Length 416
Quick Review After her mother’s death, a young woman realizes how little she knows about her mother and herself. She goes on a journey to find both with her niece by her side.
In Dingman’s debut novel she writes a sweet novel filled with family ties, mystery, love, history, and southern small town charm. It’s an easy read which screams to be read on the beach during a hot summer vacation.
Olivia has it all a stable fiancé, a high powered career, a life in Washington DC, and now a wedding date. When everything in her life couldn’t seem more stable, she decides to head south to a small town in Georgia with her niece to discover the past her mother left behind a long time ago. She has no idea what she will find and even less of an idea of how to find it. Guided by a short note in her mother’s will and determination, she sets off on what was meant to be a long weekend.
Behind the sweet façade of a story, Dingman explores the complex issue of a mother-daughter relationship. She uses Olivia and her sister, Georgia, to look into the relationship daughters have with their mothers as adults, and Georgia and her daughter, Logan, to show the difficulty both daughters and mothers go through to establish a sense of self and a link to one another.
As the title suggest, Cancel the Wedding, delves into idea of a wedding and a marriage being linked yet separate identities. So often, it is easy to focus on the traditional steps of creating a life – meeting, dating, engagement, buying property, wedding – that one can forget the life after the wedding, and also lose oneself in the planning. Because life isn’t simple, Dingman is able to complicate her characters’ lives, so they have to sort out what means the most.
Cancel the Wedding is not a literary feat, but it is a great first novel appealing to a wide scope of readers with a penchant for romance and mystery.
Memorable Quotes
“You really only have a passionate row if you feel completely confident that you can get through it, or if you’re using it as the hand grenade tossed over your shoulder on your way out the door.”
“It took a lot of smoke and mirrors and subterfuge to make the world see you the way you wanted them to.”
“I was starting to get that prickly feeling again about not wanting to get married.”
Title: Cancel the Wedding
Author: Carolyn T. Dingman
Publisher: HarperCollins
Copyright: 2014
ISBN: 9780062276728
