Virtually Perfect

By Paige Roberts

Not so long ago, Lizzie Glass had a successful TV show, a cookbook deal, and a social diary crammed with parties and events. But fame doesn’t stay fresh for long. Her show fizzles, her magazine column is canceled, and Lizzie’s only option is a summer job as personal chef to the Silvesters, a wealthy and eccentric family.
 
Their beach house is a lavish, beautifully decorated palace on the Jersey Shore, and Lizzie gets to work catering to Kathryn and Jim Silvester’s fashionably restrictive diets. But it’s their
twenty-something daughter who presents Lizzie with her biggest challenge—professionally and personally. A self-proclaimed “wellness warrior,” Zoe Silvester has a hugely popular website and app that promotes healthy living and organic, unprocessed foods. Yet Lizzie soon realizes that The Clean Life site has a dirty little secret. In fact, Zoe’s entire online persona is based on a dangerous hoax that runs deep and will damage lives. Exposing Zoe won’t just jeopardize Lizzie’s job and a promising new relationship—it may expose the cracks in her own past.
 
Sharply observed, witty, and thoughtful, Paige Roberts’ debut novel is a compelling look at one woman’s journey toward reinventing herself—and seeing through the façade of others—to discover the imperfect but sometimes wonderful truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781496710109

Paige Roberts

Paige Roberts is a former journalist who has written for publications such as McSweeney’s, Culinate, and Smithsonian.com. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.

Reviews for Virtually Perfect

[joeyee-4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cooking or food theme books always catch my attention, so when I saw this one being offered I had to request it.  This book is your typical chick-lit book.  The girl has a career crisis.  She finds out her friends are not her true friends.  She is probably broke, and does not want her family to know or help.  Then, the perfect man would appear, and saves her from everything.  Even though the book was quite predictable, it was still enjoyable.  I really like the characters, especially Zoe.  She is a very interesting character, her perspective on life and family could be a book itself.   I wish Lizzy's mom has a bigger part.  I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a fast entertaining read.

The narrating is good.  There is nothing special about it, but I can not find any negatives about it either.  The pace is perfect and relaxing.  The pronunciation is clear.  There are some slight differences among the characters' voices, it was easy to differentiate who is talking.

4 out of 5 stars
Received a free copy from Audiobook Jukebox in exchange for an honest review.

[jayurgal · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received this book from Goodreads giveaway. It was hard to give it more than a 3 star, I did consider 2 stars. As much as I had hoped to like it, it was a basic story that was predictable and boring to some degree. It seemed to just drag on. It just was not my kind of story.

[cj82487 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a pleasant surprise and a quick read. I was grabbed by the cover, hooked by the characters, and committed to the story.

This book had a character that I loved to hate, Kathryn. Part of me kept reading just to see if karma would come around on her, because I know women like Kathryn. She flaunts her wealth, barely registers other's needs, spoils her child blindly, and blames everyone else around her. Oh, Kathryns of the world, open your eyes and step down from your high horse. Kathryn wasn't even the "bad" guy in this one.

I really enjoyed the multiple stories that are a part of a single story aspect of this book. There is the story of Lizzie and her failed career as a Food Network star, the relationship between Lizzie and her mother, Zoe and her blog, and the strange and dysfunctional Silvester family dynamic. All the pieces fit perfectly together and add layers to the overall story of Lizzie finding herself.

I became invested in the story, particularly Susan, Lizzie's mom. She was the one I wanted to see with a happy ending. She was the one I was flipping pages to find out how she was doing. Her story was a little predictable, but it was set up nicely with all of the accompanying details of Lizzie's story. I think what I liked the most is that Susan's story is told through a series of emails between herself and her sister, Linda. It broke up the pieces of Lizzie's story nicely.

Like I mentioned, the story was a little predictable, but not in the Oh-this-kind-of-story-again sort of way. The details created a great mental image of Lizzie and the Silvester's home that I didn't have to fill in the blanks myself. The relationship between the details and the timing was balanced just right. When I guessed what would happen next, it wasn't 10 chapters down the line that I found out I was right, but a matter of paragraphs or pages because the pace was steady.

My complaints with the book are few, such as the lack of pronoun use. Normally, I would say using too many pronouns is annoying, but there were parts of this one where a pronoun would have been nice. There was an entire paragraph at one point that almost every sentence started with "Lizzie." It took away from the story that I had to read her name so many times in sections.

Also, Lizzie's love life was Oh-this-kind-of-story-again predictable. I saw it coming a mile away and I was hoping I would be wrong, but it was very much the clichéd love story we've all read a million times. It took away from Lizzie's story instead of adding to it and it just felt like filler.

While I was more invested in Susan, Lizzie's self-acceptance and journey finding herself was a definite highlight. Many of us, myself included, put too much weight on our shoulders and have unrealistic expectations. Some people get lucky and make millions of dollars on business ventures before they are 30, but the majority of the population aren't lucky like that. Lizzie's whole life had centered around her cooking show when she was in college. She rode the fame train and thought that because that didn't work out, she failed.

We all make mistakes, however, and who we are and what we do at 20 is not who we become at 30.

With age and experience come maturity and self-acceptance. I just wish Lizzie would have seen this without the help of Nate, but that's just me.