PERFECTLY IMPERFECT by Harper Sloan-Review and Book Tour
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date November 17, 2015
Mirror, mirror … who’s the fairest of them all?
I still cringe when I hear that line. A fairy tale that had girls pretending they were the fairest, the most beautiful, and the most entitled. A fairy tale most couldn’t grow out of turned my haunted childhood memories into a living nightmare. Girls who grew up believing that pile of garbage became the meanest of all ‘mean girls.’
And those mean girls were right – it was a line meant for all the beautiful people in the world – and I knew the answer would never be me.
The women with long legs, flat stomachs, and perfect chests.
The type of women Kane Masters gravitated toward.
Well, that’s definitely not Willow Tate.
No. That will never be me.
Because I’m completely imperfect.
And … I hate myself.
I have no idea what Kane could possibly see in someone like me when he could have them.
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REVIEW: PERFECTLY IMPERFECT is the latest stand alone novel by Harper Sloan.
Told from dual first person points of view (Willow and Kane) PERFECTLY IMPERFECT is an emotional and heartbreaking storyline that will resonate with many readers who have issues of low self-esteem and negative body image. Our heroine Willow Tate is not perfect but she is perfect in the eyes of Hollywood heartthrob Kane Masters. Willow comes from a dysfunctional family wherein she has become the brunt of her stepfather, half sister’s and ex-husbands brutal and emotionally humiliating verbal assaults. An accidental meeting, not once but twice, with the sexy actor/director Kane Masters throws Willow’s world upside down when he offers her everything that he is, and all that she could want.
PERFECTLY IMPERFECT is a Cinderella-esque fairytale storyline about a woman who is barely surviving in a world of faux and plastic perfection as she works for her stepfather’s modeling agency. Willow’s self-esteem and body image is so low that all of the negativity in her life has become a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein she becomes a target for all that is wrong in the world. The devastating death of her mother; her step-father’s hatred and half sister’s vitriol attacks; a husband who despises the very air from which she breathes; and Willow’s subsequent emotional eating disorder have left our heroine on the verge of a divorce, and the brink of a personal breakdown. Enter Kane Masters, the man whose own perfect image hides a secret that if revealed would destroy his career and that of someone else. Kane is a man whose need for Willow defies explanation- from the first time he saw her, Kane has become a man possessed in the hopes of something more.
Willow is every woman who has ever hated herself; hated her looks, hated her body; hated the thought of facing another day surrounded by the perfection of every day life. In the beginning, our heroine is a doormat for her family’s attacks; she is a punching bag for their verbal and emotional abuse such that at times the attacks were overwhelming and unbelievable. Willow is at her lowest, and her self-deprecating insecurity knows no limits as it pertains to her own personal value and low self-worth as she traverses a world of black and white, with no color or expectations of future success. It will take the love of a man to show Willow that her true value does not come from the acceptance of other people, but from the acceptance of herself.
PERFECTLY IMPERFECT’s straddles a fine line with its’ veiled message to women everywhere. Although beauty is in the eye of the beholder, what does it say when a woman must find her own self worth from the acceptance and attention of a beautiful man. PERFECTLY IMPERFECT is a story of fiction meant to entertain, and I doubt that the author meant anything other than to tell a story about overcoming issues of self-esteem to be accepted and loved by others and one’s self, but the fact that Willow’s slow climb out of the abyss is a direct result of unconditional love from the perfect man is definitely a fairytale for the 21st century. The premise is engaging, emotional and intense; the characters are colorful and heartbreaking; the romance is a slow build to a happily ever after.
Copy supplied by publisher
Reviewed by Sandy
I nod.
“Tell me why.” His demand, steady and calm, gives me the courage I need to tell him. To open a vein and bleed my insecurities.
“I’m not perfect,” I whisper.
“And neither am I, Willow. I don’t want perfect. What so many see as perfect, to me, is fake. Perfect isn’t achievable naturally. No one, and I mean no one, is perfect.”
I’m shaking my head before he’s even done speaking, but one long finger comes up and presses against my lips before I can speak.
“No, let me finish. There isn’t beauty in perfection. It’s as fake as the image the word projects. Beauty is found in imperfection, Willow, because to admit you’re not perfect means you’re admitting you’re not whole and absolute. When I think of myself, I see someone willing to admit he’s as far from complete as it gets because, in order to get to that perfection, I need to find the other part of me who will make my life better. To take all the faults I have and fill them, and only then will I be there. You see, the way I see it, the only way to become perfect is to find that perfectly imperfect person who brings it out of you.”
When he stops, I swear I might have stopped breathing. How am I supposed to respond to that?
“Do you trust me?” he asks, his voice strong and sure.
“Yes, Kane. Nerves or not, I do.”
“Then let me show you what I see when I look at you.”
He brings his hands up, framing my face once again in a way I’m quickly becoming addicted to the feeling of. His warm eyes implore, begging me without words to let him continue. I do not intend to stop him, regardless of the butterflies currently taking over my system. I’m all in.
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Harper lives in small town Georgia just a short drive from her hometown of Peachtree City. She (and her 3 daughters) enjoy ruling the house they dubbed ‘Estrogen Ocean’, much to her husbands chagrin. Harper has a borderline unhealthy obsession with books; you can almost ALWAYS find her with her eReader attached. She enjoys bad reality TV and cheesy romantic flicks. Her favorite kind of hero–the super alpha kind!
Harper started using writing as a way to unwind when the house went to sleep at night; and with a house full of crazy it was the perfect way to just relax. It didn’t take long before a head full of very demanding alphas would stop at nothing to have their story told.
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