Scan barcode
kristindowner's review
3.0
I was torn between giving this book a 3 or a 4 star. The storyline was good and Nate draws you in. You read faster in hopes of another scene where Nate is. As a bigger girl, I can relate to some of the thoughts that run through Cat's head. But... the way that some of the issues are described "her stomach rolled down onto her leg..." give you the image she is MUCH larger than she actually is. A 12/14 wouldn't necessarily have all the problems that this girl has, especially as she is described as a tall female... much taller than her friends. The proportions described to this tall, size 12/14 girl is just not realistic in my opinion. However, a girl can relate to feeling self-conscious about her body and want to encourage Cat along. I also did not like the dependency she felt on Nate. I understand the feeling of a guy making you feel beautiful and sexy, but that shouldn't be the only time you are feeling that way. The writer made it feel ok up until the very end. With that being said... this book was an easy read and I found myself reading at every second I could to see what was going to happen next. I would definitely recommend her to others.
apacheco1993's review
5.0
This review has also been posted on Rotten Apple Reads!
Let me start off my saying that, I freaking loved this book! This is one of those book that I know I will look back later on, and be grateful that I had the opportunity to read it.
Catherine “Cat” Mitchell, aspiring designer and former model, hates her body. After falling from a horse and breaking her lower leg, she undergoes three surgeries. A metal rod, tons of physical therapy and 60 pounds later, she doesn’t recognize her body. It also doesn’t help that the guy she was sleeping with before the accident, calls her fat in public. She becomes depressed, and thanks to her amazing, supportive, and loveable bff, she starts seeing a therapist who assigns her to pose nude for an art class.
“What I care about most right now is your mind being healthy about your body”
That’s when Nathaniel “Nate” West comes in. He is simply amazing! He tells her the sweetest things and makes Cat feel wanted, beautiful, and confident again. He understands her struggles with her self-image because he was on the heavier side as a kid, which was the first time they had met. The problem is she feels like this only when she is with him.
At the end, when Cat discovers who Nate was before they met, she realizes that she doesn’t need a man or the world to see her beautiful. She know it, feel it, and believes it.
“I knew now that I was strong, and I was beautiful, just the way I was.”
Even after what Cat discovered about Nate, I was still cheering him on. They were perfect together! I just wanted Cat to let him explain why he did, what he did.
"I was beautiful and he was gorgeous, but the most amazing thing about us was how perfect we were together"
We all have been judged about how we looked. We all have struggled with our self-esteem and body image. We can all relate to Cat and learn from her. And this is why I loved this book. Even though I’m the complete opposite of her, I have been in her place once, just like we all had.
miztrebor's review
5.0
Something about this book caught my attention early on. With just the blurb along, I had a feeling that this book would be different than most of what I’ve been seeing lately. I wasn’t mistaken.
Picture Perfect is about a young woman coping with a life-changing event. She gained weight after an accident and the way she lives and views herself in life is altered drastically. While this is also a romance, there’s much more to the novel. Some of the concepts brought up range from being comfortable in your own skin, acknowledging what an actual ideal weight is, and more important than some other things, people can change in a variety of ways.
When I started this book, while I was excited, I had a slight worry that I wouldn’t be able to get into it because of a whiny main character. Cat was not whiny, big plus. I’ve read a few books in the past that have gotten annoying to continue reading due to a main character always whining about an issue like weight, that that type of voice has me putting down the book and moving along. As I said, Cat isn’t like that. She’s troubled, and she doesn’t have great self-esteem, but she’s not a whiner. At the heart of it, Cat is a strong woman who just needs a little push and a reason to find herself in this low point.
Nate’s also a great character. Really, most of the characters encountered in this book were great. Again, I wasn’t disappointed with Nate’s character. I’ve gotten a little jaded with seeing the stereotypical troubled, slightly abusive bad-boy love interest, that the female character melts into a puddle for. Nate’s refreshing. He’s a nice guy. I’m not saying he’s perfect, no character should be perfect, but he’s a little something different than most “book boyfriends” that I’ve run across.
