Customer Reviews

A Perfect Day

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Richard Paul Evans in his newest book, A Perfect Day, has written a title which will appeal to his old and new readers alike. Some will also recall Evans's rise to fame with the enormous popularity of his first book, The Christmas Box, which was self published for family and friends. The book was also made into a TV movie starring Richard Thomas and Maureen O'Hara. Evans also recently chronicled the history of The Christmas Box recently in his book called The Christmas Box Miracle which for his previous readers showed a glimpse into a writer's struggle and what appears to be overnight fame. Readers of a Perfect Day, therefore, should not be surprised if they consider that this book may not seem either coincidental or a thinly veiled autobiography when remembering back to Evan's Life.

Robert is a young man when he meets and marries the woman of his dreams. early in their married life Robert works at various jobs while his wife Allyson cares for their daughter and home. In his free time Robert pursues his dream by writing what he hopes one day will be a best-selling novel. Success does come finally but at a bitter price when Robert finds himself on endless book tours and sending less and less time at home. Although very lonely, Robert does respond positively to the many new people he meets. The temptation of a beautiful woman and the lure of a movie deal may threaten both his marriage and the very ideals and values he once had. Then Robert meets a man with almost mystical qualities who not only knows all about him but also predicts his imminent death. Who is this man and how will Robert settle his life if in fact he only has a matter of days left to him.

Although I did find the ending somewhat predictable, I also felt that the author provided a good journey. I also found the characters enjoyable and wondered how people who do achieve great success aren't blinded by the lights of fame and fortune.

While I hoped this book would be as inspirational as the titles from The Christmas Box Trilogy, I did think A Perfect Day was a good read. Despite that a similar theme has filled countless other books notably You Can't Go Home Again and Youngblood Hawke, it did teach me once again valuable lessons about the true meaning of love and success. As I usually do after reading Evans's newest book, I look forward to the next one.

Richard Paul Evans in his book "A Perfect Day" gives us all food for thought.

What is the true meaning of life? What brings us to "A Perfect Day"?

This story brings to life all that matters to living a fruitful, peaceful existence but not without pain and suffering.

Our egoistic nature is very limited to what is "real" about ourselves and others. We need to let go of our own ego and look with different eyes at the world around us and the people we come in contact with but most especially our inner self.

Storytelling is a gift and Evans knows how to send out his message. He is one of God's messengers. Like Jesus, Evans gives us the true meaning of life in story form, it eases the pain as we look into ourselves and discover the truth of our being. His characters are human, vulnerable and most of all as real as anyone of us reading this story.

"A Perfect Day" is a book that can lead you to your deepest emotions. A must read for all of us who are searching for the truth and trying to live it "one day at a time".

If we are not in touch with our inner selves we cannot be in touch with each other.

In the end this is what makes or breaks us on the way to "A Perfect Day".

This book is extraordinary. It's a must read for the season. This story takes your emotions on a roller-coaster. The charaters are so well developed you feel like you know them personally. This book is not only entertaining but also makes readers put their life in perspective and think about the real things that matter in life. Plan on reading the last half of the book with a box of tissues.

Hi there!

I have to say, that I haven't heard from the author Richard Paul Evans before. At my favourite bookstore I saw one of his books "A perfect Day" and I bought it. I didn't know what would happen to me as I read it!
It's one of my first books in the english language and I'm very surprised! I have to say, that's one of the best books I've read before!
It's very emotional and written in a great stile. You'll think about it. You'll be glad with the characters and also sad. Richard Paul Evans is one of the best authors in the american bookword and I'm very glad about reading this book!!!

I got lost in the book the way the man got lost in his success.I Love the way it was written. I kept reading, I stayed up all night until I finished it. I think it's amazing how things get brought back into perspective and that a promise when all else fails can still be kept and there is no greater success than true Love.

I read this book in one day, despite all I had to do. I have never been so touched by a book, and then I went to amazon.com and bought all of his books. I found all of them charming and interesting. I think this was my favorite, but maybe only because it was the first I read. It was a breath of fresh air compared to many books I have read lately.

