Reviews

On the cusp of turning thirty, Prue felt like everyone but her was living their best life. With a broken engagement, an unfinished degree and a job she ‘fell’ into, she was stuck. Her best friend Delia seemed to have it all, but then her perfect marriage began to crack, and Prue realised it wasn’t picture perfect either.

I really enjoyed this one! Prue as a heroine was flawed, but I adored her. Lately, I came to realise that I gravitated towards books with self-exploratory main characters and ended up loving all of them. This was no exception.

While the overall turning-thirty theme wasn’t anything new, I couldn’t stop turning the pages as I cared about Prue. I loved her friendship with Delia, and I could totally see how their relationship worked even though I rolled my eyes at some of their (slightly unhealthy) interactions. I also didn’t expect to love Ben, with his honest-but-true jabs at Prue, such as her tendency to make everything about herself (LOL).

It was honest, raw, self-deprecating in places, and heartwarming in others. I admired that it touched the subject of loneliness - that you could be surrounded by a lot of people and still feel lonely.

At the end of the day, it was a fun read! So glad to have found yet another author to watch.

(Thanks to Penguin Australia for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review)

vincent_coles's review

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emotional inspiring reflective relaxing fast-paced

4.75

tonilereads's review

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emotional funny hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

luluwoohoo's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Perfect-ish by Jessica Seaborn
☀️☀️☀️🌤️

▪️A light-hearted, thoughtful and timely examination of loneliness and personal growth that hits home without burrowing too deeply in its darkness
▪️As someone who had a panic attack at my impending thirties, Prue is a wonderfully relatable character with a level of complexity and unattractiveness that I appreciated. Her flaws are cringe-worthy in the most accurate and believable way, and the growth of her relationships throughout the story was enjoyable to read
▪️The supporting characters were all interesting and well constructed, though I would have enjoyed more detail on Prue's father, and their purpose in the narrative was always clear and succinctly handled. Personally I found the initial setup of Prue's romantic relationship a bit forgiving, though it found it's feet by the end
▪️The pacing of this felt too slow initially, due mostly to the structure of chapters by month in which the majority of the content is within the first few months, but it picked up well into the second act and onwards. I would have liked to see a bit more of the conflict resolution in the final two chapters, which felt a bit rushed over in comparison and lessened the impact of Prue's growth a little
▪️This was a book that was personally very relatable and touching to me and I liked the way Seaborn handled the concept with a good balance of dark and light. It speaks to my generation and our current dilemmas, and I'm sure many of my friends would enjoy this quick read for what it is able to deliver in a short amount of pages.

"Someone, somewhere, is taking a picture for Instagram so that they can caption the post Day for it with a sun emoji."

booksandlattesaddict's review

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emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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