Jessica Seaborn

Perfect-ish definitely isn’t a romance, or a rom-com. It’s kind of the opposite, of the heroine learning to love and live with herself and accepting it’s perfectly okay not to know all the answers by a particular age.

Prue is under pressure from her family, her friends and herself. She’s been dumped by her fiancé for unknown reasons, she never finished university and she lives in her super successful brother’s house under the guise of looking after his dog. She fell into a job that’s kind of okay, but compared to everyone else, she’s well behind the pack. After an unfortunate incident involving a hired dress that looks like a goldfish and the best man at a wedding, Prue knows she needs to get things back on track. So she devises a list of what she needs to do before 30 – get a proper job, her own place and find someone new. It’s a year of ups and downs, made more difficult by her distant, yet critical mother and her best friend’s life falling apart. It’s a year in which Prue will recognise her own negative behaviours and become more aware of others. It’s also a riot of messy confrontations and hilarious moments.

Fiction involving less than perfect characters is becoming more popular and I’m happy to see it. In creating a character who is realistic and flawed, it can be difficult to get someone who is both likeable and relatable. For the most part, Seaborn has done that with Prue. Sure, she is annoying at times but it’s to emphasise growth and a turning point. Prue is nearly always relatable (sorry – I didn’t get the hired dresses thing, there’s always Zara and H&M) and her honesty makes for some good drama and wicked cackling. The parts where she’s not so nice – awkwardly relatable. The characters around her are also brilliant and come to life through her gaze until they reveal themselves in full to the reader. There’s her mum, Cynthia, a highly successful chef with a thing for wigs and plain speaking that hides her own past. Delia, Prue’s best friend, has it together – she’s married with her own place, so what if her husband is always cancelling? Ben, Prue’s brother, is the school failure who turned into a famous author of erotic novels – but his family thinks that just makes him weird. All the characters are not perfect, and showing their issues to each other makes the story so much stronger.

The novel moves at a good pace, separated into months and prefaced by those ‘best life’ social media posts that you’d love to block but you can’t because the poster will call you out on their absence. As the months progress, these posts become a bit more realistic and honest, reflecting Prue’s own journey. It’s a fun read with some hilarious moments and memorable characters. (I kind of wish Ben would get his own book as his life sounds like a riot). Jessica Seaborn has created a great debut novel, that would also make a great TV series.

Thank you to Penguin for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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