THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach

What a treat this fluffy but delightful crowd-pleaser of a book is.  It is so much fun, even though Phoebe, the protagonist, does not like the word “fun.”  It is also fun-ny.  My favorite line is on page 147, when a particularly acerbic character says, “Littering is a slippery slope.”  OK, you have to read this line in context for it to be funny, and it seems somehow disrespectful to describe a book as funny when the main character is initially planning her suicide.  Phoebe decides to do the deed in a swanky hotel where all the other rooms are occupied by a wedding party, and she soon gets swept up in their family dramas.  Lila, the uber-rich bride, is aghast that Phoebe might ruin her wedding by committing suicide, but obviously we would not have a book if Phoebe actually went through with it.  I didn’t even mind that the plot is totally predictable, because it’s so entertaining.  And, for a beach read, or for any read for that matter, the characters are exceptionally vivid.  I sometimes found it disconcerting that the author would paraphrase part of a conversation, but I was OK with that.  I just have one question:  What are side bangs?  We are talking about hair here.