Book Review: Nobody’s Perfect by Sally Kilpatrick

Publication date: 1st December 2024

Publisher: Montlake

Pages: 333

Genre: Contemporary Women’s Fiction/Chick-lit

Format read: Audiobook

Vivian Quackenbush enjoys a typical life. She has winesday evenings with her two best friends. Her son is in college. She and her husband, Mitch, are planning the next move for their empty-nester future. But to Vivian’s blindsided surprise…not together.

After nearly twenty-five years of marriage, Mitch wants a divorce. He confesses that he doesn’t love her anymore. He never even liked her chicken salad! Brutal. What is Vivian to do but channel her anger, frustration, and pain into a video she posts online. Ill advised? Perhaps. Cathartic? Absolutely. Overnight, Vivian goes viral. Millions of views and counting—to Mitch’s fury, her son’s embarrassment, her mother’s support, and the media’s delight. For Vivian, it’s a moment of hide or lean into it. Vivian 2.0 chooses to lean—maybe even toward the younger single father next door.

Now Vivian is wondering where she goes from here. She’s discovering that somewhere in her trending if upended life, she’ll have to figure out who she really wants to be.

Rating: ★★★★

My thoughts:

Nobody’s Perfect is a laugh-out-loud novel about friendships, motherhood and learning life lessons with a satisfying ending.

It was great to read about a FMC who was closer to my age, going through menopause and trying to find her way in the world, newly single. After being betrayed by her husband, Vivian Quackenbush is on her own and trying to navigate feelings of devastation, grief, loss and uncertainty after she finds out her husband wants to divorce her. Struggling to hold onto her home, her sanity and her self-worth, she drunkenly rages at the unfairness of it all on YouTube and becomes an overnight social media sensation. With her new found fame disrupting her quiet life and potentially driving away everyone who is important to her., Vivian has to reassess what is important to her.

This book portrays the power of female friendships in healing one another, making me yearn for the times when I had those kinds of friendships to lean into. I loved the ‘winesday’ evenings gathered in the cul-de-sac, wishing I too could pull up a camp chair. The ‘Mum Scouts’ are a group to which I would love to belong.

Additionally the book explores the bond between mothers and children, how with age and wisdom that relationship changes, growing into a new understanding…and hopefully a new closeness.

There is a little romance between Vivian and her neighbour, Parker, a single dad who has recently moved into the neighbourhood, however this romance mostly takes a backseat to the female relationships in the novel. Having solicited Vivian’s help with a costume for his daughter, Parker finds himself tangled up, both in her YouTube fame and in unexpected romantic feelings. There’s incidental hand grazing, fervent glances and butterflies, adding an element of sweetness to this story.

If, like me, you are a fan of contemporary women’s fiction, I recommend adding this book to your TBR.