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Title: Imperfectly Happy
Author: Sharina Harris
Sub-genre: Women’s Fiction
Content Warnings: alcoholism; adultery; childhood sexual assault (not on page); loss of parent
Alright, so a fair amount of my lukewarm feelings about this book stem from the fact that it popped up on a bunch of romances by Black authors posts/Twitter threads and this is definitely not a romance. I would really love for everyone to stop marketing women’s fiction as romance because they are not the same thing. I think I would have enjoyed reading the book more had I know what to expect going in.
Imperfectly Happy follows the stories of four women as they traverse major life changes. One is separated from her husband, one catches her fiancee cheating and embarks on a crusade to seek revenge, one is exploring being a musician after having been a stay at home mom, and one is dealing with job loss and reconciling with her absent father. All of the women rely on each other for support, but really, they are each going through their own individual journeys. And while again, this is not a romance, each woman does end up with an HEA, which I was happy to see.
I liked a lot of things about this book. I liked that the basis of the story was four women who are friends who are there for each other. I’m always here for female friendships in books and that was at the heart of this one, and probably the best thing about it. It was interesting to read how each character found herself, and grew and changed from beginning to end. But the main thing that was problematic for me was just the sheer amount of *stuff* in this book. These are four separate plot lines, each of which could have easily been its own book. I think cramming so much into one regular book-sized package was actually a detriment to the book as a whole because I didn’t feel like I got enough from any of the four stories. These are not low-angst problems the women are facing and I think too much was glossed over for the sake of time to make each story truly impactful for me personally. So while I liked the writing and the characters themselves, the story overall felt a little lacking for me.
Overall Rating: 4 stars
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