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The Wedding Gift Kathleen McKenna Books

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The Wedding Gift Kathleen McKenna Books

This "ghost" story is told in first person, which would be fine if the first person in question weren't so annoyingly bereft of normal speech. She's young and obviously a "hick", so she talks/thinks like one. I've got no objection to colloquialisms - I'm a great fan of Faulkner and Twain - but to put this book in the same category with those two venerated writers would be downright insulting. The protagonist is also characterized in such a way that she's not terribly sympathetic; she seems (at turns) shallow, self-indulgent, brainless, self-serving and mercenary. The bit of "good-girl" stuff thrown in (her love for her family and her best friend, most notably) seems perfunctory. I plowed through this book, because, really, the story itself was pretty interesting, but I believe this could have been a much better book if told from a third person perspective, or even omniscient (even if the protagonist's are the only thoughts we get). The way it's told detracts from the story, and that's always bad.


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The Wedding Gift Kathleen McKenna Books Reviews

"To be strictly honest," you will likely know within the first couple of chapters if you will enjoy this book or hate it. It's written from the POV of an eighteen-year-old Oklahoma beauty queen. She's vain and self-centered and frequently demonstrates the intelligence of a box of hair (bleached hair, in this case). You will either find this okay or you will hate it. If you hate it, you should just stop reading. There will be no relief from Leann's voice during this book except for a brief period where her friend Jessie is presenting a lengthy account of something she read. And Jessie isn't much different (she's never heard of Rhode Island, for example).

If you need a book where you like the main character, you should probably keep looking. Leann isn't very likable.

And in some ways, this story isn't even all that realistic (even within the genre of ghost stories). I'm not from Oklahoma, but I'm from Arkansas and I kept having the sneaking suspicion while reading it that the author didn't really know from Southern culture except what she'd seen on television. The tiny parts of the book written in the style of newspaper articles are cringe-inducing - the articles feel like junior high level reporting. Some details felt awfully odd (why would a family where a young man could spend almost $500,000 on an engagement ring even be living in that town - why wouldn't they just be running things from Dallas or some other major city?). The major flaw of the book (in my opinion) is the decision to present the tale as Leann's journal. It is simply unbelievable that a young woman so lacking in critical thought could write well enough to set this tale down. Additionally, it made the few elements of foreshadowing confusing - if she is writing this around the time it is happening, why is there foreshadowing? If she is writing it all after-the-fact, then the focus of the story just doesn't make much sense. The author would have been much better served just to have Leann present the tale without the conceit of the journal.

You're probably thinking, "Is this really a four star review?" Yes - the book is just that enjoyable. If you don't need to like your protagonists, Leann is remarkably engaging. And I don't need to like her to want to spend a book hearing about her and what happened to her. The story is interesting. While the final resolution of the plot wasn't a surprise, getting there took a lot of twists and turns and none of them happened in exactly the way that I expected. While occasionally a hamhanded bit of extra "color" would jar me out of the story (We get it - Jessie doesn't understand how a Yankee woman can keep a man, she doesn't have to tell us two dozen times), I read this in a single day because, while I was reading it, there really wasn't anything I wanted to do but finish the story. That's not all that common. With a few changes, this could have been an excellent book. As it is, it misses the mark - but not by all that much.
I absolutely enjoyed Kathleen McKenna's The Wedding Gift, from the superb tongue-in-cheek writing, to the over-the-top characters and the spellbinding suspense. Scanning through the reviews I'm surprised about the like-dislike discussion concerning the main character Leeann Worthier Willets. IMHO the beauty-queen teenager is not supposed to be liked, she's just very real in her annoying, childish, stupid 'designer make-up'. I liked her for her irritating realness and - of course- she would never enter my list of possible BBF but why should she? Seeing her make one doomed decision after the other gave spice to the book.

What absolutely thrilled me in The Wedding Gift was the consistent high-quality of the prose. McKenna is flawless in her 'southern drawl' and - as a fellow writer - I can so much enjoy a writing style I would never be able to master myself. Especially the jargon-laded dialogues between Leeann and her friend Jessie are priceless jewels language-wise.

Writing a book in first person, present tense and as a diary is always a risk for a writer and certainly a big challenge. The reader could easily get bored by the static POV it is bound to create. The fact McKenna has been able to avoid that pitfall by creating a lively, wide-scoped book proves her command of both material and story telling.

Another merit of the book is its pace. Mrs McKenna knows how to tell a good story and where to speed up and where to give details. In her capable hands I knew I could just sit back and enjoy the incredible, impossible, hilarious ride I was on. No need to skip pages or reread incomprehensible passages. The story stands as a house.

The suspense part of the book - the ghost story - was haunting and frightening and made me grip my chair at times. I was glad these 'bloody' passages alternated with funny sketches and a bit of romance.

All-in-all a book I would recommend to everyone. Thank you Kathleen McKenna for writing it and I look forward to reading your other books.
This "ghost" story is told in first person, which would be fine if the first person in question weren't so annoyingly bereft of normal speech. She's young and obviously a "hick", so she talks/thinks like one. I've got no objection to colloquialisms - I'm a great fan of Faulkner and Twain - but to put this book in the same category with those two venerated writers would be downright insulting. The protagonist is also characterized in such a way that she's not terribly sympathetic; she seems (at turns) shallow, self-indulgent, brainless, self-serving and mercenary. The bit of "good-girl" stuff thrown in (her love for her family and her best friend, most notably) seems perfunctory. I plowed through this book, because, really, the story itself was pretty interesting, but I believe this could have been a much better book if told from a third person perspective, or even omniscient (even if the protagonist's are the only thoughts we get). The way it's told detracts from the story, and that's always bad.