Review: Every Girl Gets Confused by Janice Thompson

Read Every Bride Needs a Groom First

Amazon Description

Katie Fisher and Brady James may be a match made in heaven, but that doesn't seem to guarantee them a happily ever after accompanied by angelic choirs. In fact, the sounds being heard at the bridal shop where she works are on the contentious side lately, as a bride- and groom-to-be try to mediate the growing rivalry between their basketball-obsessed families in the middle of play-off season. On top of that, Katie's parents are nagging her to get out of Dallas and come home to tiny Fairfield where her former boyfriend Carson is waiting for her, ready to rekindle their relationship. Oy vey! What's a girl to do? And will she ever be able to wear that gorgeous wedding dress she won?

My Review

This is the second novel in a series, and I probably would have enjoyed it more if I’d have read the first book, Every Bride Needs a Groom. There are two reasons for this: it appears the story carries straight on from the first book, and there are so many characters, I got confused more than once trying to remember who was who. Of course, now I’ve read Every Girl Gets Confused, there’s no need for me to read Every Bride Gets a Groom, because I’ve pretty much sussed out all the important things that happened.

No, Katie wasn’t the only one to get confused. Actually, the title in itself was confusing, because Katie a) wasn’t a bride, and b) wasn’t confused. In fact, she seemed to be the most unconfused person in the novel, as her major confusion was around why Brady wasn’t forward in telling her how he felt (clue: he’s a man, and while many fictional heroes are happy baring their hearts, Brady was more, well, human).

Every Bride Gets Confused was written in the first person, entirely from Katie’s point of view. This was both a strength and a weakness—while I enjoy novels written in first person, especially when they have plenty of humour, the weakness is we are never able to see what Brady is thinking. The other possible weakness is that Katie is a pretty together person and her voice doesn’t have as much humour as I’d expect in romantic comedy. However, there was still plenty of comedy, mostly from her family. There was also too much introspection from Katie at times, particularly in the beginning, and this made it hard for me to get into the story.

Once I got into the story I very much enjoyed it, and appreciated the understated spiritual truths. But the spiritual and life lessons were mostly lessons learned by Brady and the supporting characters, which made Katie feel more like the observer/narrator than the centre of the story. I came away feeling Katie is a person I’d like to have as a friend because she’s hard-working, stable and a strong Christian, but I never got the feeling she went through any major confusion or character change herself.

Overall, Every Bride Gets Confused was enjoyable, but not as good as Red Like Crimson, which I recently reviewed.

Thanks to Revell and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review.