Oh, and did I mention that there are a few sexy scenes? Well, there are. While some readers might be turned off from having “semi-graphic” (by that I really just mean that it’s described with a very mild erotic flavor, not that it’s creepy or over the top) sex scenes, I feel that it was a great tool to show Cat’s development over the course of the novel. I won’t get into specifics, but I’ll just say that through sex, one can explore the body and find comfort in one way or another.
So, yes, I enjoyed this novel. It was what I was expecting and more, to be honest. There’s a second novel coming out soon, which stars Cat’s roommate, Joey, who I didn’t really mention in here, but she’s fun and I’m looking forward to reading her story.
Picture Perfect is about a young woman coping with a life-changing event. She gained weight after an accident and the way she lives and views herself in life is altered drastically. While this is also a romance, there’s much more to the novel. Some of the concepts brought up range from being comfortable in your own skin, acknowledging what an actual ideal weight is, and more important than some other things, people can change in a variety of ways.
When I started this book, while I was excited, I had a slight worry that I wouldn’t be able to get into it because of a whiny main character. Cat was not whiny, big plus. I’ve read a few books in the past that have gotten annoying to continue reading due to a main character always whining about an issue like weight, that that type of voice has me putting down the book and moving along. As I said, Cat isn’t like that. She’s troubled, and she doesn’t have great self-esteem, but she’s not a whiner. At the heart of it, Cat is a strong woman who just needs a little push and a reason to find herself in this low point.
Nate’s also a great character. Really, most of the characters encountered in this book were great. Again, I wasn’t disappointed with Nate’s character. I’ve gotten a little jaded with seeing the stereotypical troubled, slightly abusive bad-boy love interest, that the female character melts into a puddle for. Nate’s refreshing. He’s a nice guy. I’m not saying he’s perfect, no character should be perfect, but he’s a little something different than most “book boyfriends” that I’ve run across.
Oh, and did I mention that there are a few sexy scenes? Well, there are. While some readers might be turned off from having “semi-graphic” (by that I really just mean that it’s described with a very mild erotic flavor, not that it’s creepy or over the top) sex scenes, I feel that it was a great tool to show Cat’s development over the course of the novel. I won’t get into specifics, but I’ll just say that through sex, one can explore the body and find comfort in one way or another.
So, yes, I enjoyed this novel. It was what I was expecting and more, to be honest. There’s a second novel coming out soon, which stars Cat’s roommate, Joey, who I didn’t really mention in here, but she’s fun and I’m looking forward to reading her story.
bookphenomena_micky's review
3.0
It's a 3.5 stars for this book, missed out on 4 stars because of a lull 60-80%of the way through the book but it picked up after. This is the story of Cat, thin girl, gone curvy after surgery and a prolonged recovery after a severe break To her leg. Cat was a model but now hates her body and dumped by her snakey boyfriend because of it. She meets Nate who truly loves her and her body but Nate hides a prejudiced past that threatens to destroy what is beginning to grow. Would read another from this author.
leilorenzo's review
2.0
Yet another book I didn't fully enjoy; there were far too many cliches going on for me to ignore since it came to a point where I knew how every chapter would unfold before even reading it.
poisonivy70's review
2.0
[2.5 stars]
Cat suffered horse riding accident that broke her leg and left her with scars, inside and out. She gained a significant amount of weight and most of the book is dealing with her body image issues, since she was a model before the accident and alot of her self worth was tied into her looks. Nate is a sweet hero, and there’s alot of emphasis on “perfection” and an individual’s perception of it. Believable handling of a sensitive subject and I think great pains are taken to explain why Cat is depressed and hypercritical of her body. That said, it’s not necessarily a pleasant read and her constant negativity was hard to connect to or really delve into the romance because she clearly had issues she should have addressed before getting into any relationship. Well meaning book that I think misses the mark as far as entertainment.
