Review for Flawless by Lara Chapman

"Sarah Burke is just about perfect. She's got killer blue eyes, gorgeous blond hair, and impeccable grades. There's just one tiny-all right, enormous-flaw: her nose. But even that's not so bad. Sarah's got the best best friend and big goals for print journalism fame. On the first day of senior year, Rock Conway walks into her journalism class and, well, rocks her world. Problem is, her best friend, Kristen, falls for him too. And when Rock and Kristen stand together, it's like Barbie and Ken come to life. So when Kristen begs Sarah to help her nab Rock, Sarah does the only thing a best friend can do-she agrees. For someone so smart, what was she thinking? This hip retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is filled with hilariously misguided matchmaking, sweet romance, and a gentle reminder that we should all embrace our flaws." I love modern retellings and Flawless is a retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac about Sarah a seemingly beautiful, funny, intelligent girl if it wasn’t for her one flaw- her unusually large nose. For Sarah this one imperfection cancels out the rest of her perfect life ultimately defining who she is and the decisions she makes. So it really comes as no surprise that when she befriends hot new guy at school Rock she’s willing to cast aside her new found feelings for him to help her beautiful bff Kristen nab him for her own. When I first started this book the thing that really drew me in were the characters. I loved Sarah so much she’s hugely likeable given the fact that she’s intelligent, funny and despite feeling self conscious about her nose doesn’t take any rubbish from anybody regarding it. As for Sarah’s best friend Kristen she’s a character I really wanted to hate, after all she is putting Sarah through emotional hell by dating her crush, but I just couldn’t because deep down Kristen has a heart of gold and would be mortified to know what she was putting her best friend through. Despite everything Kristen is an excellent best friend standing by and sticking up for Sarah when she’s ridiculed for her nose and even trying to set her up with a cute guy. Sure Kristen’s a little ditsy but her heart was always in the right place making her a really great character. Sarah and Kristen share a true but complicated friendship that feels very real and is a key feature to the book. I for one certainly envied the fiercely loyal relationship between the girls. This book has everything a girl wants in a book. It’s got a hot forbidden romance, best friend drama, and struggles with body image and self confidence making Flawless relatable to pretty much any girl! But despite this book having a good dash of romance above all this is a story about the true meaning of beauty and coming to terms with who you are and how you look. The one strong message throughout being should Sarah change her nose to fit in with society’s idea of beauty? Is her flaw really her nose? Or is it actually how Sarah see’s her nose that’s the problem? I loved the little quotes at the start of every chapter on beauty and found that they provided a lot of food for thought on the concept of beauty and the role it plays in this story. As a reader I’m hugely surprised that this is Lara Chapman’s debut novel. Already she has such a strong distinctive voice as a writer that takes many authors years to perfect. Lara writes with confidence and humour making Flawless quite literally its names sake! I can pick no fault with this book and flew through it constantly thinking just one more chapter that chapter turning into 3 more! Overall I think that Flawless is an important book for teenage (or older!) girls to read given the pressures to look perfect in today’s society. I can’t recommend it enough and will be eagerly awaiting another book by Lara Chapman. My Rating 4.5/5 stars Synopsis taken from goodreads Thanks go to Bloomsbury for sending me this book for review