wedding regalia riding a bicycle with abandon. Basically impossible to pass up, in my current state. However, I fully expected to toss it aside after a few chapters with a frustrated but appropriately British-sounding, "Rubbish!"

But I didn't. I didn't adore Lucy Sullivan, I didn't want to be her best friend, and I didn't even fancy myself in love with any of the guys she dated. (Notice the extra Britishism there, giving my review a little extra flair?) But -- and this is a significant but -- I thought she was extremely real. Her experiences were that magical combination of Interesting and yet Familiar -- some of her stories could easily have been my stories, but I didn't feel they were cliched or tired. The endpoint might be a wee bit predictable (there are Irish characters in the book; "wee" is allowed!), but that didn't detract at all from the pleasantness of the journey.

One small complaint (what's that word for a tiny, niggling, unimportant complaint?): the girls are always popping out for chips, which I'm fairly certain are French fries. But at one point, someone eats "potato chips," which I'm lead to believe would properly be called "crisps" in England.

And a final note for those who might peg this book as a romance: there's not really any description of actual sex; the book is quite quaint in that way. At the moment, I recall exactly one love-but-not-really-sex scene, and it did give me a little thrill up my spine, so I suppose it was fairly successful as far as that goes, but one or two scenes isn't much for a 600-page book, if that's the kind of thing you're looking for.
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Ah, the James Joyce of chick lit. She writes the hugest pop fiction books I know, full of pages upon pages of (fortunately realistic-sounding) dialogue. There are always very deep, depressing issues being dealt with in an almost off-hand manner. it's like a car crash. You can't help but watch the story unfold. I don't know whay I keep reading her books, cause they're slow reads and not enjoyable in the happy-glow sense. But I still do come back to them. Maybe misery is its own satisfaction. I do love the realism with which she works through people's problems. Not everything gets fixed, and certainly not easily, but people come to terms with themselves, their issues, and life. They're not happy books, but they give you hope.

Shortly after Lucy and her boyfriend have broken up, Lucy goes with some coworkers to a fortune teller. Lucy is told she will be getting married within the next year and a half. When the other girls' fortunes come true, Lucy begins to wonder if hers will, too. Then, she meets Gus, a really charming and fun guy. Will Gus be “the one”?

I really enjoyed this. The first half was good, but it got better in the second half, I thought, as more obstacles came up and Lucy had to deal with family issues, as well as boyfriend and friend issues. Overall, though (no surprise here), the book ended as it should have.

Okay, I didn't like any of the characters and Keyes has definitely written better, but the funny parts were so funny. Like can't breate, might pass out kind of funny, so there's that.

There is so much drinking in this book. It goes from being a mystifying textural detail (how do these people hold down jobs?) to a plot point--but still labeled other characters' problem even as the plates are smashed, lovers lost, and bank accounts overdrawn. I was intrigued by a heroine with clinical depression, but that never quite gets tied in with the alcohol, and the scenes before she reaches self-awareness (such as it is) were tough to get through. For too large a portion of the book, the reader is the only sober person at this party.