ARC Review: An Imperfect Wife by Grace Wen

Title: An Imperfect Wife

Author: Grace Wen

Publisher: Musa Publishing

Published: November 24, 2011

Format: ARC PDF copy

Pages:   82

Source: I received this from the publisher

in exchange for an honest reveiw

Read: October 18-19

In A Few Words: Sensual, yet imperfect

My Rating: 3 stars

Goodreads:Add This to Your TBR Shelf

Goodreads Synopsis:

Nicole Evans wanted to support her husband Josh's career, even if it meant moving away from their hometown, family, and friends. So what if he didn't ask for her input before accepting the job? They needed the money, and the opportunity was too good to pass up. Standing by him was the right thing to do.

But Josh's crazy schedule leaves her lonely and taken for granted. With no friends or job to fill the long hours, she turns to Adam Cahill, Josh's handsome boss, for a sympathetic ear. She tells herself it's a harmless crush. Until she kisses him. And he kisses her back.

Nicole feels guilty, but she's doesn't want the affair to end. What will she do when Josh discovers she's an imperfect wife?

Melissa's Musings:

Overall, this is an easy read, and for the most part is enjoyable. Nicole stands by her husband without much complaint when he decides to get a job out of state and uproot them from their lives. But then, his job starts to take over, and he starts to ignore her completely. He becomes cold, and even mean as he only focuses on work.

Nicole gets lonely, and feels hurt that Josh doesn't want to spend time with her anymore. When she meets his boss, Adam, she instantly feels attracted to him, and it shows. The working of the attraction, which develops into a mutual attraction further on in the story is really well done. There's a lot of buildup and tension. 

The dynamic between Heather, (Adam's wife) and Nicole is interesting is that they each are judgmental, but neither seems to think that they are. 

Inevitably, Adam and Nicole start having an affair. As I mentioned before, the buildup and tension of this is nice. It's not insta love which is good. There's plenty  of flirting, missed chances, mistakes. 

While the build up of the story is really well done, the ending is a big let down or at least it was for me *SPOILER ALERT:*

Nicole and Adam do end up sleeping with each other. They both admit that they are in love. Then Adam gets into a car accident and when he's coming around he asks for Nicole instead of his wife, so she puts it together that they've been together. Nicole begs Heather not to tell Josh. The big problem is, when she goes to tell him, he won't listen yet again, and so she ends up leaving him. She foolishly thinks that Adam is going to leave his wife to be with her. 

I don't have a problem with the main events of the story at this point, I have a problem with Nicole. She seems so motivated to be on her own and do what she wants for a change rather than listening to what everyone else wants. This, I admire. But, after Adam tells her he can't be with her anymore, she decides that she needs to learn to compromise and go back to Josh.

This absolutely infuriated me because she was the one who was making all the compromises and sacrifices in the first place! Josh was completely taking advantage of her, blatantly ignoring her and not listening to her feelings at all, it's no surprise that she ended up with someone else who was paying her more attention. But in the end, she ends up taking all the blame and deciding that she's the one that needs to compromise. Maybe it's the character's guilty conscience over cheating that makes her come to this conclusion, I'm not sure, but it's definitely not a great end to the story. Especially since she doesn't even end up telling him what she did before the story ends anyway.

This is a nice read for someone who enjoys simple romances.

*I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*