The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
The Perfect Marriage was my July 2023 bookclub selection. I thought the premise sounded good and I was looking forward to reading this book. The positives – it was a quick, easy read and it drew me in right away.
The negatives – I don’t even know where to start. It is difficult to rate this without giving away the story and I don’t want to spoil this for the people who may enjoy this book.
The story was really bad. It felt like the author did no research about criminal procedure so for me to go along with this story I had to suspend all knowledge about how police investigations and criminal trials occur. The holes in the plot were massive and the author tried to tie them up with the ending that made me roll my eyes.
The author didn’t seem to know the area well either. She portrayed the law enforcement as “dumb” inexperienced folk but the setting isn’t the rural bumbling area she is portraying.
It is a pet peeve of mine when authors don’t do any research or ground work before writing a book. Just a little of that might have fixed some of the glaring issues and made the book at least tolerable for me.
The characters were all awful. Adam was insufferable. Made ridiculous choices at every turn. Sarah was full of herself and the author constantly dropped brand names – she was always wearing Chanel or whatever. It was absolutely unnecessary for the story. Adam’s mom’s character was silly and unnecessary. It’s rare when I read a book and literally cheer for no one.
I cannot understand how The Perfect Marriage has so many good reviews.
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1 thought on “The Perfect Marriage – Book Review”
Thank you! I’m trying to read it for a second time and just can’t do it. I’m from Northern VA and lived in Manassas. Lake Manassas is an upscale neighborhood just outside the city of Manassas. There is nothing rural about this area and it’s not an hour from DC. These simple failures in research prevents me from getting into the story. I did push through to Ch 16 and finally quit. I found myself skipping and skimming through it. The writing is not good and the characters are unbelievable.
So sad cause I bought two books this one and the perfect divorce. They had good reviews and I’m disappointed.