The Perfect Fit: Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same [Paperback]

Louise Kean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2007

Sunny Weston always wanted to be perfect . . . and that meant being thin. Now, after what seemed like a million years on the treadmill—and a million miles from the nearest brownie—she finally fits into those slinky black dresses she's been eyeing for years.

But being a perfect size doesn't necessarily equal a perfect life. Suddenly Sunny's best friends are all bitter and jealous. She's become a stranger in her own body. And though her longtime work crush, Adrian, is finally her boyfriend, she's totally confused now that charming, daringly dapper Cagney has appeared on the scene. Worst of all, she's worried that the recipe for a happy life might not be low-calorie after all.

Maybe it's time for Sunny to discover that the true secret to happiness isn't constantly feeling hollow.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this smart, endearing third outing from London-based Kean, witty and knowing 28-year-old Sunny Weston lives in a London suburb, where she runs a home-based Internet business selling sex toys. Sick of being overweight and in unrequited love with the unattainable Adrian, Sunny loses 98 pounds the hard way-a strict diet and exercise. But now that she can have Adrian, she no longer wants him. Her navel gazing, however, is soon interrupted when a young boy is kidnapped before her eyes from a Starbucks. With her newly athletic body, Sunny is able to chase down the kidnapper, and, with the help of another bystander, Cagney, return the boy to his panicked mother. This event sets in motion the process of coming to terms with her notions of the perfect body and the perfect man. Kean follows Sunny as her life returns to normal, which includes hanging out with friends Anna and Lisa, and seeing her therapist, with whom she questions her relationships with food, her body and men. Finally, Sunny must find her own terms for happiness. Well-written and engrossing, this novel may inspire and entertain those who are tired of the hunger for love, or just tired of hunger.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Cagney and Sunny are both unhappy people, inescapably thrust together time and again as a result of their one selfless action in rescuing a small boy from a would-be kidnapper, and inexplicably repelled by and attracted to one other. Cagney, world-weary and cynical after three failed marriages, makes his living investigating cheating women. Sunny, who runs her own Internet sex-toy business, always viewed her excess weight as the reason she never dated, but she has recently lost 98 pounds and is frantically seeking love, although she's not quite sure she'll recognize it when she finds it. Kean's introspective novel of self-discovery and personal growth is set in the present-day London enclave of Kew and enhanced by the dual points of view she affects. Both Cagney and Sunny are engaged in desperate attempts not only to make sense of the random cruelties perpetrated by the lovely and sought-after who prey on those less fortunate but also to grasp happiness when it steps in front of them. Lynne Welch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061173088
• ISBN-13: 978-0061173080
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,153,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Always takes the easy way out..., February 14, 2010

By 

A. Callis "anthropologist and geek girl" (Raleigh, NC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Perfect Fit: Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same (Paperback)

I feel like this author resorted to heavy handed stereotyping throughout this book. The gay "new best friend" character was a flaming, Whitney Houston loving, hand-flailing mockery of homosexuality. The super-macho male character was an over the top misogynist with a drinking problem, a typically tragic past involving multiple wives, and a framed quote on his desk reading "love is just the illusion that one woman differs from another." Our female protagonist supposedly learns that being thin isn't the answer, and yet spends the entire book judging other women's bodies, and only finds happiness once she's thin, cute, and able to wander around in short dresses and slouchy boots. I wasn't a fan.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fun Read, April 28, 2007

By 

missmel "mel" (OK, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Perfect Fit: Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same (Paperback)

I found this book to be a fun and interesting read. I can relate to how Sunny feels after losing a large amount of weight and not being sure of who she is anymore. A good book for someone who has weight issues.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting inspirational tale, February 24, 2007

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Perfect Fit: Fat-Free Dreams Just Don't Taste the Same (Paperback)

Sunny Weston has believed forever that her weight correlates to her happiness. Now that she has lost ninety-eight pounds, she wonders why she remains unhappy. She ponders if it is the skin now hanging loose, that she transformed her addiction to food into an addiction to lose weight, or that she finally has the attention of her long time unrequited love Adrian though he is engaged to someone else. Her friends suddenly detest her leading Sunny to think they are jealous, but also feeling alone.

Sipping coffee, Sunny hears a woman screaming hysterically. A man has abducted six years old Dougal. Sunny has finally found some good with the weight gone as she runs down the culprit and the rescues the child. Cagney helps her contain the snatcher. They meet at the police station and are attracted to one another. However, she assumes a hunk like Cagney would never have given her a first look a century of weight ago. Still she feels she should still love Adrian while Cagney makes her feel like a strong woman to admire.

This is an interesting inspirational tale that stars a woman who has always believed her weight equates to happiness until she begins to realize there is more to a person that what a scale says. Sunny begins to truly change when she realizes losing the weight helped her run down the pedophile but that it is she mentally needing to change if she is to prevent her "psychological weight" from returning all she lost. Though the romantic subplot is too easy fixed, the key to this fine character study is that the heroine learns that to find inner contentment beyond the personal appearance of THE PERFECT FIT jeans is a bodacious lofty goal worth pursuing.

Harriet Klausner