ANOTHER BOOK I DIDN'T FINI...... (Practically Perfect - Katie Fforde)

Member Name: Skyedame

Product:	Practically Perfect - Katie Fforde
Date:	25/07/07 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Er....

Disadvantages: Boring, boring

I’ll cut straight to the chase…. this book bored me so much I actually didn’t finish it. I tried, God knows, I tried.

I considered whether it would be fair of me to do a review on a book I hadn’t finished but then I thought that anybody considering buying it really needed to know the worst about it.

After all, it’s only my opinion. Others have enjoyed it.

Firstly, I will say that I have read all of Katie Fford’s previous books and, apart from Flora’s Lot (which I couldn’t be bothered to finish, either) each has been a delight, in its own charming way.

Charming is the operative word when describing Katie Fford’s books. She writes extremely well, in a cosy, curling up by the fire with a hot chocolate, kind of way.
Her central characters are always women, usually in their mid-30s, mostly middle-class and all looking for love. They are friendly, sociable and resourceful women who, naturally finding themselves in either a crisis or sticky situation, have the wit and wisdom to dig themselves out eventually and finding the man of their dreams into the bargain.

Perfect light reading.

Practically Perfect is the story of Chloe who buys herself a delightful cottage at a knock-down price somewhere just outside London. Luckily, she is an interior designer and aims to do most of the renovations required, sell the cottage and move on.

The story revolves around her attempts at these renovations; run-ins with the local council regarding building regulations and the adoption of a retired greyhound. It was a story which had all the right ingredients but which, somehow, fell flat somewhere near the halfway stage.

I remember buying it on my way to the hairdressers and looking forward to sitting for a couple of hours, settled with this jolly nice story. I do remember my initial impressions were favourable. It was a pleasant story-line… which just sort of went on in a wishy-washy manner once I’d hit the middle.

There was far too much description of what people were doing in the kitchen, or the dining room. I remember thinking, more than once: “For God’s sake! I don’t give a stuff! Get on with the damn story!”

The writing wasn’t ‘tight’. It rambled and went over the same things more than once. “Grr! Get on with it!” was a spitting exclamation my better-half raised his eyebrows at, more than once.

It was no good. I’d spied and ordered a thrilling, fast-paced well-written yarn of another favourite author of mine and I put aside Practically Perfect to read something with a bit of oomph.

Weeks went by and further books were picked up and finished by me but PP lay there forlorn and unread.

One more time? Okay….. here we go. Five minutes later: nope, no good, I could feel great waves of apathy coming over me. At my age, life is far too short to waste time on piffle so I popped the book on Amazon – where it was duly snaffled up by a Katie Fford fan who, I really hope, enjoyed it.

So, for what it’s worth, if you like a story so gentle it wouldn’t scare your maiden aunt; then you may just enjoy this one.

If you read for escapism in the form of tight, well-controlled writing, something with a bit of bite – with lively and memorable characters – you won't find it between the pages of Practically Perfect.




© Louise Saunders – 2007

Summary: Makes a good start but lost its grip quite early on.