Cat suffered horse riding accident that broke her leg and left her with scars, inside and out. She gained a significant amount of weight and most of the book is dealing with her body image issues, since she was a model before the accident and alot of her self worth was tied into her looks. Nate is a sweet hero, and there’s alot of emphasis on “perfection” and an individual’s perception of it. Believable handling of a sensitive subject and I think great pains are taken to explain why Cat is depressed and hypercritical of her body. That said, it’s not necessarily a pleasant read and her constant negativity was hard to connect to or really delve into the romance because she clearly had issues she should have addressed before getting into any relationship. Well meaning book that I think misses the mark as far as entertainment.
dailyjulianne's review
5.0
I picked up Picture Perfect for a couple reasons. One being that I like the author on twitter. She's fun to talk to. Two being that I wanted to try New Adult ANYWAY, so why not start here? And three, it's just so easy to relate to. I can't say that most people have gone through a traumatic accident, but pretty much every person I know has or does suffer from body image issues, especially in the high school/college years.
I've never been a model and I've never hurt my leg that badly (though I DO frequently injure my knee...someday I should stop that), but Cat was still somebody a lot of people can understand. She's insecure. She's gained weight. She's not happy with her body. She knows it CAN be better and has been better and that's a massive distraction for her and brings her down often. This happens to pretty much everyone. Even if it's not your weight, there's SOMETHING about pretty much every person that they think needs to change or thought it needed to be change at some point (unless you're super confident and always have been in which case, that's awesome for you, but you're also a rare unicorn *pets*). Basically, even though it's not likely most readers had Cat's exact experience, and they probably didn't use nude modeling as a way to cope with that and find a hot dude who was an even BETTER coping mechanism, there's still something very real to it.
And then there's Nate. Oh dear, sweet Nate. He seems like totally perfect and eventually you learn that he's NOT totally perfect, which I think is important to make characters feel like real people. It also really showed how growth can happen off the pages too. A lot of the times massive character development happens within the book for various reasons, but people have their massive life changes at different times in their lives. So to see that at least one character in this book already had their realization of who they wanted to be and made that change before even appearing in the novel was nice. I feel like that doesn't happen as much as it could.
I loved the writing in this book. I really did. I was just on this string of reading really good books when I started reading this one I was immediately totally hooked and ended up devouring the book in a couple of days which I don't really get to do all that often. Like, I'm reading 4 books right now and I have been reading most of these for at least a week, despite how much I'm enjoying them all.
Were there issues with this book? Yes. I think that there could have been more focus on the nude modeling aspect as a coping mechanism. I also do think Nate could have used a few more flaws. But for a good look on body image and self esteem issues and how sometimes a relationship can help self image, this book worked. It was entertaining and it was fun and it was sexy and it was well written and I loved it. For a New Adult book that has some more substance to it, this is definitely a book to try.
I've never been a model and I've never hurt my leg that badly (though I DO frequently injure my knee...someday I should stop that), but Cat was still somebody a lot of people can understand. She's insecure. She's gained weight. She's not happy with her body. She knows it CAN be better and has been better and that's a massive distraction for her and brings her down often. This happens to pretty much everyone. Even if it's not your weight, there's SOMETHING about pretty much every person that they think needs to change or thought it needed to be change at some point (unless you're super confident and always have been in which case, that's awesome for you, but you're also a rare unicorn *pets*). Basically, even though it's not likely most readers had Cat's exact experience, and they probably didn't use nude modeling as a way to cope with that and find a hot dude who was an even BETTER coping mechanism, there's still something very real to it.
And then there's Nate. Oh dear, sweet Nate. He seems like totally perfect and eventually you learn that he's NOT totally perfect, which I think is important to make characters feel like real people. It also really showed how growth can happen off the pages too. A lot of the times massive character development happens within the book for various reasons, but people have their massive life changes at different times in their lives. So to see that at least one character in this book already had their realization of who they wanted to be and made that change before even appearing in the novel was nice. I feel like that doesn't happen as much as it could.
I loved the writing in this book. I really did. I was just on this string of reading really good books when I started reading this one I was immediately totally hooked and ended up devouring the book in a couple of days which I don't really get to do all that often. Like, I'm reading 4 books right now and I have been reading most of these for at least a week, despite how much I'm enjoying them all.
Were there issues with this book? Yes. I think that there could have been more focus on the nude modeling aspect as a coping mechanism. I also do think Nate could have used a few more flaws. But for a good look on body image and self esteem issues and how sometimes a relationship can help self image, this book worked. It was entertaining and it was fun and it was sexy and it was well written and I loved it. For a New Adult book that has some more substance to it, this is definitely a book to try.
More...