Unperfect by Susie Tate

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When Mia shows up for the interview at a well-known architecture firm, she only has 27p, a squashed loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter to her name. She needs this job. Even if she is scared to death of the owner of the company.

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Max has made a name for himself as “that grumpy northern architect off Grand Designs”, after he told Kevin McCloud that designing affordable, environmentally friendly homes “wasn’t rocket science” and that most of the other projects featured on the programme were for “reight poncy bastads who want to spend a grand on a shite tap.” It turned out that the whole gorgeous-but-rough-around-the-edges-Yorkshire-man vibe was just what the country was looking for – the episode had gone viral and Max was the new, extremely reluctant, pin-up of the building industry.

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But to Mia, huge, grumpy men weren’t sexy, they were simply terrifying. She knows from experience that even men of average size can be dangerous. If she wasn’t so desperate, she’d run. She’s used to running. Running away is Mia’s special talent, together with invisibility – survival techniques she’s perfected over the years. So, she’ll put up with Max and his moods, ignore him calling her a teen emo freak (he’s not to know that her black hair used to be honey blonde or her heavy eyeliner isn’t by choice) and just bloody well jog on. Just try to survive. Try to hide.

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It’s easy to hide when nobody really sees you. But what happens when Max finally opens his eyes?

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Unperfect a full-length contemporary, enemies to lovers, office romance.

♥️

Unperfect

“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” -Shakespeare

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 🖤💜🤎💚💛
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📙📕📗📘📙
World building: 🌎🌏🌍🌍🌍
Character development: 😍😕🙃☺️🤩

The heroine: Mia (a.k.a Number Five) – just out of an extremely abusive relationship, Mia is hiding from her ex. She has cut her hair, died it black and wears heavy eyeliner. She is homeless and recovering from a vicious attack which left her with some broken ribs and a fractured and dislocated shoulder.

The Hero(es): Max – a brilliant architect with an up and coming firm. Max has recently gained some fame after speaking the truth in his own grumpy growly way. He is prone to outbursts in the office when things aren’t going his way, and he doesn’t think they need an IT person since he is used to things the way they are.

The story: Mia gets a job working at the architectural firm Max co-owns with his friend Verity using a fake name and altered references thought her background in IT is solid. She tries to stay as invisible as possible but Max notices her from the very start.

I liked how deeply this book went into the psyche of Mia as an abused woman in hiding. However, I thought in this day and age the people she worked with must be pretty dim witted not to have picked up on her situation a lot earlier. There were a ton of things that spoke to her being abused and homeless, not in the least the way she flinched from men and how she almost never ate at work, but the few times meals were provided for her she ate like she hadn’t seen food in days.

Aside from that, the book was very good. I loved that the Author (Susie Tate) put titles on all the chapters, it seems like authors don’t do that much anymore, but I liked how they were a tiny blurb of what is to come in that chapter. The book was told in both the Hero and the heroine’s POV which I love as well.

I liked the fact that Max was grumpy, abrupt and easy to yell out his frustrations, but really was a big teddybear inside. It was cool that his nature was compared against Mia’s abusive husband Nate who was cold and calm but then lashed out violently which made her more anxious because she never knew when it was coming.

I think the author has either been in an abusive relationship or did some great research because some of the situations in this books between Mia and Nate were chilling to read. I was married to a man like that, though not as rich and some of the passages in this book could have been from my life directly. It was that realistic. I liked Mia’s strength and determination as well as the people she ended up surrounding herself with.

I voluntarily read & reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts & opinions are my own.

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