I’m sure some readers would find this really entertaining, but I found the characters and storylines just a little bit too unbelievable for my liking. DNF at around 30%.

Firstly, many apologies for the lateness of this review.

I love Wendy Holden’s books and never fail to read one. I am sorry to say, this was not my favourite.

It was funny, light, an easy read and complete escapism. But I never really got to like the characters and didn’t feel attached to them.

Nice ending, a few good twists and everything wrapped up rather smartly, but it didn’t leave me wanting more like her previous books.

Easy, if silly read about the adventures of a wannabe journalist in the world of rich and famous (or not).
While the idea is cute, I sorely miss the adult people in the sea of incredibly shallow characters.

I would recommend Sophie Kinsella for the British kind of fun.

This is the first time I have read a book by Wendy Holden, although I have always admired the eye-catching and often amusing covers of her previous offerings. Like the others, this book sports a wonderful, colourful cover with a clue to what the reader will find within.



Laura Lake of the title is an interesting character, with a desire to follow her father's footsteps into investigative journalism but with no idea where to start. However, when her chance to write comes unexpectedly, it is not quite what she was aiming for, and involves her leaving Paris and her beloved ancient grandmother for a life in London. There, she is launched into the wacky world of fashion and celebrities.



The story takes a poke at the world of glossy magazines, fashion and the trend for 'unusual' weddings. I would have to compliment Wendy on her imagination and amazing inventiveness when it comes to names for people and places. Unfortunately, though, for me, this storyline went beyond funny and entered the realm of ridiculousness. Although the idea and narrative are clever, I couldn't really recommend this book to others.

it's really rare when I don't finish a book, but that was the case for this one. I only read 15 percent of the book, but I just couldn't go any further... I really didn't like the writing style. I was really disappointed because the storyline of this book seemed so good.. maybe one day I will try to read it again and maybe I will appreciate it better...

Thank you for the galley. Unfortunately, I could not read the book before it was archived.

I loved this from start to finish! Holden pokes fun at lots of different aspects of modern society (not just hipsters!) through her story of a character who wants to be taken seriously as a writer, but also finds herself enjoying the trashy elements of celeb culture and feature writing about over the top weddings. Laura Lake finds love along the way in a quick and enjoyable read which ticks all the right boxes, I'm already looking forward to the promised series.

Have you ever finished watching 'The Devil Wears Prada' and thought to yourself; 'oh I WISH the producers did a re-boot of this film or created something just as brilliant!'? Does that sound familiar? After all, EVERYONE loves 'The Devil Wears Prada'. Never fear though...

WENDY HOLDEN IS HERE WITH LAURA LAKE!!!

Oh em geeeeee, SQUEAL!!! As soon as I saw the cover of this novel, I just knew I had to get my mitts on a copy. As soon as I began reading this novel, I knew straight away that my phone would no longer be looked at, my t.v would turn itself off because I've left it on its own AND my cup of tea would go stone cold. Why? Errrrrr because I wasn't lifting my head up or diverting my attention from THIS book unless it was a life or death situation....or I needed to pee. Same thing though, right?

Laura Lake's lifelong dream is to become a journalist, rubbing shoulders with oh-so-fabulous celebrities; but instead she is in Paris, taking part in an art installation thingy-me-jig with a stranger named, Caspar. Oh the things you do when you need extra cash! Laura soon realises that journalism opportunities are few and far between in Paris, and that London is clearly the way to go. However, there's one slight problem, Laura doesn't want to leave her extravagant grandmother, Mimi. You only live once, right?

I LOVE Mimi! She is extravagance at its finest and she could totally give everyone a lesson in LIVING. As for Laura Lake herself, well, can I PURLEASEEEE have her as my new BFF?! She is absolutely HILARIOUS! What I found even more funny was how her antics were considered to be 'the norm' for her personality, yet to us 'boring' outsiders, she appeared to be absolutely bonkers. I mean, seriously, she had nowhere to live so set up camp in the fashion cupboard?! Brilliant idea nonetheless but still! I could just imagine her lying there, getting up for work the next morning and just saunter into the office flicking her hair, acting like she had started work hours before anyone else. Well, technically she did...I think?

