MADreads

Wedding day blues

July 24th, 2007 Lisa - Central

Ah, what’s more satisfying than a simply-told, well-written novel?  And then what’s more sad than when it ends?  That’s how I feel about London is the Best City in America by Laura Dave.  I just finished it and I miss it already.

Three years before our story begins, Emmy Everett left her fiance in a motel room in Rhode Island the night before their wedding.  She remains in RI, at a job in a bait store in Narragansett and spends her free time filming for a documentary the lives of the wives of fishermen left at home while their husbands are at sea.   One hundred and seven of them.  Emmy’s terminally stuck by the sea.

But then her older brother Josh is getting married back at home in New York and she is forced from her self-imposed exile.  She finds Josh just as confused the weekend before his wedding as she was; he’s trying to decide between the great woman he’s to marry (Merle) and the woman he’s had an affair with (Elizabeth).  In an attempt to come to grips with his confusion, Josh convinces Emmy to accompany him to see Elizabeth, a four-hour drive away.  The day before the wedding.  Emmy sort of falls in love with Elizabeth, her daughter, Grace, and the dog farm they live on.  Add in Emmy’s high school crush and Josh’s best friend, the adorable Berringer, an accidental meeting with Emmy’s ex-fiance, Matt, and a New York City heat wave/blackout, and we get a set up for a lot of lessons learned and growing up being done.

You can’t help but like both Emmy and Josh, despite their sometimes regretful behavior and confusion.  As a brother and sister, they are perfect…often pissed at the other, but unable to quite figure things out without one another’s help.  This is a sweetly-told little gem.

And the meaning of the title becomes clear towards the end of the book.

Entry Filed under: Recreational Fiction