Book Review: Baggage Claim

Book: Baggage Claim by David E. Talbert

Edition: Paperback

Description:

SHE'S GOT THIRTY DAYS AND THIRTY THOUSAND MILES TO FIND A HUSBAND.

According to the women in Montana Moore's family, you're not a lady until you marry and not a woman until you have birthed at least two children. At age thirty-five, Montana is neither and her prospects are meager. Her mother is working on husband number five, and her baby sister, Sheree, has just announced her engagement to a promising future doctor. Pledging to keep herself from being the oldest and the only women in her entire family never to wed, Montana embarks on a thirty-day, thirty-thousand-mile expedition to charm a potential suitor into becoming her fiance.

Who will she choose? Damon Diesel, a P. Diddy wannabe; Reverend Curtis P. Merewether, pastor of Greater House of Deliverance, Tabernacle of Praise, Worship, and Miracles; pompous attorney-turned-councilman Langston Jefferson Battle III; or Quinton Jamison, a multimillionaire who's twenty years her senior?



Rating: 3 stars

Review:

In Baggage Claim, 35 years old Montana Moore has been subjected to her family's motto that "you're not a lady until you marry and not a woman until you have birthed at least two children" for as long as she can remember. Her mother Catherine, who was on her fourth marriage, kept a steady amount of pressure on Montana to get married. Even being divorced is seen in a better light with this marriage obsessed family than Montana's perpetual single status. Because it doesn't matter if you have been married or how many times you have been married, the point is that you are or have been married.

All that pressure aside, Montana had a job as a flight attendant that she enjoyed working alongside her two friends Gail Best and Sam Benson but she thinks she might have finally found the man of her dreams, Graham. He invited her to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with him and she couldn't help thinking that he was going to propose.

Her trip to Chicago started out great with Graham picking her up at the airport and taking her to his luxury boat where they enjoyed a chef prepared romantic dinner. All in all, it was a wonderfully romantic, sensual and sexual evening until Graham checked her into a hotel. Their romantic evening was cut short because he said he had to go home because he has an early flight in the morning and he still had some paperwork to go over.

Even though she thought it was a little strange that he didn't want to take her to his house she somehow convinced herself that this was only a little inconvenience to her road to marital bliss. However, a phone call from Gail suggested that something wasn't right and that Montana should do a little investigating and see if Graham was hiding something. Turns out he was and now Montana was left with a broken heart but back home in Baltimore she received some more bad news. Her younger sister Sheree, a 21 year old college student, was getting married.

This bit of disappointing news along with her mother's continuous disparaging comments had Montana coming up with the idea of finding a fiance in three weeks to bring to her sister's Sheree's engagement party. She got some help putting together her plan with Gail and Sam which would have her pretending to randomly meet or run into a few of her ex-boyfriends one at a time on various flights. She was hoping there might be a diamond in the rough among her prospects.

She ended up traveling from coast to coast and states in between looking for love but a few of her exes might have looked great on paper but there was a reason things didn't workout the first time. And the second time around truly reminded her as to why she never should have tried to rekindle something from the past. However, there was one ex-boyfriend that may have given her a spark of hope that she found her happily ever after but there was a catch to it.

Although she was flying around trying to find a potential husband among her ex-boyfriends, I think she was overlooking someone, William Wright. He has been her best friend for 30 years as well as being an ex-boyfriend (they dated from elementary school until the 11th grade) but Montana doesn't see him as a love interest since they have been friends for so long. However, I think her opinion may have started to change but was it possible that she was too late.

I think Montana was so set in trying not to wind up as the only Moore woman not to be married or show up at her sister's engagement party alone that she resorted to this ridiculous plan of trying to find a fiance in three weeks. But I like that she realized how her family's twisted motto has been negatively influencing her life and I love the speech she gave during the engagement party. But honestly with the way her family obsess over being married I doubt her revelation will make as much difference other than perhaps to her younger sister Sheree.

This is one of the few times where I have watched the movie before reading the book. Actually, I didn't even know the movie was based on a book until I stumbled upon it. This is one of the rare instances where I found the movie to be better than the book. Which is funny since the author also wrote the screenplay as well as directed the movie. But I found the story was more well-written and flowed better in the movie than in the book. I also thought the characters in the movie were more interesting instead of feeling like caricatures as they sometime appeared in the book.

Baggage Claim isn't a bad read but I do think the movie is a better version of the story.