Bridesmaids by Jane Costello
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is one thing I should stop doing now. I really shouldn’t limit what I read due to stupid connotations of genres of books.

My mind works like this: YES! Read classics, book prize winners, books that get nominated for the Nobel Prize! If you read these books you shall become a smarter person. People will listen to you more in conversations because you’ve read ‘those books’, and you’ll be an intellectual. You will, trust me.
NO! Don’t read chick-lit, thrillers, romps. You should be exercising your brain at all times. Don’t read what the masses read. Don’t! You’re an individual! Read that one, the one that’s a constant bestseller, that’s sold over 5 million copies, read it because it’s a so-called classic.
Young Adult? Teenage? Do you have to? I mean, no-one will think that you’re smart. But, if you have to, anyway – you are that age.

This is a very stupid way to think. You are limiting your possible enjoyment of books you’re just dismissing. I’m sure everyone who reads will have moments like this. I like to call these moments ‘Reading Demons’.

The problem is, even after reading this book, I had a conversation with people I deemed to be (Shock, horror) “smarter than me” e.g, read more classics than me. I was asked what I like to read. So, instead of launching into how I love The Book Thief, how I can read a Sarah Dessen book at any time, or how I just love Anna and the French Kiss, I just said, “Crap, really.” Which is not a great thing to say. It’s not a particularly great conversation starter, I know. But it was because I was embarrassed that my favourite novels are teenage fiction or romances. I was embarrassed because I couldn’t say War and Peace or something by Charles Dickens.

I’m going to say this again, this is a silly way to act, and it’s a silly way to feel – to be embarrassed by what you like.

And, so I’m going to say – unashamedly, that I really liked this book. Bridesmaids wasn’t flawless. Do I care? Nope, because I was engrossed in the story, the characters and I flew through the book. So, as we – I – have learnt in this long review that is not all a review, is to like what you like. To love what you love. And now, after I read this book and realised that chick-lit can be just as great as other novels I have read, will go by that.



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