Review: Clean Romance, Funny Characters
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2014
A jilted fiancee, an immigrant in need of a visa, and a wedding fiasco...After Lisa finds her fiance in bed with another woman, she faces the ultimate embarrassment--canceling her wedding. Her friend has a solution: why not marry a mail-order groom from the internet? Turns out there's one just down the road and he's in dire need of a visa so he won't have to return to Poland. With just days to go before the wedding, Lisa wrangles Krzysztof Zielinski into her former fiance's place without thoughts to the consequences of what will happen at the immigration office or whether they're breaking the law. Without thoughts to the consequences of what Krzys really wants either. With time running short, Lisa either has to make it work with Krzys or risk their future together.I'll be honest, I was pretty up-in-the-air about whether Lisa was going to stick with Krzys once her ex-fiance Jeff came crawling back. Somehow I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd said, "Okay, let's get back together." She seemed like the kind of character who was easily pushed around and talked into things without taking the time to see exactly what she wanted.This book could have benefited from Krzys' POV, but being chick lit, it worked without it. There were times when I wanted to grab Lisa and say, "sit the hell down, woman. Take a breath and see if you can't work something out with this man." It could have used more attraction between them--while staying clean--than a couple of kisses.On the upside, the characters are hilarious (Lisa's parents were a riot trying to figure out what Poland was like), the writing is tight enough that a few wordy places didn't really bother me, the plot is realistic enough to be plausible, and you really have to sympathize with Lisa because when everyone's expecting a wedding, you understand how embarrassing it would be to announce your fiance was in bed with another woman. In short, it sounds like a bad plan I came up with. Lisa is a realistic enough human being who seems to touch things and the whole world turns upside down. You really have to feel bad for Krzys when he outs the truth to his family, but you also hold out hope for these two. The ending was lovely, even though it could have used a little more supporting detail for romance between them.I'll give it four stars because it hooked me, it made me laugh, and delivered a happy ending.