I actually don't think I stopped laughing whilst reading about Laura's antics. The fact she came face to face with an enemy from her past, was somewhat predictable yet I couldn't wait for the sparks to fly. It was clear that Wendy Holden wasn't going to bypass the opportunity to allow her characters to get their claws out and play dirty, and what a genius addition to the storyline.

There was SO much happening in this book yet I didn't find the storyline too busy or hard to follow. In fact it flowed really well; there was enough grit, fireworks, humour and controversial situations to keep me going until dinner time!

Wendy Holden has written my kind of book to an absolute T. It has humour. It has flirting. It has weird and wonderful characters with incredibly large personalities, and AWESOME names. It has 'bonkers' written right through the storyline like a stick of rock. It is absolutely fantastic.

I read Laura Lake and the Hipster Weddings one night when I needed to laugh like I've never laughed before, to escape from my daily hell for longer than ten minutes, be transported to a place where only 'bonkers' and 'bizarre live'; Wendy Holden's novel did that for me. I cannot recommend this book enough and I REALLY want the next book, er, now please? Thank you very much!

A hilarious giggle-fest from the very first page, Laura Lake and the Hipster Weddings is THE book to read and enjoy without even hiding it as a 'guilty pleasure'.
Pleasure? Yes. Guilty? Hell no!!
Fantastic.

Thank you Head of Zeus!!

Marked as DNF. Will try to het back to it some time later.

Sometimes I crave a bit of classic Brit-chick-lit, and Laura Lake provided exactly that. After reading a lot of random stuff on Netgalley it's often a relief to get a chance to read something by an author you can trust to provide a certain level of quality, and just sink into the story. A story which, in this case, was amusing, exciting, entertaining and a little daft. Laura Lake is a perfect slice of escapism that would make a great holiday read.

Laura Lake lives with her nan in Paris and has always wanted to be an investigative journalist, just like her dad who died not long after she was born.

She meets the editor of a British glossy magazine who offers her work as an unpaid intern and Laura jumps at the chance. On arriving in London she loses her bag with all her worldly goods and has to sleep in the fashion cupboard at the magazine.

Her first assignment is to write about three weddings all with different themes. Two problems sprout up in Laura’s life, one is the Features Editor of the magazine is her childhood bully from school who wants to beat Laura to the scoop and the second, at each wedding, jewellery goes missing, which prompts Laura to find out who the thief is.

It was a good book with lots of funny elements and some interesting characters. I really looking forward to the next book to see what kind of trouble Laura gets into.

I haven't read a Wendy Holden book before but I'd heard good things so I was looking forward to starting this one. It took a few chapters for me to get in to the story at all, before that I could have happily put it down and left it. Once I got in to the story I found bits of it entertaining but a little bit too slap-stick and obviously funny for my liking. I can't fault Wendy's imagination - how she came up with some of the story I have no idea! It was just a little bit too unbelievable at points so I found myself rolling my eyes a bit. I was also a little confused by the storyline of Laura's father - I understand that this is the first of the series so I guess we will find out more in the next one - but it would have been nice to get just a snippet more information about him. I found it quite frustrating that Harry and her grandmother seemed to know something important but the book finished and still nothing!! All together it was very well written but it just wasn't the kind of book for me. Thank you for the chance to read and review this.

The synopsis is great but this book does not do it justice. It takes too long for us to see how Laura Lake came to London and started working in a magazine. It wasn’t a fun read until she came to London. I started the book expecting the initial pages to set the background and the remaining to jump right into the weddings and the related shenanigans. That’s all that this book needed to do. One of the biggest problems I had with this book was that it tries to be too many things at once.

Coming to the title character, Laura Lake. My eyes hurt from the amount of rolling I did while reading this book. Her father was a famous investigative reporter who died when she was a kid. She lives with her grandmother, who doesn’t talk to her about him. She meets another investigative reporter, Harry Scott, who didn’t know her father personally but learned about him all by himself. Throughout the book, we see Laura hoping to bump into Harry so that she can get the deets about her dad. There’s no other way for her to get them. It’s 2017, but there’s no other way, really.

