Customer Reviews

Perfect

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I couldn't put this book down! It was suspenseful and emotional and grabbed my attention from the very beginning. I think all of us can relate to feeling "fake" sometimes and the desire to break free from our "perfect little images" and be real. Wendi has to put on a "show" to a level where it makes her feel like it is killing her to be so pefect all the time. Wrapping herself in blame and shame and feeling that God is disappointed with her. She has no concept of grace. Her world begins to unravel as strange events begin to occur around her. But it is in the unravelling of her life that she finally finds the answers she's been looking for. A terrific book that spoke to my heart and my own longings to drop the masks and live with freedom in God's love. So not only was it a good suspense and story, it was a story that packed in a powerful message of grace.

I just finished reading Perfect. What a fantastic book...full of suspense, as well as speaking of God's grace. I just want to encourage everyone to read his books....they are all great. I can't wait to read his next book!

I started this book feeling hopeful, but I ended up not even reading the whole thing. Red flags went up when I read the first sentence. "I smiled at my husband over a box of cereal because today I was running away with another man."

I know we're all human and we all make mistakes. I love the stories that I have read about redemption. But this was a far cry from any of those. As a Christian, I was bothered very much by the adultery in this book, particularly on the part of the pastoral staff. And the pastor's daughters were both pregnant before marriage, one even contracting HIV.

Flipping through the book, redemption was there to a point, but I never saw any condemnation of sin or any true repentance. And in the end? The husband dies so the wife can get the man she wants.

The characters were shallow and didn't grab me. The moral issues were, from what I saw, all handled wrong. In the end, a skim through the book left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I was glad I didn't attempt a complete read-through.

The talented Harry Kraus (COULD I HAVE THIS DANCE?) crafts this absorbing, suspense-filled story of a doctor's wife who has the perfect life and everything money can buy --- but finds it is not enough to quell her guilt over her past.

Trophy wife Wendi Stratford is the daughter of a minister who works as an accident reconstructionist. She is frustrated with her high-driving surgeon husband, Dr. Henry Stratford, and in love with her piano teacher, Jack Renner. She's also carrying a boatload of guilt over an incident in her past that helped land her mother in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Add to that her pressure over being the perfect child, and Wendi is about to leave everything and do what she wants --- and have the man and the adulterous fling she desires.

But events intercede. After Jack is hospitalized in a horrific accident and slips into a coma, Henry does the surgery necessary to bring him back from the brink of death. Then, Jack's parents and fiancée, Yolanda Pate, show up and end up bunking at Wendi's home while Jack recuperates. Jack wakes from his coma but seems to suffer from amnesia. When Jack's fiancée dies in Wendi's bed --- from an overdose of pills prescribed by Henry --- evidence begins to point to Wendi, or possibly Henry, as the murderer.

Henry has his own set of problems. Frustrated by his wife's lack of attention, and vulnerable to temptations that lurk right around the corner, he's ripe for an affair. When his resident physician, a sultry blonde, flirts with him and then is killed under mysterious circumstances, the plot thickens further. Do we really know who Henry is? Drugs, affairs, amnesia and guilty cover-ups all wind throughout the plot until its chilling conclusion.

One complicating theme is Wendi's sister Rene, the typecast rebellious daughter, who shows up pregnant and HIV-positive on Wendi's doorstep. Wendi, who is unable to bear a child of her own, must decide if she wants a new start with Henry and adopt her sister's child, or continue to wait and see if Jack regains his memory --- and if they'll renew their fledgling affair. And her marriage is not easily dismissed. Henry's attentions toward her prove confusing. She muses during one scene, "Yes, he worked late and made me fight for second place, but he was compassionate and thorough with his patients, something that gave me comfort since he was the one in charge of Jack. The pendulum of my heart stood still, threatening to arc in the opposite direction from the one I'd been on: an arc towards loneliness, emotional isolation, and divorce."

Point-of-view changes are smooth, and there are some surprises lurking in every chapter. Kraus portrays Henry as a multi-faceted character impossible to dislike, even when he's covering up his myriad mistakes and obsessive compulsive in his mannerisms. The author does a great job showing, not telling. One interesting way he does that is to have Henry check himself in the mirror every morning in the same sequence (hair, tie, jacket, pants and zipper. Then his zipper again.) It's these kinds of scenes that tell us more about the characters than if he spelled out all the details for us about their personalities.

When Wendi gets involved in the investigation of Jack's crash, it unleashes a hornet's nest of troubles. Right up until the end, we're never quite sure if Henry is a sympathetic figure, or something more sinister. The ending is complicated in that it neither wraps up all the loose ends neatly nor leaves us hanging in a satisfactory or unsatisfactory way --- you decide. Faith fiction readers who enjoy a good tale of suspense will find plenty to like in Kraus's latest novel.

--- Reviewed by Cindy Crosby

Perfect is far from it. The story is really contrived and stretches the boundaries of believability. Wendy Stratford discovers that her husband is having an affair and her response is to launch an affair with her piano instructor and run off to the Caribbean (at least it wasn't the pool boy). But when her boy toy is in a terrible accident that leaves him with amnesia, she launches her own investigation into the accident and discovers someone may be trying to kill her. Yes, this is a weird plot. And it gets weirder because it seems like the author can't decide if she is writing Christian fiction, chick lit, or a cheesy Lifetime Network movie of the week. The husband is a surgeon, so of course he is the one who heroically saves the piano instructor's life after the accident. Wendy's day job is as an accident reconstructionist. How very convenient for her.

i bought this book when it was free a few weeks ago and i loved it! it was definetly very good especially for being free... but i think its still worth the $6 it is now. its about a "perfect" family that keeps up this image of having no problems whatsoever, when in reality, they have more problems then most families. the husband ends up having an affair with his co-worker & the wife feels like she cant keep the image any longer & decides she wants to run away her slightly younger piano teacher. but right after she tells the piano teacher her plans... he gets in an accident & has amnesia. so the rest of the story is her trying to figure out whos trying to kill her.

I picked this book up not realizing it was Christian literature. When I did realize it in chapter 2, I was disappointed because I had recently finished another Chistian novel which had prejudiced me against this type of writing. What I didn't want was a story where the author used the hand of God to resolve the story's problems rather than have the characters manage using their own resources. Fortunately, no magic tricks were needed as the protagonist worked through the events in a realistic manner and came to a new understanding about her faith. Good writing and high on the can't-put-it-down scale.

you will never get those hours of our life back. free kindle books seem like a good investment, but your time is worth something.

Wendi is the perfect wife and her husband is a perfect doctor. They seem to have the perfect life. Really good character development in the opening chapters of the book Perfect. But then the story takes off and I think the editors did too. Did they actually read this book? Some of the words that come out of the character's mouth just made me cringe because they were so contrived. The plot quickly followed the dialogue and I sadly gave up on the book. I just didn't care anymore.

This is not your typical Christian book - most of which are sappy romances. I liked it as it was set not far from were I live in Virginia - a nice treat. The two main characters have long been more concerned with their perfect facades - perfect looks, perfect clothing, perfect house in a perfect neighborhood across the street from the perfect church. The story concerns what happens when cracks form in the perfectly constructed lives and how God's forgiveness and Grace can heal all.

That being said, most of the reason for a 4-star is for the slopping Kindle formatting. There wasn't even a few lines separating totally different parts in a chapter. Suddenly the next paragraph skips to different people doing different things and it required a major mind jerk to reorient.

Good book, recommended read, sloppy in Kindle.