Your Perfect Life

by Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke

[Leah]

If you haven’t heard of the Chick Lit Is Not Dead website, then you clearly must have been living under a rock for the past five years – like us, it’s a Chick Lit blog that opened around the same time ours did but the big difference is it’s run by two Chick Lit authors – Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke. They initially self published their novels – two of them, before being picked up by a publisher last year for their new novel Your Perfect Life. As soon I spotted it on Netgalley I requested it – I thought the plot sounded great and I adored the cover – it’s such a pretty, understated cover, but it would really catch my eye if I saw it on a bookshelf and I couldn’t wait to read it.


Your Perfect Life is the Freaky Friday of books – we’re introduced to Casey and Rachel on the eve of their twentieth high school reunion, where Casey wins the Most Successful Award, and Rachel wins the Least Changed award. They’re both miserable for varying reasons – Rachel’s marriage is going down the tubes and her kids treat her like a skivvy rather than a mother, and Casey’s finding herself further and further to the age where she’ll soon find herself on the television scrap heap, so when a nosy bartender named Brian tells them do to a shot, they do, and they wake up the next morning in the others body.

What really had me hooked on Your Perfect Life was the opening line – my mouth tastes like ass. That’s a killer opening line. That’s how every book should open. From there, I was glued to the story from page one. It’s very much your typical Chick Lit novel – unhappy wives, miserable marriages, the Freaky Friday twist, but Lisa and Liz have such an enjoyable writing style that you just find yourself engrossed in the book and unwilling to put it down, or at least I did. I finished it in one night as I just couldn’t stop reading and I was curious to know of Rachel and Casey could switch their bodies back and what it was that would cause the switch back to happen and it didn’t disappoint. I was super impressed with the writing, the novel is narrated by both Casey and Rachel and it switches seamlessly between the two, and both their lives are equally as fascinating.

If it left me wanting anywhere, it was the entire mystique behind the switch – I wanted an explanation, dammit! Or for Brian to be around more, since the whole thing was kinda his fault. But apart from that it was a great novel seeing the two getting to grips with their new lives and new roles. I probably preferred Casey’s new life as Rachel more as there was way more involved than Rachel as Casey, who seemed to have it fairly easy in comparison. I liked how eye opening it was for Casey to see what it was like to have kids and a husband and be relied on, and it was fascinating to see her get to grips with it all and even enjoy it, which didn’t seem possible initially. It was very much a tale of the grass isn’t always greener, but I fear we will always hanker after what we don’t have – it’s our way, after all, and Your Perfect Life was a shining example of that and I can’t wait to see what Liz and Lisa do next.