Book Review | The Chapel Wars | Lindsey Leavitt

Title: The Chapel Wars
Author: Lindsey Leavitt (web | twitter)
Genre: Contemporary YA
Amazon | Goodreads | B&N
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Release date: May 6, 2014
Source: ARC from the publisher via NetGalley (Thanks, Bloomsbury!)
Related reviews: GOING VINTAGE

Sixteen-year-old Holly wants to remember her Grandpa forever, but she’d rather forget what he left her in his will: his wedding chapel on the Las Vegas strip. Whatever happened to gold watches, savings bonds, or some normal inheritance?

And then there’s Grandpa’s letter. Not only is Holly running the business with her recently divorced parents, but she needs to make some serious money—fast. Grandpa also insists Holly reach out to Dax, the grandson of her family’s mortal enemy and owner of the cheesy chapel next door. No matter how cute Dax is, Holly needs to stay focused: on her group of guy friends, her disjointed family, work, school and… Dax. No wait, not Dax.

Holly’s chapel represents everything she’s ever loved in her past. Dax might be everything she could ever love in the future. But as for right now, there’s a wedding chapel to save.

I’m a little bit bummed about THE CHAPEL WARS, friends. I routinely look forward to Lindsey Leavitt’s books, ever since I read SEAN GRISWOLD’S HEAD, which remains one of the most surprisingly wonderful books I can recall reading ever. THE CHAPEL WARS had a great premise: Las Vegas, wedding chapels, a Romeo and Juliet-esque family feud. All super interesting, exciting things! And I suppose there were things about this book that lived up to the promise of awesomeness I saw in the synopsis, and I finished it, but mostly I was let down. And I hate using the line, “well, at least I finished it,” because that sounds awful. But…it fits. Bummer.

As I mentioned just before, THE CHAPEL WARS is about Holly. Her story begins with her beloved grandfather’s funeral and the subsequent reading of his will. He throws everyone—Holly included—for a loop by leaving her in charge of the family’s business, a wedding chapel off the strip. Holly and her now-divorced parents have been working the chapel for years, and for just as long (or longer), their chapel has been GOING AT IT with the chapel across the parking lot. Holly’s grandfather and the owner of the other chapel literally hated each other; the guy shows up at the funeral and TALKS SHIZZ about the dead person. I mean…doesn’t get worse than that. But now that Holly is left in charge of the chapel, she realizes how much work she’ll have to do to save her family’s lifeblood. Things in this arena are complicated by the cute, sweet grandson of the shizz-talking meanie, Dax.

One of my favorite aspects of THE CHAPEL WARS was the business. The wedding chapel angle was pretty fun. It’s not something I’ve ever encountered before, so I enjoyed the newness of it. And, come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve read many YA books that take place in Las Vegas, so getting to live in that place and see what life is like for the locals and not just the people who visit was also good fun. I’ve never been to Vegas, but I’ve seen movies. Somehow I think that doesn’t quite capture what life is actually like there. Talking about the wedding packages and the neon sign museum and the old casinos set the perfect atmosphere.

This is where I get to that part of my review where I try and figure out whether I actually liked things or didn’t like them so much. THE CHAPEL WARS was good enough. But there were also a number of things that didn’t capture my attention or my feelings or my interest. One of these mixed bags is, unfortunately, Holly herself. I liked her. I did. She’s going through a tough loss and is a high-schooler that literally has a REAL JOB. And not just any REAL JOB, but one that her entire family depends on. On top of this (yes, there’s more), she’s IN CHARGE of this incredibly important family business that is FAILING. Laying it all out here makes it seem a bit much, to be honest, but it sets up the main drama. Despite all of this, PLUS the romantic drama with Dax, I had a hard time connecting with Holly. She’s very type A and committed and fierce, which is great, but I couldn’t work up any real emotions about her or her situation. Which is ironic because Holly herself struggles mightily with feels. WAHH!

Speaking of Dax, he was adorable. Shady sometimes, but adorable. His relationship with Holly is inherently imperfect given the relationship between their families, and so they struggle with things on and off. When they’re on, they’re cute enough, but much like my feelings about Holly, I felt no tingly-butterflies-swoons for them. THIS IS SUCH A BUMMER. MAJOR SAD FACE. Not feeling swoons is pretty upsetting, friends. I wanted to! I wanted to swoon so badly! But one of my biggest issues with THE CHAPEL WARS is that my emotional connections to the characters were almost nonexistent, and that applies to the romance in a big way.

I’ve been trying to write this review without blatantly using the word (or whatever it is) “meh,” but that really is the best word/sound for my overall opinion of THE CHAPEL WARS. ALAS ALAS! There were great angles in Lindsey Leavitt’s book that I wish we got more time with, particularly some issues with Holly’s family and her little brother. That was some meaty stuff, but we didn’t get as much of it as I would’ve liked. I also had a hard time believing that Holly could be an excellent, full-time high-school student as well as THE BOSS of an epically struggling business. Holly had some great friends, and they helped things along, but I also thought there was a lot more to be mined from Dax and his background. Basically I saw glimpses of awesome things, but got big scoopfuls of other stuff instead.

All in all, I expected better from THE CHAPEL WARS because I know that Lindsey Leavitt has done better, at least in my reading of her books. This doesn’t make me want to stop looking forward to new things from her, though. Not by any means. Everyone has some blips in the radar, right? Unfortunately, for me, THE CHAPEL WARS was just that.

Check out some other reviews of The Chapel Wars by Lindsey Leavitt!

Danielle @ Love at First Page: “The Chapel Wars is a fresh, memorable story, made all the more exciting by its Las Vegas setting.”

Brittany @ The Book Addict’s Guide: “THE CHAPEL WARS was a lot of fun to read, but given that I had such a strong connection in GOING VINTAGE, it fell juuuust a bit shy of a new favorite for me.”