4.5
I loved it! The banter was top-tier, the characters were excellently written and well fleshed out. The steam was absolutely steaming and I loved the ending!!! This book is slept on but it was beautiful. I 100% recommend. ( )

Tia Williams is an author that flew under my radar until last year’s soul destroying, all-encompassing Seven Days in June. I knew I had to get stuck into her backlist. The Perfect Find is a bit lighter, but still packs an emotional punch towards the end. It’s also a fun look into the world of fashion and media – oh, and with a hot romance too.

Jenna Jones has come back to New York after everything falling apart – her love life, job, apartment and well…everything. She’s ready to face the world again, but things are not what they used to be. She’s working for peanuts for a fashion website, with her nemesis at the helm and she’s living in a not-so-great apartment in Brooklyn. She still has her friends and it’s at an event where she meets a hot young man. Later, that younger man turns out to be her new colleague Eric who she has to shoot a series of videos for. It starts off awkward, turns angry but then Jenna and Eric are the best of friends with a heavy underlying chemistry. Eric is much younger than Jenna but comes with his own baggage (not to mention the different stage of his life – weed and video games). Do they try a relationship? Will they get sacrifice their own dreams to be together?

The Perfect Find is more than the romance, it’s about each character working through what they do and do want in their lives and how to get there. Jenna has had a hard time, and feels like she wasted her thirties on someone who wasn’t what she thought they were. She has to reassess her priorities to see if they would work in her current life and make the decision whether to ditch some things to get those. Eric is younger at 22, and although he’s pretty mature, Jenna is very conscious that he hasn’t lived outside being a student nor launched his career. This is one of the pair’s sticking points – what should or could they give up for a relationship? It’s quite detailed and their differences in life stages are highlighted in both the funny (a dinner party gone wrong with drugs) and the uncomfortable (a child’s costume party with Jenna being really awkward). Jenna isn’t a saint in this novel, she makes dumb decisions (like showing Eric off like he’s her child or trophy) and she is also a fan of yellow Skittles (which to me, are firmly in the average category). Likewise, Eric has his flaws – betting on video games and playing them for hours – but he’s also sweet, emotionally mature and very level-headed. He’s also honest and ready to stick up for Jenna, even if it means telling some home truths to his (revolting) mother.

I loved reading about Eric and Jenna’s video series on the perfect fashion find and I wish there had been more about it. It was nice to reminisce about 2012 celebrities and fashion, but it did date the book a little (probably anything pre-COVID is now dated, so it’s relatively minor). I hear The Perfect Find is soon to be a Netflix film with Gabrielle Union and Kevin Powers, which I am 100% here for.

Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book, my review is honest.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

Here's an enjoyable romp featuring a forty year old Black style/beauty editor, coming out of a long term failed relationship, and the twenty-something son of her professional rival. Jenna and Eric team up to make videos about The Perfect Find, the one clothing item that each subject longs for, and their series is a smashing success. They're great in bed too, but the age difference and Jenna's ticking bio-clock is driving them apart. There's a lot of beauty-insider caricatures here of fictional women and real-life models and scenesters, and buckets of humor and wisdom about family, work, and love.

Quotes: "Love hardly ever comes in the package we envisioned."

"After a while, I got used to feeling horrible. It was easier than figuring out how to start over." ( )