Matchmaking for Beginners by Maddie Dawson

Matchmaking for Beginners by Maddie Dawson– audio

Book Blurb:

Marnie MacGraw wants an ordinary life—a husband, kids, and a minivan in the suburbs. Now that she’s marrying the man of her dreams, she’s sure this is the life she’ll get. Then Marnie meets Blix Holliday, her fiancé’s irascible matchmaking great-aunt who’s dying, and everything changes—just as Blix told her it would. When her marriage ends after two miserable weeks, Marnie is understandably shocked. She’s even more astonished to find that she’s inherited Blix’s Brooklyn brownstone along with all of Blix’s unfinished “projects”: the heartbroken, oddball friends and neighbors running from happiness. Marnie doesn’t believe she’s anything special, but Blix somehow knew she was the perfect person to follow in her matchmaker footsteps.
And Blix was also right about some things Marnie must learn the hard way: love is hard to recognize, and the ones who push love away often are the ones who need it most. 

My Review: 3.5 stars

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Matchmaking for Beginners has been on my TBR for so long, that I just about jumped for joy when I finally got to dig in. Knowing the basic premise involved something to do with matchmaking was a plus for me. There’s something about that ancient vocation that has always interested me. The idea that the date you were born on or where the moon fell in the sky is a notion that’s always sparked my imagination. Is any of it real?

Blix, one of the voices in the story, and my favorite character, is in fact a matchmaker. She can see colors around people that tell her what they need. She’s also spiritually intuitive and just knows if you’re with the right person or not. Therein lies the basis for story.

The southern culture is represented with wit and reality, which added a good dose of humor. There were many characters in the book, most of them quirky, which kept the story afloat to sustain the many subplots. I really liked the scene when the baby was born “not according to her birth plan”. However when I finished, it felt like there was too much going on and I wondered if all of it was necessary.

Of all the characters, the main one, Margie, was the one I wanted to slap across the pages and shake her. Her passiveness drove me batty when the lessons being strewn throughout story were shouting at her to live a “big life”. I wonder if I’d get this same feeling if I read it rather than listened to the audio version.

Overall, the story was charming. The message it encapsulates about the meaning of love, the sadness of loneliness, the delight of romance and living life to its fullest are ever present throughout the story. Those are good takeaways from a book. It’s easy to read and would be a perfect beach read.

Quotes I liked:

It’s hard to make room for love when anger still feels so good.”

– “It’s like he’s a person who has his emotions in a safety deposit box somewhere, and he forgot where he put it.”

– “Just look at all the fake smiles and sour faces around here. I’m going to have to take a bath with a wire brush to get all this negativity off me.”