Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young

Unmarried, thirty-year-old Sophy Metcalfe told a little white he to soothe her nagging mother. The white lies name was "Dominic," the ideal boyfriend: charming, successful, the kind of prospective son-in-law that would make any mother proud. But now that Sophy's thin and beautiful sister, Belinda, is getting married, Dominic is going to have to make an appearance in the flesh -- which should be a pretty neat trick ... since the genuine article vanished from Sophy's life after a single, singularly unmemorable evening. So she resorts to a very drastic measure -- aka Josh Carmichael, the escort she hires at the very last minute, sight unseen.
But the trouble with white lies is that they tend to multiply. The trouble with rugged, too-sexy, and independent Josh is ... well, that Sophy's actually beginning to like him! Even if they make it through the Wedding Day from Hell together -- with its new intrigues, old flames, and all-too-familiar faces -- there's the night that follows... and, of course, the morning after. And that could end up being the biggest trouble of all!

A while back I was watching television and saw a cute film - The Wedding Date. I noticed it was based on a book and ordered it straightaway.

Firstly, let me shortly summarize the film: A woman living in the US hires an escort to be her pretend fiancé for her sister's wedding as to impress friends and family in the UK (and get them off her back for being single) as well as annoy ex-boyfriend who is also attending the wedding as the best man. The film is very Hollywood, very sweet and quite different from the book!

The book is also about a woman, who hires an escort to be her pretend fiancé for her sister's wedding - and this is just about where the direct similarities between book and film ends. The book is about a Bridget Jones' type character, and the entire thing takes place in the UK with the humour being very British (which on another note is why I think many Americans seem to hate the book, I don't think the sarcasm and the dry/dark humour translates very well culture-wise).

Sophy, the MC, can at times be infuriating as she manages to get herself into the most stupid of situations that could have been entirely avoided if she'd just been honest (however, then there wouldn't have been much of a story). She differs vastly from the film MC, who's your average Hollywood model, as she is very aware of her body weight and size (not a size 0). I notice many on Goodreads call the book out for weight obsession and even misogyny, but honestly I just think it's a humorous book which lets the main character be just as obsessed with her body as most women truly are. It doesn't claim you have to be thin, it simply shows a fictional woman who's just as influenced by body image and ideal as actual women are.

// rant off //

All in all, it threw me a fair bit that the book differed so vastly from the film, but once I'd gotten that into my head, I really started to enjoy the book. I love the British humour and feel of it and I loved the characters (and Josh is so much more delicious than the "hunk" from the film will ever be). In hindsight I find the film too Hollywood goofy and the book pretty brilliant.

	Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young ISBN13: 9780380818976 408 pages / published in 2001
	Review by Iben Jakobsen, BoB, 2014