Flawless by Jennifer McGill-Sadera

Flawless
Jennifer McGill-Sadera
Published: 11th September, 2013
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Summary:

Nobody’s perfect. Except Lia Copeland. She’s flawless. And worshipped. And hated. From her perfectly proportioned figure and enviable bone structure to her instinctual talent for clothing design and cavalier attitude, Lia’s the woman every other woman wants to be and every man wants to have. Catapulted from sigh-maker in the high-school halls to superstardom in the fashion world, she makes it look easy. A girl like that has everything; every reason to be happy. Then why does Lia Copeland just want everyone to leave her the hell alone?
Behind the dazzling light of Lia’s successes is a dark tale of fear, betrayal and confusion, leaving her with unfathomable anger–and so many questions. Chief among them: why is apathy threatening to take over her life? She forces herself to look to both inside and outside sources of the problem, leading her through a maze of emotions and relationships as she carries out her quest.
From the friends of Lia’s youth–her best friend, Maddie, her tragic kinship with Doug, the tangled love triangle between her, Doug’s cousin, Chad, and her pal, Wilson–to her later-day bond with her mentor, Jade, and therapist Ruth, Lia discovers the necessity of friendship and forgiveness.
A story about the choices made in the wake of travail and tragedy, it explores relationships with all their messy and marvelous moments and magnifies the beauty, wonder and endurance of first love.

What I liked: The imperfections in each of the characters. From poor judgement, to narcissism, and even the moments of jealous-hate, the imperfections in each of the characters made me love them all the more. I went into this book not realizing how true so many of this books reviews are, it’s completely five star worthy! From Lia, who we follow in late high school all the way to her thirties, we have a character who knows something is missing in her life. We follow her as she makes mistakes, makes human choices that don’t always end like she hoped. You can feel how she feels, all the hope and desperation, and so much more. I doubt I’ll ever be able to explain everything I liked with this book because there’s just so much about this book that I enjoyed. The journey was long (over 700 pages!) but I’m incredibly glad the author chose to wait and let me read the revised edition of this novel. It was absolutely fantastic and I read it all in a day because I just couldn’t put the book down! Suffice to say, while there’s so much to read in the novel, it’s worth the read because of the connection I felt to the story and to emotions it pulled out of me. While I always henge a little on reading any contemporary book, I’m incredibly glad I asked to review it for the author!

What I didn’t like: Sometimes there were moments that lacked the punch I was expecting from the reveals, especially the big reveal of the story that we learn, the reason behind her apathy.  I just felt it could have been delivered better with all the tension leading up to the reveal. Though Lia’s reaction was apt for such a reveal, it’s delivery just felt like it was slightly lacking.

Overall Review: Flawless is a beautiful book, full of love, loss, hope and so much more than I can tell. Lia is a character who is flawed and imperfect just like any human and incredibly relate-able with her story. Every chapter is riveting and full of emotions, each character a pile of personality traits and characteristics and quirks shaped so wonderfully into memorable characters who you’ll remember long after you finish the book.

Recommend?: I do! Incredibly so. It’s a beautiful book and though I have a ecopy of it I am definitely getting a physical copy of this book ASAP to hold and cherish and read a million times over. This is for me my pick of the year in all the books I’ve read and a must-read!

Goodreads: 4.3/5 Amazon: 4.7/5 Barnes&Noble: 5/5 BookDepository: -/5

My Rating: 4.9/5

Rated Materials:
Cover: 4.7
Idea: 4.9
Story: 4.9
Characters: 5

Review by Bri