The Perfect Dress

By: Carolyn Brown

Narrated by: Karissa Vacker

Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

An Amazon Charts bestseller.

A plus-size Texas gal has designs on an old crush in New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown’s exuberant, bighearted romance.

In the small town of Celeste, Texas, Mitzi Taylor has never quite fit inside the lines. Nearly six feet tall, flame-haired, and with a plus-size spirit to match every curve, she’s found her niche: a custom wedding-dress boutique catering to big brides-to-be with big dreams. Taking the plunge alongside her two best friends, she’s proud they’ve turned The Perfect Dress into a perfect success. 

Just when Mitzi has it all pulled together, Graham Harrison walks back into her life, looking for bridesmaid dresses for his twin daughters. A still-strapping jock whose every gorgeous, towering inch smells like aftershave, the star of all Mitzi’s high school dreams is causing quite a flush. 

For Mitzi, all it takes is a touch to feel sparks flitting around her like fireflies. She can just imagine what a kiss could do. Graham’s feeling it, too. And he’s about to make that imagination of Mitzi’s run wild. Is it just a hot summer fling, or are Mitzi’s next designs for herself and seeing her own dreams come true?

©2019 by Carolyn Brown. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Never wanted to return an audiobook until now

Shallow plot about even shallower characters. I can deal with a lot for a nice little romance based distraction. But good golly, all the mothers represented in this book are either dead or horrible, any woman that is skinny is possibly satan or just lying to themselves until they get fat again, and men are all the absolute worst unless they're practically saints. No in between! No depth! No respect for your fellow woman or people with different body shapes, being pro fat and body shaming skinny women and short men is NOT body positivity.

I didn't even come here for body positivity! I saw a book with a plus sized lead who makes wedding dresses and falls for a single father and thought, awesome, take my money and let's go. But holy mackerel, they talk nonstop about food and being big and their insecurities but then also rag on others constantly. The MANY female antagonists in this book can't just be catty or mean, they have to be skinny and pretty too, cause skinny girls are the real enemy here, I guess??

And there's hardly any romance happening!!!!!!!!! I am more than halfway through this, hour 7 of almost 10, and the two leads have barely kissed and spent maybe four hours together alone. Just. ugh.

I have wasted time listening and hoping a different character would call the three leads out on being awful while also somehow staying the victims forever. But I'm done. Just had to waste another couple of minutes on this book so I can bitch about it.

Southern Big Girls

I really enjoyed this book. Good performance. I hope this becomes a series.
I will say I got tired of hearing "big girls" and listening to them eating fried chicken and doughnuts all the time. Not very accurate portrayal of us "big girls".

Don’t pay money for this book

This book was free so I decided to take a chance. It was terrible. The book is inconsistent and the author includes details that make no sense. Don’t waste your time on this title.

The Perfect Dress

I don’t know how Carolyn Brown does it but every book is better than the one before. I love how she weaves multiple storylines to make one beautiful story. The characters were so well defined and the love in this story, so powerful. I didn’t want the story to end. The narrator was excellent too. Please write more. Thank you for putting them on kindle as read and listen books! Loved it!

Fluffy but fun; annoying to listen to

This is a fun and fluffy story. While the main story line is fun, the main characters get to know and love two teenagers IMMEDIATELY and the girls are incredibly talented with professional flower arranging skills IMMEDIATELY; the teenager characters were just mono-dimensional and annoying. Granny Fanny Lou was also a caricature. But overall, I still thought it was a fun book. The performance though, was hard to take. The Texas accents were so pronounced that they seemed overdone. If this was made into a movie, it seems like it would be a Saturday morning cartoon.

basic sweet story

it was very cute. I appreciate that she didn't kill off ant characters like she has in the past. it was very sweet. but I didn't love most of the dialogue, it was often a bit too cheesy

Nice read

If you want a nice read (listen) without sex in detail this is the book for you. It basically is about large size women that are treated differently from school age to adulthood.

Size of Hearts and Size of the Music= Love Match

Loved it, loved it, loved it!! The music references were perfect especially Martina McBride's "Marry Me!" The story of women who love themselves and those around them, no matter what size they are....the wonderful men who love them too, and the stinkers who think size is the measure of goodness and worthiness is a story for the ages. Graham's upfront honesty was sooooo refreshing! Narration was great and Carolyn Brown's sassy sense of humor did justice to this story that is worth the reading. Enjoyed it!!

Liked it with some caveats

There were some wonderful things about this book. I adored the relationships and family that the women formed. They were the essence of “ride or die” and supported each other always. That they were comfortable in their bodies was wonderful. What drove me a little crazy was that never for a second did we get to know the women and the girls as anything other than plus sized and they were so much more than only that. Smart, wonderful business people, kind, beautiful on the inside and out, loyal, empathetic etc, Not a page went by without reminding us “how big” they were and each and every time there was any sort of issue the author picked the lowest hanging fruit and used a fat insult. Yes, this is about their wonderful business catering to plus sized women, but we knew that and it felt at times gratuitous. The words “one trick pony” kept going through my mind.

This book is good for the soul of this transplanted Texan!

This book has made my day! It made me feel like I was back home in Texas. I could relate to the characters as I am no petite ninny either. Being tall and curvey has brought both admiration and snippy remarks. I have decked a few rude people and as I moved into adulthood learned the subtle art of catty remarks to verbally euthanize assholes. This is a must read that will have you crying and laughing. Read this book next!! Kudos to the author!!!!

Easy listening

I liked this book but the story was a little to simplistic- I would have enjoyed more twists and turns along the way! But very enjoyable few hours listening to the wonderful performances.

Good sweet listen

Good sweet and interesting. One flaw is that everyone got on too well not really any conflict and resolution