Book Review: The Perfect Match by Kristan Higgins

At First Glance: Honor Holland is the responsible one, she runs the business end of her family's winery almost single handedly and she never strays from the straight and narrow. Until the day she turns 35 and is informed by her doctor that her biological clock is ticking. Which prompts her to go see her "Friend with Bennefits" of a dozen years (and basically only close friend) Brogan and ask him to marry her.

Brogan rejects her, only to wind up engaged to Honor's only othe friend Dana less than two months later.

Rejected and humiliated, Honor agrees to marry Tom Barlow, a british engeneering professor at the local college who is a bit desperate for a green card that would allow him to stay in the States near his "unofficial" step-son Charlie.

Second Glance: So I vaguely remembered Honor from reading The Best Man a few months ago, and I was a bit intrigued by the story so I picked it up even when Kristan Higgins and myself have been very hit-and-miss lately.

The Perfect Match turned out to be a nice story in the end but it was by no means perfect. It was enjoyable in that vague way most of Kristan Higgins' books are: they have charming lead characters, quirky-cute background characters and they are generally well written. But it also suffered from the usual downfalls of Higgins' books: she loves to humiliate he characters, and they tend to make too much of things that are unimportant and kind of incorrect.

In this case, the doctor telling Honor  - quite badly and in a very unprofesional way - that her eggs are basically expringing at the ripe old-age of 35 and that she should get busy having kids, prompt an otherwise level-headed woman to do something foolish.

And there is also that moment I have in almost every Higgins book where I scream at the book and at the protagonist so she'll grow a spine and speak up and stick up for herself. (they always take forever to do so, in my opinion).

Tom was nice but a bit piggy headed too.

Bottom Line: I do recommend The Perfect Match, I think it's one of the better books Ms Higgins has put out in the last couple of years and it was quite enjoyable in it's own way.

1/2