Four Ways to Wear a Dress by Gillian Libby - Book Review

Four Ways to Wear a Dress by Gillian Libby

Publication Date: 07th June 2022

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, Romance 

2.8 Stars 

One Liner: More misses than hits! 

Mille Ward has been laid off from her PR job. She feels like a failure, not able to hold on to a job and settle down in life (according to her parents). Her parents blame it on her ADHD, but Millie knows that’s not the reason. She decides to visit her best friend Quincy in a small Bay town in California. 

Quincy and her folk of influencers work overtime to promote the laidback town, and Millie decides she could try a hand at becoming an influencer herself. Not to mention, she also gets to crush on Pete, Quincy’s brother, from close quarters. 

Her other two besties, Kate and Bree, help her with the move and encourage her to wear their magical black dress. It never failed them before, after all. Millie is doubtful she would fail the dress but wears it. 

When Millie has to convince Pete to be her Instagram Husband to promote her profile and his hotel business, things get a little complicated for them. Can their fake relationship lead to something real? Can the influencers save the town? Can Millie get her career back on track? 

The story is written in Mille’s first-person POV. 

What I Like: 

Millie is a decent character when she doesn’t go overboard (which happens more often during the second half). 

The setting was beautiful. I liked the scenes about surfing. Got to learn something from it, so that’s always a plus. Not that I intend to surf or anything. 

Pete is a really cool character (it also helps that he is super handsome). I feel bad for him, thanks to Millie’s stupidity. Not that he was faultless, but still. 

We see different types of working women, and each of them goes through ups and downs. I don't like Alana’s idea of perfection, but I can understand her fear of losing followers and risking everything they built from scratch. That doesn’t excuse her interference in others’ lives. 

The story has potential and made me chuckle a few times. I also didn’t have to stress my grey cells, which is another plus. But it could have been so much better. 

What Didn’t Work for Me: 

This is a case where the reader can see that Pete is in love with Millie, but she doesn’t see it (she is the narrator). She is determined to remind him that their relationship is fake at every possible opportunity. I started checking how many pages were left each time this happened. 

While the title makes the black dress a prominent part of the book, the storyline somehow loses track of it. There’s a scene towards the end that feels patchy and unnecessary (only to somehow do justice to the title). The book could’ve been the same even without that dress. Not to mention that the same dress fits four different women. 

Since when did an invitation to an interview imply a job? If that was the case, the unemployment rate around the world would never shoot up. Getting a job isn’t that easy. Millie getting kicked out of hers on the first page of the book is enough indication of the market conditions.

A major part of the book is about the life of social media influencers. It sure is damn hard to create an Instagram-worthy perfect life and hide the rest from the world. But that shouldn’t come at the cost of personal, especially kids’ future. 

Alana’s character is a contradiction throughout. I still don’t know who she really is.  

Millie is almost an instant success on Instagram. She has like 75K followers in around a month. How does that happen to non-celebs or people without no previous accounts or recognition on social media? (I’m a content writer, and digital marketing is one of my niches.) 

ADHD and autism are both a part of the book, but neither gets justice. And no, Millie can’t blame her stupidity on ADHD. I disliked how the kid (Quincy’s son) hardly got any space in the book. Nope. He deserved better. 

To sum up, Four Ways to Wear a Dress is a lighthearted book with some laughs and annoying moments if you don’t mind an overload of the influencer stuff. Oh, a generous amount of the F-word. 

Thank you, NetGalley and SOURCEBOOKS Casablanca, for the eARC. 

#NetGalley 

*****

P.S: The book has steam (level 3-ish, I suppose). Readers, be warned. ;)