Summer beach read season is upon us, and Your Perfect Life,
written by dual authors Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, was made for a relaxing
day working on your tan. It follows life-long best friends Casey and Rachel to
their twenty-year high school reunion, where they switch bodies thanks to a
supernatural shot concocted by a cute bartender. The most exciting thing that
happened at my 20-year high school reunion was that anybody even showed up! (Seriously—I
think there were about a dozen people there out of a class of 120… lame!)
While the
premise of the book is not quite original—I can think of three books and movies
about this very thing—the authors’ treatment of the idea was funny and fast
paced. Casey is an entertainment television host and Rachel a stay-at-home mom,
each seemingly living only half a life. When the switcheroo happens they get to
experience the other side: a career for Rachel and a family for Casey.
This book is full of many laugh-out-loud moments as the
ladies navigate the tricky world of living in their BFF’s body. I mean, what
would you do if your bestie’s husband wanted to sleep with you thinking you
were his wife …? Yuck! And going from changing diapers all day to interviewing
celebs would leave my head spinning too. The body switch comes with an
important lesson; by the end of the novel they realize that they were both
missing out on important aspects of their life. Casey admits that she wants a
family and Rachel wants to work outside the home.
This caused my feminist panties to get tied into a bit of a
knot for a moment. Are the authors suggesting that a woman can’t just be a
stay-at-home mom and be fulfilled, or that someone who chooses a career over
children is only living half a life? But when I think about my own life and my
venture back to work after five and a half years at home raising babies, I
relaxed a little. It is nice to have
interests again besides all-kids-all-the-time, and my brain needs the exercise.
Conversely, once I did start having children I realized that this fulfilled a side
of me that was missing before as well. Finally, this is a summer beach
read—best not to read too much into it and just enjoy the ride J
This is the first dual-authored I have read in a while. I
was wondering if I’d come across a time where one person’s style stood out
distinctly from the other, but that wasn't really the case. My personal theory
is that one wrote in one character’s voice and the other author wrote in the other,
but ultimately it was well written and
flowed nicely, so who cares?! Read it with your BFF and contemplate how weird it would be to take over their life for a month or two.