Now that we’ve got the negatives out of the way, let’s look at what works. The writing is really good. Laura’s grandmother has several witticisms that readers will enjoy. If you like slapstick humor, this book is totally for you. This is perhaps one of the reasons I didn’t enjoy this book much–I can only cringe at slapstick. This is a light-hearted read and not a re-reading worthy book. The fast-paced nature of it helps a lot.

There will be a sequel to this book. If it retains the quirkiness and loses the long-winded nature of the story, I’d definitely give it a try!

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Laura Lake and the Hipster Weddings,  Wendy Holden

Review from Jeannie Zelos book reviews

Genre:  General Fiction (Adult), Women's Fiction

I’ve not read one of Wendy’s novels for many years, but recalled how funny and interesting they were so was keen to read this.

Maybe its the passage of time affecting my memories, maybe it is the book, maybe its just that my tastes have changed, but though I enjoyed this story I didn’t love it and at times found myself rolling my eyes at the more silly parts.

Its a frantic paced book, and I don’t recall the others being like that – but could be my memory. It did mean though that there was barely time to absorb one experience when we were on to another, and at times the humour was almost slapstick, not my preferred type. I like things a little more subtle.

I was disappointed that we kept getting snippets of Laura’s dad all the way through and yet never really did learn what actually happened, or if we did it was so brief somehow I missed it. I did find myself skimming the second half, getting a bit tired of the eternally comedic coincidences.

It’s a well written novel and if you like frenetic, slapstick humour, stories filled with incredibly detailed but pretty unrealistic scenes you’ll love this book. Me? I liked it but its a one off for me, and I think me and Wendy will pass on more reads.

Stars: Three, a fun read but not a keeper for me.

ARC supplied for review purposes by Netgalley and Publishers

Funny, witty and entertaining. It was like a merging of Bridget Jones and The Devil Wears Prada. Plenty of antics as Laura strives to get the scoop on 3 celebrity "Hipster" weddings. It had comedy and a bit of mystery as Laura also tried to work out who the wedding thief was. Great easy reading.

Such an incredibly entertaining story, that had me loving every second of the book. One of the things that struck me most was the incredible amount of imagination Wendy Holden used in naming some of her characters, the majority of them have at the very least surnames that are rather clever, and the others have some quite different first names to the normal ones you see in most books.

The book isn't just full of imaginative names, but the three weddings that are featured, plus the art installation at the beginning are all very creative, and just so different. Laura Lake as the assignment of a lifetime when she is given the chance to write about the new trends of hipster weddings for Society magazine.

She needs to somehow infiltrate each wedding to try and get the best accounts, and in doing so manages to have run ins with an old nemesis from her school days. There is the wedding that has easily the most unusual location I've ever seen for any sort of function, there is the one that involves a hand fasting ceremony and a lake and the other in theory is more traditional but what a creepy location.

We first meet Laura when she is living in Paris and being part of an art installation to earn extra money, along with Caspar. From the early chapters we get a great idea of what Laura's grandmother Mimi is like, full of advice on how to be a Parisenne lady. So its a a wrench for Laura to take up a job offer in London.

What you soon realise with this book is nothing ever goes according to plan, and that Laura has a lot more guile and cunning than it first appears, as she gets herself in a whole variety of situations. In places you do have to suspend your grip on reality and accept there is definitely some artistic licence being used, but that just added to the fun of the book for me.

I can already see the start of potential story arcs for future books in this series, specifically around Laura Lake's parents, as it would be lovely to learn more about her background.

Laura Lake and the Hipster Weddings has a fresh new main character and is the start of what promises to be a fabulous series. It feels a bit different to other books by the author, but still is very easy to read and I loved it all.

Thank you to Netgalley and Head of Zeus for this copy of the book which I reviewed honestly and voluntarily.