The Perfect Match

The Perfect Match
by Kristan Higgins
Rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Review:
This was a very compelling story. I found it hard to put down most of the time. I was surprised how many of the characters seemed creepy and dark, a little more intensely diabolical feeling than most of Kristin's other books. I kept thinking that someone was going to do something really nasty: find a dead body in a freezer, kidnapping or murder, rugs made out of human hair, or something equally creepy. It never came to that, most of the creepy just sort of disappears around the halfway point and only has vague references after that.

I had a lot of trouble figuring out Honor. She's very strong and professional, the heart of her family, puts pretty much everything she has into her family and is great at getting things done. But she lets her friends (and often her family) walk all over her. She gets things done, she can be really outspoken and control/manage everyone, but then sometimes she just completely sat back and curled into her shell. I got upset by how often she let her friends say whatever nastiness they wanted without answering back. I figured it could be because she has no real friends or doesn't want to have good friends because she's scared people will leave her if she truly cares about them. But the way she resolved things with her friends was very true to her character.

Tom, well, he was easy to picture because I saw so many pictures on facebook that he was crafted after Tom Hardy. Some things, like his drinking, seemed to not really amount to anything. I couldn't tell if it was supposed to be an important plot point or not. I guess not because it was just sort of dropped after a couple mentions. Tom felt very complex and well rounded. Not very good at emotional conversations, but very caring in the way he acts. He was amusing for how serious and droll he could be, but so mysterious with his hidden depths of feeling.

So yes, this book still involved the requisite Kristin Higgins book crying. The characters just have so much relatable pain and sadness that you can't help crying sometimes. It's a bright and optimistic book. You don't feel weighed down by the content. But these characters have to walk through their valleys in order to get to their Happily Ever After. These two are totally ready to settle with whatever they can get. For Honor, because life is passing her by. She's the good, boring one. The one everyone is comfortable with but no one is willing to see her as special. For Tom, he doesn't think he needs anyone caring about him. He just wants to be able to care for his little circle of people without interference and if that means he needs a wife, well he might be able to manage that.

There were lots of familiar characters. We meet Goggy and Pops (the grandparents), Dad, Faith, Jack, Prudence and all the other assorted family members in The Best Man and they continue to be an integral part of this book as well. Besides the creepy factor with a lot of the secondary characters, I liked how rich this story was. Each character seemed to be complete and whole, even if we only see them for a few minutes.

I found all the wine references sort of funny. Since I don't drink wine, I have no idea if people really talk like this about their wine. I mean, these people are intense with the flavors. At one point there was a wine that “had a lovely nose of fresh-cut grass, grapefruit and a hint of limestone”. I'm pretty sure there was another one with a hint of leather. I sort-of roll my eyes at those things and think, that's probably one of the reasons I don't like wine.

I was glad that there wasn't some huge creepy thing going on because that's definitely not why I read Kristan Higgins books. But I was confused about why so many things seemed like they were supposed to be important but then dropped. Everything wrapped up very tidily at the end. EVERYONE had a happy ending, but felt a little rushed to me, like we barely get the chance to see Honor and Tom work things out before the book is simply over. It's a great book to curl up with and a great world to enter. Not my favorite Kristan Higgins, but a good addition to the Blue Heron series. I'll be looking forward to the next book.