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A review by alyce6d980
Far From Perfect by Holly Smale
5.0
Far From Perfect is actually damn close to perfect. The second book in the Valentines series, Far From Perfect follows Faith Valentine as she rebels against the perfect image that she’s built for herself and starts to decide what she really wants from life.
I struggled through the first half of Happy Girl Lucky, but Far From Perfect was a breeze from start to finish. Hope Valentine’s narrating style is very unique, whereas Faith is a down-to-earth girl who just happens to have been born into one of the most famous families on the planet (and isn’t a huge fan of the attention, FYI).
This is a much more serious book than Happy Girl Lucky, and I really enjoyed the fact that it had a similar sort of arc to the first book in the series: it starts off quite light-hearted and fun, but Faith’s attitude changes rapidly after being cheated on by her boyfriend and forced to go to acting classes after a train wreck of an audition. Imagine Britney at the height of her mental health issues; that’s pretty much how bad things get for Faith. Lots of rebellion.
So many books have characters who want to be famous and rich and love it when they get there, but it’s nice to read a story featuring a famous girl who would really just like to be normal, thank you very much. My favourite scene in the entire book is when Faith’s boyfriend Noah takes her out on stage to dedicate his new song to her and she’s internally cringing the whole way through: that might be the dream for some people, but don’t underestimate the power of more normal romantic gestures!
There’s a twist towards the end of the novel which literally made me sit in shocked silence for about five minutes reevaluating EVERYTHING, and it makes it impossible not to pick up the third book in the series. It seems like that’s going to be a difficult read, with some serious issues addressed, and I think it’s genius that this series just seems to be stepping further towards dark and tricky topics with each release. In fact I’m probably going to re-read both of the first two books before the as-yet-untitled third novel is released, as I think it will be very interesting to read the Valentines story through the lens of the new information which gets revealed.
I wish I’d waited to read this series when all of the books were already released, because as soon as I finished this story I was desperate to pick up the next one. At least I already own the entire Geek Girl series, so when I eventually get around to reading those I won’t have such a long wait in between!
This review was originally posted on The Bumbling Blogger.
I struggled through the first half of Happy Girl Lucky, but Far From Perfect was a breeze from start to finish. Hope Valentine’s narrating style is very unique, whereas Faith is a down-to-earth girl who just happens to have been born into one of the most famous families on the planet (and isn’t a huge fan of the attention, FYI).
This is a much more serious book than Happy Girl Lucky, and I really enjoyed the fact that it had a similar sort of arc to the first book in the series: it starts off quite light-hearted and fun, but Faith’s attitude changes rapidly after being cheated on by her boyfriend and forced to go to acting classes after a train wreck of an audition. Imagine Britney at the height of her mental health issues; that’s pretty much how bad things get for Faith. Lots of rebellion.
So many books have characters who want to be famous and rich and love it when they get there, but it’s nice to read a story featuring a famous girl who would really just like to be normal, thank you very much. My favourite scene in the entire book is when Faith’s boyfriend Noah takes her out on stage to dedicate his new song to her and she’s internally cringing the whole way through: that might be the dream for some people, but don’t underestimate the power of more normal romantic gestures!
There’s a twist towards the end of the novel which literally made me sit in shocked silence for about five minutes reevaluating EVERYTHING, and it makes it impossible not to pick up the third book in the series. It seems like that’s going to be a difficult read, with some serious issues addressed, and I think it’s genius that this series just seems to be stepping further towards dark and tricky topics with each release. In fact I’m probably going to re-read both of the first two books before the as-yet-untitled third novel is released, as I think it will be very interesting to read the Valentines story through the lens of the new information which gets revealed.
I wish I’d waited to read this series when all of the books were already released, because as soon as I finished this story I was desperate to pick up the next one. At least I already own the entire Geek Girl series, so when I eventually get around to reading those I won’t have such a long wait in between!
This review was originally posted on The Bumbling Blogger.