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Title: Far From PerfectAuthor: Holly SmaleFormat reviewed: EbookSource: NetgalleyPublisher: Harper Children's BooksPublication Date: 23rd July 2020Rating: 5 Stars
The second sensational book in the Valentines series – a hilarious and heart-aching story about the impossible standards for being a girl.
Be yourself but, you know, someone else . . .
Enthusiastic but not desperate; calm but not dull; funny but not try-hard; sparky but not crazy; feisty but not aggressive; beautiful but relatable; elegant but not icy; confident but not arrogant; feminine but not girly; nice but not boring.
Faith Valentine has it all – fame, money and extraordinary beauty. But what she wants more than anything is a quiet life away from the cameras. Except nobody ever asks Faith what she wants, and her family’s expectations are crushing her.
The world thinks she’s perfect, but is there is more to perfection than meets the eye?
It is so pleasing to be back with the Valentines family. It took me a few chapters to realise why Faith wasn't as familiar to me as I was perhaps expecting and that is purely due to book 1 being from Hope's point of view - which makes this perfectly readable as a standalone.
Ah Faith, she is doing her best outwardly to be the Valentine that is expected, beautiful, nice, a bit of asap, actress, yet inside well it feels as though it may not quite what she wants. In fact some of the scenes where looks like she is going off the rails are really amusing.
And I loved her new friend Scarlett, everyone needs a Scarlett in their lives, a mix between mentor, friend, bad influence and just all around cool character.
The Valentines are at their dysfunctional best, the dynamics between them all are amusing, tricky to fathom and then we are given some insight into a past event that clearly shapes them all at the moment.
Interspersed with headlines and news articles about Faith, where we can see just how the press can spin things, Faith is on the ultimate journey of self discovery in this book and I was willing her to come to the reasonably obvious conclusion, before it impacted her further.
As groan worthy and Christmas crackery as they were in quality, Faith has many jokes sometimes within the dialogue, sometimes at the start of a chapter, which couldn't help but raise a smile, even if the punch lines were rather unfunny!
This is filled yet again with Holly Smale's fabulous ability to get inside teenage minds, produce quirky characters that you can;t help but feel for and root for, and for me was a reasonably quick read that whizzed by, leaving me the painful wait for the next book in the series, which I already know I want to read!
Thank you to Harper and Netgalley for this copy which I have reviewed honestly and voluntarily.
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