Cancel the Wedding: My Review

Cancel the Wedding: A Novel (P. S.)

About the Book:

A heartfelt fiction debut that will appeal to fans of Emily Giffin’s Southern charm and Jennifer Weiner’s compelling, emotionally resonant novels about the frustrations of blood ties, Cancel the Wedding follows one woman’s journey to discover the secrets of her mother’s hidden past—and confront her own uncertain future.

On the surface, Olivia has it all: a high-powered career, a loving family, and a handsome fiancé. She even seems to be coming to terms with her mother Jane’s premature death from cancer. But when Jane’s final wish is revealed, Olivia and her elder sister Georgia are mystified. Their mother rarely spoke of her rural Southern hometown, and never went back to visit—so why does she want them to return to Huntley, Georgia, to scatter her ashes?

Jane’s request offers Olivia a temporary escape from the reality she’s long been denying: she hates her “dream” job, and she’s not really sure she wants to marry her groom-to-be. With her 14-year-old niece, Logan, riding shotgun, she heads South on a summer road trip looking for answers about her mother.

As Olivia gets to know the town’s inhabitants, she begins to peel back the secrets of her mother’s early life—truths that force her to finally question her own future. But when Olivia is confronted with a tragedy and finds an opportunity to right a terrible wrong, will it give her the courage to accept her mother’s past—and say yes to her own desire to start over?

My Comments:

I loved this one and I'm giving it an A.  Here is a favorite quote (realizing that I had a digital ARC and the final version may have changed, but I hope not too much) "I was realizing more and more that I was just letting life happen to me.  Letting it flow downstream and take me with it.  I wasn't participating in its course correction anymore."  

The story is told in the first person by Olivia as she travels to her mother's hometown, learns her mother's secrets and slowly starts to correct the course of her life. She realizes that by not making choices she is making choices, choices that are  not making her happy.  The research into her mother's past introduces Olivia to people who knew her mother and to a man who is very different from her fiancee.  The setting in a lake town in rural Georgia is symbolic.  The lake is man-made and it covers what used to be her mother's hometown.  What secrets does the water cover?  

I'd like to thank the publisher for making a review copy available via Edelweiss.