"Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched" by Kim Barnouin

Clementine Cooper’s No Crap Café is about to score one of the biggest publicity coups ever - a mention in the New York Times Sunday travel section.  All she has to do is make the best vegan lasagna she ever has.  So long as nothing distracts her everything should be okay…

But you know what they say, when it rains it pours.  First, Clementine gets the best surprise ever when her meat-eating millionaire boyfriend Zach proposes.  Of course she says yes, but that’s when everything begins to spin out of control.  Zach’s domineering mother decides that she will be the one to plan the wedding, and comes up with a wedding that goes against everything Clementine would want.  Then she is forced into giving Zach’s stepsister a job in the café’s kitchen, even though she has no cooking skills whatsoever.  On top of this, Clem comes up with a plan to open up a second restaurant at her parent’s farm, while Zach begins to spend more and more time at the office and less time speaking to her.  The only person she can turn to is her best friend and fellow vegan chef Alexander, who happens to be competing against her for the spot in the Times.  Will Clementine be able to get her life in order in time to wow the Times reviewer?  And will she end up walking down the aisle or is the vegan-carnivore marriage doomed?

Skinny Bitch Gets Hitched is the second novel by Kim Barnouin, co-author of the New York Times bestselling line of Skinny Bitch lifestyle and recipe books.  This novel is a sequel to her first novel, Skinny Bitch in Love (see my review here.) 

I really enjoyed the first novel so I was excited to see that Clementine is back.  This book picks up where the last one left off, with Clementine running a successful vegan restaurant and madly in love with Zach, owner of a successful steakhouse.  And I enjoyed this one just as much.  I felt like this time around, the author didn’t need to do as much explaining about the vegan lifestyle and so the story took off right from the start and was a fun ride right throughout.

I like how a lot of the characters from the first book and were back but this time there was the introduction of two new characters in Zach’s mother and stepsister.  It was a fresh addition to the story and kept things from feeling repetitive.  I was worried that the book would end up going over the whole vegan/carnivore relationship thing but it didn’t fall into that trap, those just happen to be characteristics of the characters now.  The only thing I could have done without was the list Clementine received from Zach’s aunt.  It didn’t harm the story but I felt it slowed down just a little bit at those parts and the story would have been fine without it.

There isn’t too much to say about this book other than it is a great, fun read, it’s just as good as the first book, and your mouth will be watering the entire time you read from all of the great food.

I received a copy of this book courtesy of the publisher through Netgalley.  The opinions expressed above are my own.