Rereading 'The Wedding Planner's Daughter' as an adult, I think maybe it is one of those books that is strictly for children. It is cute, yes, but not much else.
There is no real plot; the pacing is slow; the descriptions of weddings, gowns, dresses, towns, the weather, and other meagre details get tedious quickly; the characters are barely two-dimensional; the main character Willa is annoying and an idiot (but she's a bookworm so that should automatically be a redeeming quality - not); a few characters are given harrowing tragic backstories that do not go with the frothy and saccharine aesthetic at all; the humour (kiddie humour, I mean, that thinks it's cleverer than it is) is forced; the books recommended by Willa are generic mainstream classics; and speaking of her as a narrator, she is very patronising (like she thinks none of her readers would know what a labyrinth is, so she describes it like she thinks she's a hero. Gag me), and presumptuous, coddling, repetitive, and twee; and did I mention that she's twelve?
Yeah, Willa is twelve. So why is she obsessed with having breasts? She believes she's too small and underdeveloped, and is flat as a board (her words), compared to her friends. This feature is prominent when the girls are at the beach wearing their bikinis. Willa calls having breasts and running around "bobbing", and one time she stuffs tissue paper down the front of her swimsuit for a boy's attention (then she stupidly jumps into a pool and the paper floats away around her, humiliating her. I don't feel sorry for her because seriously, what did she expect would happen? It's not the only time she's thick when it comes to the same prepubescent boy, either).
YOU'RE TWELVE! AND SO ARE YOUR FRIENDS!
And I swear if I have to read about the twelve-year-old boy's dimples one more time...
I'm not a fan of preteen romance. I mean, they're too young, and you know it's not going to last, so what's the point of getting invested in it?
But romance is EVERYWHERE in 'The Wedding Planner's Daughter'. I know I should have expected it from the title alone, but EVERYONE is paired up in this book. Nearly every adult is married, or is about to receive a wedding, even Willa's widowed grandmother. All women and girls are especially burdened with the expectation of a heterosexual whirlwind romance (as long as they're pretty, of course) - chocolates, flowers, jewellery, notes of poetry every day, and hugely expensive travels and gestures, you name it - and a perfect, fluffy fairy tale wedding fit for a princess. It's nauseating. And not good for already insecure young girls to read about.
In fact, romance is such a focal point that, in one page, where Willa talks about Anne Frank, she remarks that Anne was lucky in one aspect - she got to spend all her time with a boy she liked in the attic. Wow. I mean...wow. Willa, you thick, callous, insensitive, thoughtless prat. To you, Anne Frank, a teenage holocaust victim who spent most of her tragically short life living in fear of capture and death, was lucky compared to you because of a possible romance with a boy. Yeah, I'm sure THAT was Anne's number one priority back then! It's a small detail, but I feel I have to mention it.
I'm sure there are a lot of girls who are just entering puberty who are like Willa, but I don't have to like reading it. And I know that not all of them are THIS thickheaded and selfish!
Also, Willa flips between calling her mother "Mother" and "Stella" constantly, including on the same page. She even calls her "the wedding planner" on a few occasions. Willa's grandmother encourages her to call her mother "Stella". It is awkward and distracting.
So I'm not a fan, as it turns out. 'The Wedding Planner's Daughter' is one of my childhood reads that hasn't aged well. To me it's shallow, dumb, and not so sweet as it clearly thinks it is.
Final Score: 2/5
Beaches, weddings, friends, future stepfathers, actors, labyrinths, shops - a great read for children on holidays. It's also a nice mother-and-daughter story.
And I love the cover art. Perfect fitting dress for the book.
Final Score: 4/5
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