Perfect

Wendy Stratford wants out of what she calls her "perfect plastic" life. She's tired of her perfect blond hair, her perfectly successful, surgeon husband, and her perfect Christian life. She wants a chance to have a real life, so she devises a plan to carry on an affair in Jamaica with her piano teacher, Chris. All is going as planned until Chris ends up in a horrible automobile accident. As a skilled accident reconstructionist, Wendi begins to detect inconsistencies in the accident report. Something is wrong. The "accident" begins to look like Chris was hit on purpose. Wendi is determined to find out what really happened but as she investigates people begin to die. At first, I wanted to paint Wendi with the bored and neglected wife brush and sweep her aside. I felt a bit annoyed with Wendi for the first part of the story. When she began to rebel against her morals with a devil-may-care attitude, I was certain she was having a midlife crises set in motion by a faith crisis that she blamed on her husband. Even though her husband wasn't perfect, I didn't feel he was entirely the blame for her restlessness. Then Wendi's personal story begins to unravel, revealing the pain and guilt she carried since her teen years due to an unwise choice which had embarrassing and life-altering consequences. Her mother's actions to preserve the family's perfect Christian image by covering up the mistake only cemented Wendi's need to be perfect by any means. It is then that Wendi's heartache and desperation to find her true self, her true identity is revealed. I felt bad judging and sweeping her aside merely on her wayward actions. Boy did I forget that deep-seated pain often motivates people to do things I can't understand. Isn't that where prayer instead of prejudice comes into play? Perfect asks the question: how far will people go to atone for guilt? This story is full of deceit, guilt, cover-up, and revenge which magnify our need for forgiveness and grace. The reader will be drawn into the storyline as the plot unfolds. At first you think you know where the story is going until Kraus throws the reader for a loop with an unexpected twist. Once the suspense tightens, Kraus does not let go until the final page is turned.

I picked this book up not realizing it was Christian literature. When I did realize it in chapter 2, I was disappointed because I had recently finished another Chistian novel which had prejudiced me against this type of writing. What I didn't want was a story where the author used the hand of God to resolve the story's problems rather than have the characters manage using their own resources. Fortunately, no magic tricks were needed as the protagonist worked through the events in a realistic manner and came to a new understanding about her faith. Good writing and high on the can't-put-it-down scale.

I couldn't put this book down! It was suspenseful and emotional and grabbed my attention from the very beginning. I think all of us can relate to feeling "fake" sometimes and the desire to break free from our "perfect little images" and be real. Wendi has to put on a "show" to a level where it makes her feel like it is killing her to be so pefect all the time. Wrapping herself in blame and shame and feeling that God is disappointed with her. She has no concept of grace. Her world begins to unravel as strange events begin to occur around her. But it is in the unravelling of her life that she finally finds the answers she's been looking for. A terrific book that spoke to my heart and my own longings to drop the masks and live with freedom in God's love. So not only was it a good suspense and story, it was a story that packed in a powerful message of grace.

The talented Harry Kraus (COULD I HAVE THIS DANCE?) crafts this absorbing, suspense-filled story of a doctor's wife who has the perfect life and everything money can buy --- but finds it is not enough to quell her guilt over her past. Trophy wife Wendi Stratford is the daughter of a minister who works as an accident reconstructionist. She is frustrated with her high-driving surgeon husband, Dr. Henry Stratford, and in love with her piano teacher, Jack Renner. She's also carrying a boatload of guilt over an incident in her past that helped land her mother in a wheelchair in a nursing home. Add to that her pressure over being the perfect child, and Wendi is about to leave everything and do what she wants --- and have the man and the adulterous fling she desires. But events intercede. After Jack is hospitalized in a horrific accident and slips into a coma, Henry does the surgery necessary to bring him back from the brink of death. Then, Jack's parents and fiancée, Yolanda Pate, show up and end up bunking at Wendi's home while Jack recuperates. Jack wakes from his coma but seems to suffer from amnesia. When Jack's fiancée dies in Wendi's bed --- from an overdose of pills prescribed by Henry --- evidence begins to point to Wendi, or possibly Henry, as the murderer. Henry has his own set of problems. Frustrated by his wife's lack of attention, and vulnerable to temptations that lurk right around the corner, he's ripe for an affair. When his resident physician, a sultry blonde, flirts with him and then is killed under mysterious circumstances, the plot thickens further. Do we really know who Henry is? Drugs, affairs, amnesia and guilty cover-ups all wind throughout the plot until its chilling conclusion. One complicating theme is Wendi's sister Rene, the typecast rebellious daughter, who shows up pregnant and HIV-positive on Wendi's doorstep. Wendi, who is unable to bear a child of her own, must decide if she wants a new start with Henry and adopt her sister's child, or continue to wait and see if Jack regains his memory --- and if they'll renew their fledgling affair. And her marriage is not easily dismissed. Henry's attentions toward her prove confusing. She muses during one scene, "Yes, he worked late and made me fight for second place, but he was compassionate and thorough with his patients, something that gave me comfort since he was the one in charge of Jack. The pendulum of my heart stood still, threatening to arc in the opposite direction from the one I'd been on: an arc towards loneliness, emotional isolation, and divorce." Point-of-view changes are smooth, and there are some surprises lurking in every chapter. Kraus portrays Henry as a multi-faceted character impossible to dislike, even when he's covering up his myriad mistakes and obsessive compulsive in his mannerisms. The author does a great job showing, not telling. One interesting way he does that is to have Henry check himself in the mirror every morning in the same sequence (hair

I just finished reading Perfect. What a fantastic book...full of suspense, as well as speaking of God's grace. I just want to encourage everyone to read his books....they are all great. I can't wait to read his next book!