2016 Book Review #63: Your Perfect Life

I needed a light read that was humorous after the last 3 I've read which were pretty intense and suspenseful.

This was perfect! (no pun intended).

It's written by best friends and is a "freaky friday" type story....only instead of a mother-daughter switching bodies, it's two best friends.  Is totally hilarious and an easy read.

STORY SUMMARY

Casey and Rachel have been best friends since middle school.  They are both in their late 30s now but their lives are vastly different.  Both live in the LA area of California but that's where the similarities stop.

Casey is a co-host for the successful television show GossipTV! with the other host Dean, who is very annoying.  Her personal assistant is Destiny whom she really can't fathom living without.  She had a relationship with Charlie, one of the producers, but that's on the fritz right now due to something terrible happening between them.  She has it all...or so it seems....glamour, a huge salary, celebrity status and her own pent-house apartment.  and yet......

Rachel, married to her high school sweetheart John, has 2 teenagers (Audrey, age 17 and Sophie, age 14) who are both full of drama, teenage angst and out of control disrespectful.  She and John also have a toddler named Charlotte who was their little "surprise" baby.  Rachel is a typical suburban stay-at-home mom and John makes a comfortable living in the pharmaceutical world.  Their marriage is pretty stagnant because Rachel is just consumed with raising their children.

Rachel, Casey and John are at their 20th high school reunion one evening when they have a raging argument.  The bartender, Brian, brings them a shot of some kind of purple drink which they both down and agree to try to salvage the evening.  Instead, they get a life-altering hangover.  They wake up in each other's bodies the next day!!

Now they both have to figure out how to live in each other's supposedly perfect lives.  Rachel now has to figure out the daily ins and outs of running a gossip telvevision show and face all those dreams she gave up in college to get married and have a baby.  Casey has to step away from the Hollywood spotlight and face the reality of why she's alone at this stage in her life.

Both of them are about to discover that they really didn't know each other very well...even though they've been best friends for years...and that they really didn't know themselves...or at least not as well as they thought they did!

Will they find Brian and figure out how to switch back to their own bodies?

Will Rachel be able to salvage her marriage?  And what about Casey and Charlie? What will happen to their fragile relationship?

MY THOUGHTS

This was a "chick lit" book big time but it was fun. I don't normally gravitate toward "chick lit" fiction but this one was quite well done and even though it's a copy cat of an already done theme (body switching as in the original Freaky Friday novel) it was well written.

It was very funny and an honest look at how the characters perceived themselves and the people around them.

It definitely is a picture of what happens when we make certain choices in life and what matters the most in our lives.

It's kind of a "happily ever after" book which is trite at times but in this particular novel it is just so witty that it didn't seem sappy, or at least not too sappy.  I kept reading to the end which is unusual for me with chick lit books.

In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older due to some mature content.

On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this an 8.