Review: "Perfect Girl" by Michele Gorman

Carol is the perfect girlfriend, perfect sister, perfect employee and perfect daughter. All of her life she has craved the praise that comes from being perceived as being "perfect" but the lifestyle is starting to take take its toll on her. She finds herself stressed out and worn thin by the demands of her job, and on top of that her sister expects her to drop everything and plan the perfect wedding for her and her mother expects Carol to be their personal travel agent. When the balls that she constantly juggles begin to fall, one by one, it's only a matter of time until she bends under the pressure and snaps. Who will be there to pick up the pieces when she does?

Who among us hasn't felt that pressure to be the perfect something- the perfect wife, the perfect mother, or the perfect employee. I'm sure that many of us feel the pressure to be multiple combinations of those three. Society certainly doesn't help things. Every time we turn around it seems like models or actresses on the cover of magazines are bragging that it is incredibly easy to "have it all". I certainly saw a little of myself in Carol from Perfect Girl. As a wife, a mother, a daughter and an employee I often feel the pressure to be perfect, to have perfect children and to keep the perfect home, all while holding up a full time job. Although Michele Gorman has become one of my favourite authors over the years, and I look forward to all of her releases, the premise alone on this one drew me in. As Carol continues to be dumped on by her friends and her family we see hairline cracks in her demeanor begin to appear and we wonder how long it will be until she explodes.

At times in the beginning Carol is too much of a doormat for us to have any real respect for her. While I certainly recognized many of her traits in myself I wanted to yell at her for being such a pushover! As the book progressed, though, and as certain events begin to transpire I found myself liking Carol more and more and by the end I found myself outright admiring her!

Well-written and captivating, with an ending that I thoroughly enjoyed and a plot that we could all learn something from, Perfect Girl is a thought-provoking read for anyone who feels like they just don't measure up. My thanks to the author for providing me with a copy in exchange for my honest review.