The Perfect Life by Nuala Ellwood published by Penguin Books

 

Vanessa has always found it easy to pretend to be somebody different, somebody better. When things get tough in her real life, all she has to do is throw on some nicer clothes, adopt a new accent and she can escape. Her method of escape is to become a different character and go and view houses which are for sale – houses which she can’t afford. After all, we’ve all done it, gone for a nosy around a show home, it’s all harmless fun isn’t it? Well it is until Vanessa is seen running from a house viewing and the police find a dead body inside.

 I loved this story to begin with, it was a real page turner and I quickly became involved in the story of Vanessa, the main character who is living under an umbrella of grief, having lost her mother tragically when she was a child. She was extremely vulnerable and when she got involved in a relationship with Connor I was rooting for her and really wanted things to work out.

Then about 80% of the way through the book it all changed for me – the twist felt like it had come out of no where and didn’t make sense, to the point where I had to re-read a big chunk because I thought I’d missed something.

The relationship between Vanessa’s sister Georgie and her brother-in-law Jack just felt like it was there for padding, rather than having any relevance or reason, and I still can’t understand why that was even in there.

This story is set across two different time lines “Now” and “Then” and occasionally a date was thrown in as well which at times I found quite confusing.

Sadly, it left me with a load of unanswered questions which I have found really frustrating!