Perfect-ish

Jessica Seaborn

Perfect-ish
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Penguin Random House Australia
Country
Australia
Published
15 August 2023
Pages
368
ISBN
9781761340031

Perfect-ish

Jessica Seaborn

A smart, funny and heartfelt anti-romcom by a bright new voice in Australian fiction.

Prue is about to turn thirty and feels like everyone else is living their best life. Her friends are posting online about their amazing relationships, exciting travel plans and newborn babies. Prue, on the other hand, has been dumped by her fiance, she's dropped out of uni, and her job counselling lonely people only makes her feel more alone.

With the help of her best friend, Delia, Prue sets three goals to turn her life around before her milestone birthday- ditch the job, move out of her brother's house, and find love.

But when Delia's perfect marriage begins to crack, and a secret threatens to shatter their friendship, Prue realises there's a difference between seeming to have a perfect life and finding your own perfect-ish life. And maybe being far from picture perfect is perfectly okay.

Review

Prue’s life is far from perfect. She’s about to turn 30 and feels like an absolute failure. All around her, she sees people living their best lives while she’s having to crash at her brother’s after her fiancé breaks off their engagement. She’s also dropped out of her veterinary degree and is working a job counselling lonely people – which she finds incredibly embarrassing. Then, of course, there’s her mother who seems to pick at every single thing about her, while simultaneously ignoring her. So with the help of her best friend Delia, Prue makes a list of all the things she wants to accomplish before she hits the big three-oh: find a job she’s passionate about, get her own place, and find the love of her life.

Prue is often an unlikeable main character and at times her actions prevented me from rooting for her. But at other times, I found her incredibly relatable. Prue is the embodiment of how we all often feel after scrolling through Instagram, seeing everyone living seemingly perfect lives. Whether it’s trying to prove we are doing well by posting selfies with the perfect caption, taking photos at fancy restaurants, or renting designer clothes to make ourselves look more successful, we are all putting on some sort of show to the outside world. But what I found most relatable was Prue’s relationship with her mother. Jessica Seaborn manages to perfectly capture the feeling of always losing your place in the spotlight to a sibling, and the constant yearning for a parent’s approval.

Fans of Emily Henry and Genevieve Novak will enjoy this fast-paced and funny Australian debut about ignoring society’s expectations and finding your own kind of perfect.

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