"Beautiful Day" by Elin Hilderbrand

Please do not judge me for reading this book. (It is a very judgement-worthy book). Beautiful Day is a story of "rich-people problems" all brought on vanity and selfishness. It is "light reading" if you dismiss the many dysfunctional relationships. To be fair, the main characters are still working through the loss their mother, but that doesn't really arouse a whole lot of sympathy on my part since most of the conflicts stem from poor decision making and lack of moral standards. I have little patience for "rich people problems."

The story is set over the course of one weekend as two families all come together on Nantucket to celebrate the wedding of Jenna Carmichael and Stuart Graham. The narrators of the story rotate. We get a new cynical perspective on love from every chapter. However, we never hear from the bride herself, Jenna Carmichael, an innocent hippie-wannabe who has lived a comfortable and spoiled lifestyle. We do hear from Jenna's father, still mourning the loss of his first wife, and struggling through a rebound marriage to an insecure divorcee named Pauline. Then there's the older sister Margot, a single mom with a penchant for making poor choices in men. She's successful in her career, but quite frankly a failure as a mother. We meet the two brothers: one a jock and a player who lives for casual sex and partying, and the other, the somewhat arrogant "perfect child" with the nice wife and two relatively normal kids. The soon-to-be in-laws also feature prominently. The Grahams are a divorced-and-remarried couple who were temporarily torn apart by marital infidelity and are still dealing the awkward circumstances brought on by the presence of an accidental "love child."

Featured most prominently throughout the story is "The Notebook." These are the dying words of Beth, the family matriarch, who used her last bit of energy to pen the blueprint of Jenna's future wedding. They are, ostensibly, suggestions, but Jenna has followed The Notebook rigidly, much the chagrin of her jealous stepmother. My first very judgmental thought was: "What kind of controlling person spends her dying days writing up a notebook about how to throw an extravagant wedding for a girl who doesn't even have a boyfriend!?!?" From there, my disdain for these characters went in every direction. Margot, the older sister, probably took the brunt of my judgement. Her lack of discipline is reflected at every turn, not only in her relationships but also in the way she raises (or doesn't raise) her children.  There wasn't one single character in the book that I liked. The characters were all the fraternity/sorority types, overly concerned with personal appearances, success, partying, and casual sex.

So why did I keep reading? Well, in part, because I never got around to finding another available audio-book from the library and I wanted something to listen to while walking my dog. Also, it was like a train wreck - you just couldn't look away. However, it wasn't a wholly wasted experience. I gleaned some important life-lessons from other people's shortcomings. For instance, Pauline (the stepmother) was a little overly-obsessed with her weight, to the point where she was constantly complaining to her husband and oftentimes deprived him of perfectly good meals because she had reached her caloric limit. She annoyed me, but I'll have to admit that there have been several times when I've reneged on Friday night dining plans after putting on my jeans.  The book also made me appreciate my own wedding so much more. While my wedding turned out far more extravagant than I ever expected, and even exceeded my own Yankee sensibilities, it was actually comparatively simple and drama-free by most standards. True, this book was a work of fiction, but I've heard countless real-life horror stories from brides and many more from bridesmaids. (I'm happy to admit that of all the ladies in my wedding party I was the one with the least bit of fashion-sense, thus my bridesmaids pretty much had free rein, as long as they wore green.) In the end, the book reaffirmed my original sentiments about weddings: it's all a little ridiculous.

I probably won't read any more of Elin Hilderbrand's books. I like to read books in which there is at least one person with whom I could befriend. The characters in Hilderbrand's book where all out of my league. And quite frankly, I'm pretty content in my own league.