Review: Well written and fast paced
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 15, 2014
Imperfect Strangers tells the story of Keith, a night security guard who didn’t have the best childhood. When he meets Sally, who works in the company during the day, he is infatuated. Sally isn’t interested in Keith and is having relationship trouble with her on-again-off-again live in boyfriend, Steve. Trying to let Keith down easily, Sally leads him on.Unfortunately, due to the pain suffered at the hands of his mother, Keith is broken and doesn’t understand social situations, no matter how many books he reads to try and make sense of it all. As a result, his infatuation with Sally takes a dramatic turn.To begin with, I found myself getting rather annoyed with the phrase ‘everlasting voice’ when referring to Keith’s mother, and wanted to give this book 4 stars purely for that reason. However, this is the only fault I found with this book, and the fast pace of the novel, plus the characters being so well written, made me change my mind. I felt really sorry for Keith (the fact that the author could make me feel sympathy for this character even after the opening scene is a great accomplishment!) and really wanted him to come out of his shell and find happiness with Sally.I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to read this in one sitting, mostly because this is the first piece of work I have read from this author. Usually it takes quite a lot to get my heart racing, and I often have multiple books on the go at once, but this book managed to keep my attention throughout, especially the final scene.I thought that the way that Keith’s past was woven into the story was greatly effective, often finding myself thinking “he’s not creepy, he’s just misunderstood. It’s just because of what he’s been through” (regardless of his past, Keith is definitely creepy!!). I also found the book to be largely unpredictable, which is another great accomplishment.