View source for Mr Perfect by Joanna Davies

{{infobox1
|title=Mr Perfect
|author=Joanna Davies
|reviewer=Ruth Ng
|genre=General Fiction
|rating=3.5
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-1906784676
|pages=193
|publisher=Honno Welsh Women's Press
|date=July 2013
|video=elepc3AcYIQ
|summary=I came away with the feeling that I didn't really like any of the characters in this story, which was unsettling.  A bit more explicit that the chick-lit title would suggest, this is an interesting read, if not to my own tastes.
|cover=1906784671
|aznuk=1906784671
|aznus=1906784671
}}
This book made me feel old.  Old, and a bit boring.  From the blurb I'd expected a light-hearted chick-lit style story of finding the perfect man, or perhaps realising that the perfect man doesn't exist and finding, instead, the man you love has been living right under your nose all along!  It is, in part, that sort of story.  But it's also the story of two people who spend an awful lot of their lives having sex with entirely the wrong people and occasionally running into each other (literally at one point!) but missing the fact that they like each other for many, many years.

Mari and Owen are both 35, and originally met way back when they were in school.  Their paths cross now and again, but it takes them a long time before they begin to wonder if perhaps they're meant to be together.  Mari finds herself in a succession of relationships that are doomed to failure.  She's pretty harsh, rejecting one man because his voice is a bit funny, and breaking up with another only weeks before they are due to get married.  I felt like I was supposed to like Mari, and identify with her since we're of a similar age, but to be honest I found her annoying and her very varied love life was rather alien to me, hence the feeling that perhaps my life was a bit dull in comparison.  Dull, but happier!  Owen faired better.  I liked him a little more, although he's still very promiscuous and there were times when I just wanted to shake him!

I liked the way the story was written.  We go from time period to time period, and in each we hear from Mari's point of view and from Owen's point of view.  The two characters are distinct, and they ring true.  There are lots of humourous moments throughout the book too.  Owen's first sexual experience is unusual, and disgusting, and funny all rolled into one!  There are funny date experiences.  But there are darker moments too, including a woman who turns stalker on Owen, in a rather disturbing way.

I think perhaps I had expected the book to be much lighter and fuzzier than it was, and so I found it a disappointment.  It's very sexual, and often I just felt sad for the characters that they seemed so lost in their lives.  It's worth a read as an irreverant version of the 'find your perfect man' chick lit story but somehow, at the end, I felt sad for these desperate people that they had spent so much of their lives looking for each other.  Hopefully if you go into it with your eyes open about what to expect you'll have a better reading experience that I did!

If you're looking for a love story that's a little bit more standard try [[Wedding Season by Katie Fforde]]

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