Cat Brenner is living her dream of working in branding in London. She's left behind her farm girl self, Katie, with her dad and his farm in Somerset. Even though she's living her dream, life isn't perfect. Her living situation isn't great. Small, cramped quarters with annoying roommates leading to a horrible daily commute only to arrive at work and have to deal with office politics, and... her perfect boss. Cat's boss, Demeter is perfect. On top of being a star at what she does, she looks perfect, her kids and husband are perfect, she goes on perfect vacations, tries out all the latest "in" places before they are open to the public. Her house is perfect. Cat only hopes "to be" Demeter in another 20 years.
Things go wayward at the office and Cat is let go. She returns home to the farm to recover herself and look for a new job. Her dad and stepmom have, since her last visit home, started a glamping resort that Cat had helped get off the ground by shooting off ideas, creating a brochure and a website, an excellent job in branding. At the time of her return, they are ready to greet their first guests. Katie (she's back to Katie now) helps out and is really good at that, too. Although she longs to return to London and to the corporate life.
Things are going well enough until Demeter shows up with her perfect family to enjoy a week at the glamping resort. That's when the story really comes together. What is a perfect life? Both Katie and Demeter have to come to terms with what that means.
Reading this reminded me to the time when my kids were little and we'd spent a lot of time at our community center. We'd be there for pre-school, swim classes and other activities. My kids were normal kids... which means there were ups and downs, most far from perfection. And with three kids, what was the chance they'd all be close to perfect at the same time? Yet there was this "perfect" family at the community center, too, with (only two) kids of similar age to my kids. And they seemed perfect. The kids were always exceptionally behaved, the parents appeared to have a great marriage, the mom had some sort of career (working in a family business, if I'm recalling correctly) that allowed her the perfect balance between family and work. I used to joke all the time with my long distance best buddy about this perfect family. I was always looking for a kink that I couldn't find. Now I'm wondering even more... was their life really as perfect as it seemed? And what are they all up to these days?
The book also makes the distinction between the "perfect lives" people share on social media and the realities that the posters are living. That's always something to contemplate. Who posts the ugly bits of life on social media? Not many.
My older daughter was going through some workplace drama of her own as I was reading My Not So Perfect Life. A lot of what Katie questioned about her own life were things I imagined that my daughter was wondering about as well.
This was a fun, easy-to-read novel. Just what I needed!
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