A Perfect Day is the story of a man who, after struggling for years, finally achieves success as a novelist, but at a great price. This is the kind of book some people will love and others will loathe. If you are a fan of Hallmark Hall of Fame movies that affirm traditional family values, you will probably enjoy this book. If you are made of more cynical stuff, however, and tend to apply words like "saccharine," sappy" or "insipid" to sentimental stories, then you might do well to avoid this book or anything else Richard Paul Evans has written. While I lean a bit towards latter category myself, I try to assess material fairly and give some leeway to what might be called the genre factor. Just as if when you watch a horror film you can't complain if there's blood and gore, when you read a book like A Perfect Day it's futile to object to the shameless sentimentality (such as a death scene early on). Yet even if we give the book the luxury of wallowing in bathos, there are still some flaws that need to be addressed. One rather serious problem involves the novel's point of view. The story is told by the protagonist, Robert Harlan, but the point of view in many places arbitrarily switches to his wife, Allyson. This is a fairly basic error for an author to make; if Robert is telling the story, there is obviously no way he could know what his wife is seeing and thinking when he isn't there. A book can have an "omniscient" narrator who can see through the eyes of all of the characters or it can be told by one of the characters, but to switch from one to the other is sloppy.

Evans obviously caters to a female audience, as his writer protagonist does in the book. Many male readers (including this one) may be uncomfortable with the amount of groveling this guy has to do to get in good graces with his wife. I have to admit that for most of the book I had difficulty sympathizing with the wife who was left at home while her husband toured the country. Many couples are separated for long periods of time because one has a job that entails travel. Considering the financial hardships the couple had been experiencing before Robert's success, it didn't seem so unreasonable that he would have to be away for a few months to secure his career as a writer. Evans seems to be advocating an extreme variety of family togetherness, one with roots more embedded in movies than in most actual historic periods. Then there is the improbable behavior of Robert's agent, who acts more like a counselor than an agent. It seems highly unlikely that a professional agent would market a client's book without any kind of contract, yet this is what we are asked to believe. Her actions towards the end of the book become even less credible.

The other major problem I had with the book is the ending, which can be seen as a clever twist that delivers a moral lesson (though there are clues that allowed me and I'm sure many other readers to guess what was coming). The problem is not with the way the ending was written, which, like the rest of the book unfolds quite smoothly, but with the serious ethical issues that are barely addressed at all. I can't get into specifics without revealing too much, but for a book that is so intent on teaching important life lessons, the author should perhaps have thought more carefully about the moral code of his characters. It is, unfortunately, often the case that people with heavy-handed moral agendas are so sure that their message is right that they develop an "ends justify the means" ethical code. Such an outlook, if followed universally and to its logical extreme, is actually quite authoritarian and draconian.
Evans is a skillful storyteller and has a flare for keeping the reader engrossed. This kept me reading it with some interest despite the fairly serious disagreements I had with some of the material. With a book like this, that has such a strong message, your own views on morality, family values and religion will strongly influence your reaction.

Evans has written another book that touches the heartstrings. I am not a real fan of Evans as I feel he often down plays or minimizes the women in his books. I feel he is way too full of himself! Now, having said that, I admit this book was easy to read and took an interesting turn of events and made me want to say, "Ha! The women got even with you!" I won't give away the ending and recommend the book as interesting and has a message for all busy people these days.

Robert Harlan is laid off from his job as a radio station salesman and his wife encourages him to take this time and follow his dream to write the book he has always wanted to finish. She takes a job to cover finances and he stays home and writes A Perfect Day. A Perfect Day is a book about the wife, Allyson, and her last few months with her father as he suffers with cancer. The book jumps to the top of the bestseller list and becomes a big hit. Robert gets a big head and wants more and more of the fame and less of his wife and child, Carson.

Michael, an angel, enters into the picture and tells Robert he has X amount of days to live and that makes Robert take another look at what he is doing and what he wants from life. To tell more would take away the mystery of the book and I highly recommend you read it to find out for yourself.

An interesting aspect of the book is the reader gets a glimpse of what the publishing world is all about. Always nice to learn something new when we read a book.

I read this book in 3 hours straight at the library. I was completely engrossed in the plot; my eyes couldn't read each page fast enough.

It's a touching book about what really matters in this life - not fame nor money, but love, relationships, and family. I really enjoyed the strong and loving marriage Robert and Allyson had when they were ordinary people living ordinary lives (pre-bestseller). It made watching their marriage disintegrate before your eyes even tougher once Robert's attention strayed away from his family to seeking fame and fortune. The plot and conclusion were a bit cliche but the book was still very good and easy to read, not to mention the little twist thrown in was pretty good too.

When circumstances make it possible for Robert Harlan to devote himself fulltime to finishing a novel he started four years ago, he sees it as his chance to finally do something worthwhile with his life. Then his dreams came true with a vengeance. It only took a few pages and I was hooked on this book. Beautifully written, Robert makes all the classic mistakes of someone on whom fame is thrust. The story is not completely unpredictable. Everyday guy next door turns into an overnight famous jerk forgetting everything that's important in life. But Evans makes it work. I couldn't put this book down and for someone who reads voraciously, that's saying a lot.