Review: Flawless by Lara Chapman

Sarah Burke's life is about to get complicated. She's agreed to help her gorgeous best friend, Kirsten, catch the eye of the hot new guy at school, only to discover that he's actually perfect for her! And to make matters worse, Sarah's convinced that the guy of her dreams won't be able to see past her unusually large nose.


Misguided matchmaking, hilarious escapades and genuine romance result in this sensation high school romcom.


I wasn't sure about this book when I received it, it seemed like the type of book I would get bored of easily, although I love romance, I like romance with a bit of something else in the story so I thought this might get old very easily. i was shocked to find that it didn't!


What really kept me going with Flawless was the way it read. I'm sure pretty much every female reading this knows what it's like to settle down after a long day with a mug of hot chocolate, a nice warm duvet and a good rom-com on the TV, it's just the perfect wind-down remedy! Flawless did the same to me, it read like a rom-com and had all of the conventions of a rom-com, the only difference being that it's a book, not a movie. I mean, the blurb even describes it as a rom-com!


The story is pretty simple and the book itself is short, making it a great relaxing read, a literary buff may know the story of Cyrano de Bergerac, Flawless basically follows the same story but moves it up to a modern time. The modernisation was fantastic and uses today's technology very well, with facebook and texting replacing traditional letter writing. The writing was also great, really modern and really convincing, it really gets into the head of a seventeen year old girl. 


The story is very relatable as are the characters. Every person has something that they are really insecure about, in Sarah's case it's her nose and Sarah's thoughts really show how easy it is to let insecurities take over your every day life, as well as this there is Kirsten, everybody has a friend like Kirsten, one that's really confident and pretty and just standing beside them makes you feel inferior. Lara Chapman really writes these every day issues in a fantastic, true-to-life way. As well as this, the issues such as Sarah's loyalty to Kirsten despite her feelings for Rock are really well written.


The romance aspect wasn't as large as I expected it to be, despite the book basically being about the Sarah/Rock/Kirsten love triangle, Chapman wrote abou a lot of other issues as well, such as Sarah's insecurity and the moral of loving yourself no matter what as well as dealing with the issues of loyalty. However the relationship side is very well written, we see Rock's feelings for Sarah despite his relationship with Kirsten develop.


There are the good things, but there are a few small issues to be covered. I thought that it was ridiculous that Rock didn't figure out that Kirsten wasn't writing the letters from their conversations, I know it had to be played through as part of the plot but it seemed silly to me. I also felt like Sarah's character was inconsistent, with her being all insecure one minute and strong the next, which made me feel a little less attached to her. The plot is also very predictable, so I can't really say I was anticipating the next page or anything.
Finally, this book is more of an easy read and so doesn't have any WOW moments. 


All in all, a great summer read, it's relaxing and cute but not an amazing WOW read.

Overall rating: B+

Stand alone/series: Stand alone
Paperback Release: May 3rd 2011 

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 255

Book obtained via: Sent by Bloomsbury