Review: The Little French Bridal Shop

There's no good way to say it so I'm just going to come right out with it: I didn't like The Little French Bridal Shop. I wanted to enjoy Jennifer Dupee's debut novel. I really did. But it very quickly fell apart for me and it could not redeem itself.

Here's the book's description:

Is a lie of omission still a lie? Larisa Pearl didn't think so and it got her into a heap of trouble.
When Larisa Pearl returns to her small seaside hometown in Massachusetts to manage her beloved great aunt's estate, she's a bit of an emotional mess. She's just lost her job and her boyfriend and she's struggling to cope with her mother's failing health. When she passes by the window of The Little French Bridal Shop, a beautiful ivory satin wedding gown catches her eye...
Now, to the delight of everyone in town, Larisa is planning her wedding. She has her dress, made floral arrangements, and set the date. The only thing missing is the groom. How did this happen? All she did was try on a dress and let her fantasy take flight. But word about her upcoming nuptials has reached the ears of Jack Merrill. As teenagers, they spent time together on her great aunt's estate, building a friendship that could have become something more had they chosen different paths.
Lost in a web of her own lies, Larisa must first face some difficult truths, including her mother's fragile future, before she can embrace her family, straighten out her life, and open her heart to finding love.

From the description, I knew the story would be a bit ridiculous. I mean, who lies about getting married? I could understand it, I suppose, to a point. I expected cute and funny hijinks but the way it actually came about? A bit odd and...painful. You learn early on in the story, when Larisa is trying on the wedding dresses, that she's been having a lot of issues. She's been lying about all sorts of random things - her height on her driver's license, for example. Plus, she's been shoplifting, too. She loses her job in a fairly public and unbelievable way (it was definitely warranted - she was not kind). Basically, she's been behaving in an extremely childish manner and I couldn't get over it. I'm not one that has to like or understand all the main characters I encounter but when I expected this to be a contemporary drama with a sprinkling of romance (I mean, come on, look at the cover!) and all of a sudden I have a character who has some serious shit going on that she's not addressing and is acting like a kid instead? I didn't like her and nothing she did could convince me otherwise.

All of Larisa's issues seem to stem from the fact hat her mother has recently been diagnosed with dementia. She's struggling with that, understandably so, but, again, she's acting like a child and running away from the issues instead of having a discussion with her father, who's acting as caregiver, and learning more about the disease and how to make the relationship with her mother work with her diagnosis. This led to a heavier storyline than I expected. Normally it would be welcome in a book but there wasn't any indication and it didn't really feel...like it worked with the story, I suppose.

I'll fully admit that I skimmed this book. Heavily. I wanted to see if Larisa could redeem herself (she did, sort of, but I had stopped caring) so I didn't want to completely give up on it. So, because I wasn't reading closely and wasn't very committed, there could be some nuances I missed. But I wasn't looking for or expecting many nuances in this kind of story. I love when my contemporary books pull in something heavier but whatever Dupee was aiming for really didn't work for me. 

Here's a possible spoiler, but you see in the description how it mentions Jack and how they used to know each other as teens? That was part of what drew me to this book. I like second chances and small towns. (The sweet cover was the other part of the appeal.) Well, it turns out Jack is married. With triplet eleven year old sons. It is not a happy marriage. He's bored and is all "poor me, my wife doesn't excite me anymore so I'm going to drown my sorrows at the bar and flirt with the staff instead of talking to her like an adult." I was not here for that. At first you think that maybe things would work out ok, that Jack and his wife would separate, officially, and maybe he and Larissa could start dating (which, by the way, they never did as teenagers). But there's a lot of convoluted nonsense that occurs so you're left wondering what, exactly, he's feeling and wondering who was going to get hurt. (My money was on the kids.) It was just not at all a situation to inspire romance. I know this kind of stuff happens in real life and I know it's not all as black and white as I'm painting it (apparently from a high horse...) but it wasn't what I wanted from this story.

I think my emotions got the better of me when it came to The Little French Bridal Shop. I have no notes on the way it was written because the story and how I felt about it and the characters just didn't allow me to enjoy Jennifer Dupee's debut novel. Was I too harsh on someone who was clearly going through a tough time? Perhaps. That happens in real life but it doesn't mean it always makes for a good novel.

*An egalley of this novel was provided by the publisher, St. Martin's Press, via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration. All opinions are honest and my own.*