Brief Review: Mr. Perfect

Mr. Perfect

by Linda Howard

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  1.5 Stars

See Also: First Impression for Mr. Perfect

Jaine Bright and three close friends share dinner one night and during casual conversation, create a list of qualifications for the perfect man--some logical, some hilariously funny, some racy.  Within days, their tongue-in-cheek wish list of attributes for Mr. Perfect has been leaked to the press and the resultant publicity is overwhelming.  Coworkers, TV crews, and reporters barrage the quartet with comments and criticism.

As if Jaine doesn't have enough to cope with, she has a new neighbor who she suspects is a criminal.  She's relieved to learn that her neighbor is really an undercover cop, but she's still wary--because smart, sexy Sam Donovan handles her sharp witticisms with easy humor, and Jaine suspects that he may threaten her heart.  What Jaine doesn't know is that she's about to need Sam desperately for something other than romance because her circle of friends is in big trouble.  Unfortunately, that list of qualifications for Mr. Perfect has touched off a madman's rage.  All of their lives are threatened and some of them are going to die, maybe all of them, if Sam can't stop the unknown killer.

I'm so disappointed with this book that it's not even funny.

Apparently, having an interesting premise and decent writing doesn't really do a lot of good if the story felt like a random chain of deus ex machina scenes and instances.  I'm not even so sure that much of the story telling was planned outside of the basic outline.  It also didn't help that, while I was expecting to read a chilling crime thriller, the book read like a contemporary romance--the entire first half of the book was dedicated to "The List" and a lot of insignificant details of the four women and their social and love lives.  By the time the first murder occurred (in fact, several chapters before the first murder occurred), I was already starting to get bored.

It didn't help that what was presented to us as sarcasm and wit just rolled off of me like a tacky joke that no one understood but the person telling it.

The characters aren't the best in the world, and as far as fictional characters go, they're not the most likable either.

Aside from that, I felt like the whole ordeal of "The List" getting all the media coverage that it did was a bit too outrageous to be believable.  Before anyone even started dying, I'd already pinpointed who the culprit would be and so it didn't surprise me one bit when we finally get our confirmation.  Also, the investigation of the entire case was laughable; it was hard to believe that so many possible leads could have been overlooked before the second victim was killed.

I'm not certain I understand why this book has made so many top ten lists; maybe it's just me.  Maybe I just didn't know how to enjoy it properly.  But, certainly, there's no doubt that the writing was so dumbed down that I felt a little insulted--the tone was flippant with comic attempts, but the word usage and the style felt like it was written for children.  I don't care that there were multiple sex scenes in here (which were fairly vanilla at best), but the writing didn't feel like it was adult level.

Anyway, this is my first Linda Howard novel and I've seen her praised in many places.  So either I chose a bad one to start... or something.  But I'm going to give another book by her a chance before I move on.

There is one thing for certain:  This book really DOES put into perspective the differences and the advancements in technology we've seen in the past fourteen years.  Thinking back to the year 2000, I'm reminded of bulky cell phones and Caller ID boxes, no data plans and few households that even had cable internet or Wifi.  The fact that none of the girls in this book had cell phones surprised me for a bit until I realized what year this book was actually written.

Fourteen years ago, I was still in high school carrying a large Nokia without texting capabilities or even voicemail.  The wonders of technology...

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This review was originally posted at Ani's Book Abyss / BookLikes in May 2014.

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First Impression: Mr. Perfect | 48 of 343 pages

Mr. Perfect
by Linda Howard
~ Goodreads ~

See Also:  Official Mr. Perfect Review

In keeping with that Romantic Suspense kick I've been on lately, I had rummaged through some lists for popular books in the genre and came upon Linda Howard's name with several books to her credit.  I figured, "Why not?" and then went to the library to check out two of her books.

The premise of this one seems pretty interesting:  Four women get together and inadvertently create a list detailing the characteristics of their ideal Perfect Man.  As the summary states, the rest of the story becomes sinister when the women begin to die off one after another, leaving our protagonist, Jaine in a dangerous situation as she needs to find out what's going on before it's her turn.

It seems like such a mundane, harmless thing among girls and their girl talk.  I remember the days of my high school and post-high school years getting together with my own small group of girl friends.  A conversation like this is bound to come up at some point in time.  We would talk about our ideal men and what type of men fit our fancy... stuff like that.  The conversation has so much room to get out of control, but it's all in good fun and fairly private amongst us girls.  So it's kind of intriguing that something that starts off as a silly joke would turn up with dead women.

Anyway, so far I'm not quite sure how to feel about this book.  For one, it's written rather well with lots of nice descriptions that give you pretty good images.  There's an underlying tone of humor that clashes with the idea that this book is a murder mystery; unfortunately, I get this feeling that the jokes made in this book are at the expense of degrading certain stereotyped people within the book.  Rather than finding it funny, I'm finding it a little crass.  But whatever, maybe things will get better.

I'm not quite taken with these women either, but who am I to judge a bunch of judgmental females -- my friends and I aren't exactly the classy type.

Of course, I might also be a little offended by Jaine's line of thinking that anyone who sleeps irregular hours during the daytime and is out all night must be a criminal, a drunk, or a drug dealer.  Because, obviously, only immorally abnormal people would be up all night long, wouldn't lead regular nine to five hours, and sleep the afternoon away.  Right...

I don't know how many times I've heard people asking me if I've been up partying at the bars all night when I mention that I didn't get to sleep until around eight in the morning, sometimes a little bit later.  Whenever I mention to dinner companions that I had just woken up around noon (sometimes around 2 P.M.), I get the standard, "Well it must be nice to be able to sleep in so late!" or "Don't you think that's a little late for sleeping in?"

And these are all people who have been told many times before that I am a 3rd shift worker.  My eight hour shift starts during the nighttime and ends in the morning.  Even after I get home from work, I still need to find some time to wind down before heading off to bed.

Pray tell, if I'm not going to sleep my morning away, just when do people expect me to be sleeping?

To this day, people still don't understand 3rd shift.  I know it's not a normal shift or a normal lifestyle, but someone has to do it and so it might as well be someone who enjoys it.

But anyway, I've gone off on a complete segway (and a soapbox to boot).

My point is, I've gotten a bad impression of Jaine already just because of her assumptions.  I don't care that her neighbor really is one rude S.O.B. who doesn't seem to understand how to communicate with people appropriately without yelling.  But in his defense, being woken up in the middle of the day after working all night long does tend to make a person cranky.  I'm not saying he couldn't have been a bit more polite about it since Jaine didn't know that he's a cop and works odd end hours regularly.  I'm just saying that Jaine jumped the gun and made her wild assumptions about him unfairly without even knowing who he was to begin with.

And thinking that he's a drunk just because he's out until the wee hours of the night doesn't help.

The action hasn't quite started in this criminal mystery yet.  As it is, crime thrillers are usually more interesting if someone dies at the outset (or close to the beginning).  The last time it took a murder mystery about a quarter of the book before the first victim was killed kind of bored me.

Yeah.  I might be a little dysfunctional about this stuff, but it IS fiction, and it IS a murder mystery, and it IS supposed to be suspenseful and thrilling.  It's what's expected, y'know.  The tone of this book feels more like a contemporary romance with a side of tacky humor though.

I'm holding out hope that things will start progressing more ideally though.

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This update was originally posted at Ani's Book Abyss / BookLikes in May 2014.

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