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A review by jackiehorne
Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard
2.0
I picked this up from the library after hearing several folks mention it at the Popular Romance Author conference I attended this fall. I didn't realize it was romantic suspense until I got the book in hand. Jaine and three of her work friends jokingly compile a list of qualities that "Mr. Perfect" should have. The initial items on the list are pretty straightforward -- faithful, dependable, solvent, nice. But later items (which readers aren't privileged to read directly) focus on physical attributes, including penis size. Somehow the list gets circulated in the office, and shows up in the company newsletter, polarizing the workers along gender lines: men are angry, women cheer. I wasn't really clear why the men were so angry--because they felt objectified by the list? It was hard to say, since we never got to read the items that so ticked them off...
The list gets leaked to the public, and the four women have their ten minutes of fame when newspaper reporters and television interviewers come caling. Unfortunately, a colleague who was abused by a woman-hating mother as a child takes particular issue with the idea of women using the phrase "Mr. Perfect" (something the person's mother did), and decides to off these uppity women. Luckily for one of them, Jaine Bright, a cop has just moved in next door. Jaine initially thought the man a drug dealer or a wino, so disheveled was his dress and so irregular his hours, and engages in several verbal spats with him. Needless to say, the cop is nothing like the man described on the Mr. Perfect list (something the book doesn't ever come out and discuss, interestingly enough); he's an argumentative loudmouth, throwing insulting comments Jaine's way when he's not kissing her. But she does the same to him, so the two seem a quite perfect match.
The book is a very weird combination of woman-empowerment and woman denigration. Jaine as a character was great--seeing a loud-mouth woman, one not afraid to openly express her aggression and anger, was a nice change from the usual romance heroine. I know people who like to yell, and for whom yelling is not upsetting, but a way of life, a way of interacting with the world. On the other hand, Jaine and her friends diss unnamed "feminists" who protest against the shallowness of the "list." It's hard to evaluate whether these "feminists" have any valid argument for their protests, or if the male colleagues do, since we never get to read the upsetting parts of the list. The book also draws stark lines between men and women: guys are like this, women are like that. And
Ultimately, it gave me the heebie jeebies, even in spite of Howard's strong plotting, character construction, and humor.
The list gets leaked to the public, and the four women have their ten minutes of fame when newspaper reporters and television interviewers come caling. Unfortunately, a colleague who was abused by a woman-hating mother as a child takes particular issue with the idea of women using the phrase "Mr. Perfect" (something the person's mother did), and decides to off these uppity women. Luckily for one of them, Jaine Bright, a cop has just moved in next door. Jaine initially thought the man a drug dealer or a wino, so disheveled was his dress and so irregular his hours, and engages in several verbal spats with him. Needless to say, the cop is nothing like the man described on the Mr. Perfect list (something the book doesn't ever come out and discuss, interestingly enough); he's an argumentative loudmouth, throwing insulting comments Jaine's way when he's not kissing her. But she does the same to him, so the two seem a quite perfect match.
The book is a very weird combination of woman-empowerment and woman denigration. Jaine as a character was great--seeing a loud-mouth woman, one not afraid to openly express her aggression and anger, was a nice change from the usual romance heroine. I know people who like to yell, and for whom yelling is not upsetting, but a way of life, a way of interacting with the world. On the other hand, Jaine and her friends diss unnamed "feminists" who protest against the shallowness of the "list." It's hard to evaluate whether these "feminists" have any valid argument for their protests, or if the male colleagues do, since we never get to read the upsetting parts of the list. The book also draws stark lines between men and women: guys are like this, women are like that. And
Spoiler
that three of the women who make the list end up dead inadvertently sends the message that a woman who asserts that her desires about men are important deserves to die for her presumption. Unless, of course, she hooks up with a more masculine guy than Mr. Perfect of the list. And I'm really having a difficult time untangling the ideology behind the killer's backstory: a girl with a mother who abused her by insisting she act like a boy; that daughter then killing said mother during her teen years, after mom had an abysmal reaction to her daughter's puberty; and then that daughter going on to kill other women whom her mother would have found disgusting (a sort of Norman Bates situation, although with a daughter instead of a son).Spoiler
Ultimately, it gave me the heebie jeebies, even in spite of Howard's strong plotting, character construction, and humor.