Almost Perfect

Rating:
Summary: Going Deep
Review: Almost Perfect by Barbara Khan is a book whose content closely matches its title. Within the first few pages the writer has captured your attention with her astute development of the characters, interweaving the elite with the ordinary in a way that is beleiveable and peaks your curiosity to keep the pages turning. As the lives of Johnny and Lily begin to unfold, who they are and which side of the tracks they come from, you will find yourself engrossed wondering how their lives will cross and what will happen when they do. The author does an excellent job of taking unexpected twists and turns throughout the book that cause you to speak right out loud when you are reading it demanding it turn out the way you want it too keeping you riveted to each page to see if, when, and how these lives will reach their destinies. As other characters are introduced and placed into this unlikely love story between an almost baseball star who looses his leg through a freak and foolish accident and a high society woman who has little interest in power and wealth, lives of many others are touched, changed, and affected that will have you applauding the author with her depth of insight. In a world where perfectionism is strived for but often unmet, this book will move your heart to settle for something Almost Perfect.

Rating:
Summary: Far from perfect
Review: Almost Perfect is far from perfect. It was a good story, with likable characters whom I really cared about, but the many flaws made it a less-than-perfect novel.

The story jumped too illogically from time period to time period, with very few clues to indicate the time period of each chapter. At one point, I thought it was 1949 because one line read: "The year was 1949." But the next thing I knew, one of the characters was opening a 1956 bottle of wine. There's another point in the novel when the timeline suddenly jumped back, with no clear transition. There are also many confusing changes of scene and changes of point of view.

Another flaw is the unevenness of the story-telling. Some parts of the novel are somewhat detailed, while other sections are sketchy and read more like a synopsis of a novel.

The worst thing about the book is that it is very poorly copy-edited. The book is full of misspellings, mispunctuations (missing or misplaced commas and apostrophes and especially a lot of problems with quotation marks), and misuse of words. These many errors are very distracting and sometimes make it difficult to follow the story. (Notes to Ms. Khan: a fortnight is two weeks, not two days; "leukemia" is not spelled with a capital L; "Wilkes-Barre" is spelled with a hyphen; and Wilkes-Barre's population is a lot more than 8,000, then and now. And what is a "perspective" bride?)

There also appear to be some anachronisms, but I'm not sure. In the 1950s and 1960s, did people use the phrases "politically correct," "sports bar," and "doable"?

This is a good story, and with extensive editing, it just might be almost perfect.

Rating:
Summary: Far from perfect
Review: Almost Perfect is far from perfect. It was a good story, with likable characters whom I really cared about, but the many flaws made it a less-than-perfect novel.

The story jumped too illogically from time period to time period, with very few clues to indicate the time period of each chapter. At one point, I thought it was 1949 because one line read: "The year was 1949." But the next thing I knew, one of the characters was opening a 1956 bottle of wine. There's another point in the novel when the timeline suddenly jumped back, with no clear transition. There are also many confusing changes of scene and changes of point of view.

Another flaw is the unevenness of the story-telling. Some parts of the novel are somewhat detailed, while other sections are sketchy and read more like a synopsis of a novel.

The worst thing about the book is that it is very poorly copy-edited. The book is full of misspellings, mispunctuations (missing or misplaced commas and apostrophes and especially a lot of problems with quotation marks), and misuse of words. These many errors are very distracting and sometimes make it difficult to follow the story. (Notes to Ms. Khan: a fortnight is two weeks, not two days; "leukemia" is not spelled with a capital L; "Wilkes-Barre" is spelled with a hyphen; and Wilkes-Barre's population is a lot more than 8,000, then and now. And what is a "perspective" bride?)

There also appear to be some anachronisms, but I'm not sure. In the 1950s and 1960s, did people use the phrases "politically correct," "sports bar," and "doable"?

This is a good story, and with extensive editing, it just might be almost perfect.

Rating:
Summary: LOVE UNFOLDS IN THE MOST UNLIKELY PLACES.
Review: Barbara Khans debut as a new writer shines in her portrayal of love and humanity and how it can unfold in the most unlikly of circumstances. Five stars for penetrating the layers of human conciousness when the twists and turns of life can land us on our heads and full us with cunindroms. Ms. Khan unravels the mysteries of our human complexitites in a wonderfully creative twist captivating our attention and pulling at our emotional intelligence.

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect Review
Review: Ms. Khan delights the reader with her insightful depiction of the human spirit and behavior. She accurately captures the nuances of repressed emotion and the real life meaning of "what could have been." Definitely a must read book!

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect Review
Review: Ms. Khan delights the reader with her insightful depiction of the human spirit and behavior. She accurately captures the nuances of repressed emotion and the real life meaning of "what could have been." Definitely a must read book!

Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect Review
Review: Ms. Khan delights the reader with her insightful depiction of the human spirit and behavior. She accurately captures the nuances of repressed emotion and the real life meaning of "what could have been." Definitely a must read book!