The (Im)perfect Girlfriend

The (Im)perfect Girlfriend by Lucy-Anne Holmes

The blurb: We kissed until it became necessary to stop so that we could breathe, by which time my lips were so swollen it looked like I’d been pleasuring a brillo pad. We grinned at each other again and I felt the urge to utter something brilliantly intellectual.

‘Have I mentioned that I’m hopelessly in love with you?’

Actress Sarah Sargeant has finally landed the perfect boyfriend. But as she leaves London for LA, Sarah finds herself morphing from the perfect girlfriend, baby voicing ‘i love you’s, into a nutty one who throws phones and screams a lot.

Where did it all go wrong? Was it the photo of a semi-naked ex-girlfriend doing a downward dog she found in her boyfriend’s filofax? Or maybe it’s the steamy sex scene she films with the handsomest man in the world, ever.

Laugh-out-loud funny and brutally honest, The (Im)Perfect Girlfriend is the story of one woman’s search for her happy ever after. It is a novel that firmly establishes Lucy Anne Holmes as one of the best writers of romantic comedy today.

My review: I love Sarah Sargeant. She’s brilliant, funny, intelligent and as accident prone as the next girl. I do secretly think she’s probably gorgeous and not as fat as Lucy-Anne Holmes makes her out – there’s just too many compliments and too many men after this woman for her to be chubby! Sarah has a nice level of insecurity about her character, she’s extremely likeable despite some very unladylike characteristics. For one I hate the use of the term ‘semi’ if I could have it banned from this book my review would have added in another star. I don’t think anyone uses that saying so for me it stuck out like a sore thumb!

The (im)perfect girlfriend is a girl friendly book, intelligent enough to keep intelligent women interested but light hearted and humorous enough to make reading it a real pleasure. The characters ARE NOT perfect. This is what makes this book ten times better than some of the other chick-lit I’ve read recently. There will always be parts of these kinds of books that are unrealistic but frankly when it’s done this well – who cares? Not me, I could read it again and probably will! Worth a visit and why not try 50 Ways To Find A Lover – also genius!

7.5 stars out of 10 *******.5!

50 Ways To Find A Lover

50 Ways To Find A Lover by Lucy-Anne Holmes

50 Ways To Find A Lover by Lucy-Anne Holmes

 The blurb:
I feel like a failure. It’s now been 351 days since I had sex. That’s a carnal drought. If Bob Geldof knew about it he’d hold a concert.

Sarah Sargeant has been single for three years and nine months. She has just spent five months plucking up the courage to ask out a balding man with a paunch who works in her local pub. The gentleman in question informed her that he would rather stay in and watch the Narnia movie on DVD. Her pride has not just been bruised, it’s been disembowelled. And she vows it’s the last time she will ever reach out to a member of the opposite sex.

But her family and friends have other ideas. They enter her into a reality TV show against her will, persuade her to go speed dating and even more radically, they encourage her to start a blog. Suddenly Sarah Sargeant is on a mission.

My Review:

This book made my holiday and is the perfect pool-side reading! Lucy-Anne Holmes is a hilarious writer; I found her wit engaging and her characters frankly hysterical.

Sadly there are not 50 ways to find a lover in this book but I don’t think any the less of it because of that. The characters are well-rounded creations bordering ever so slightly on the unrealistic but this doesn’t detract from the plot, they are occasionally predictable if you have read loads of chick-lit but what the hell!

There are some very unpredictable twists in the plot, more than once I was left feeling surprised that my smug idea of where the story was going had been swept away. Well-written, fast-paced and hugely involving, I was really routing for Sarah by the end. Lucy-Anne Holmes is a lady not afraid of bad language, bad dates and bad hair days. If you haven’t picked a book to take on holiday yet I strongly recommend you take this one! All my friends had read it by the time I came back from my holiday and once you get over the annoyance of them sniggering to themselves on their sun loungers you won’t stop recommending it to people!

8.5 stars out of 10!

To buy the book click here or to find out more about other titles by Pan Macmillan visit their website.