Dear Ms. Cabot:
This is the third in the Queen of Babble series featuring Lizzie Nichols, a wedding dress restorer and designer. I’ve read the first one but not the second (I have no explanation for not reading the second). The book begins with Lizzie confused about an encounter with her good friend, Chaz, and about the end of her relationship with French dreamboat, Jean Luc. (Is French dreamboat redundant?) Jean-Luc shows up unexpectedly in New York and brings with him a huge engagement ring and before she can say yes (or no), she finds herself engaged to Jean-Luc.
As Jean-Luc’s fiancée, though, certain things aren’t quite up to snuff like her Midwestern background and her dreams of a backyard wedding. Jean-Luc expects her to conform herself to fit in with his aristocratic family and then there is his reluctance to live in New York and his affinity for a job in Paris.
Lizzie doesn’t understand why everyone including Chaz and the maid of honor isn’t thrilled with her. She’s even taking flak at work from her co-workers (who kind of hired themselves) and her socialite client who is trying to procure a fabulous dress while possibly getting rid of the not so fabulous fiancée.
Lizzie is totally endearing in her cluelessness and her struggle to find herself and what she really wants out of life including who she wants to marry and what she wants to do as a career. I also think that few authors write the good guy character as well.
Maybe it’s a spoiler,
The drawbacks of this book include the very youthful tone. Lizzie sounds and acts, many times, as a very young woman. It’s not a story with a lot of gravity even though at times there were serious subjects that were addressed. But for any Meg Cabot fan, I think this will please them. It did me. B
Best regards,
Jane
This book can be purchased in hardcover on June 24, 2008, from Amazon or Powells . Ebook format coming.
Thanks for this review, Jane. I’m anxiously awaiting this one, and am glad to know I correctly guessed the spoiler. I really enjoy how well Meg Cabot writes the slightly-nerdy-but-still-hot good guy hero.
I’ll have to make a note to add this one to AAR’s Friends list.
Did you read the second one? I wasn’t quite sure what had happened that night between Chaz and Lizzie and maybe that was the intent. There’s definitely a skill to making the good guy more appealing than the bad guy in this world of uber alpha male heroes.
I did read it (and reviewed it for AAR). The book starts off with everything going great guns with her and Luke and then over time it deteriorates a bit. Then it ends with a bit of a cliffhanger over who exactly is the man she wants in her life.
Really, I didn’t expect it all to go off in a new direction, but if I’d been thinking about the pattern of Cabot’s other heroes, I’d not have been so surprised. She really likes to do brilliant – but slightly inaccessible – hunky boys who keep their thoughts to themselves.
I should do an author profile on Cabot. I’ve read and enjoyed so many of her books.
Hmm. Maybe it was your review that made me pause because of the cliffhanger ending? I’d love to see an author profile of Cabot.