Imperfect Paradise by: Dan Dembiczak

It has been a while since I have done a book review and I am pleased to be starting again with Imperfect Paradise by: Dan Dembiczak. Let me tell you a little about the book itself and then I will share my thoughts.

About the Book

For thirty-two-year-old Sarah Chizeck, marriage was not an option, but an expectation. She was raised to believe that a woman’s main focus is to get married and start a family, and she put everything else on hold to accomplish this goal.  So when she finally marries her boyfriend of five years, Sarah and her family are ecstatic.

But underneath Sarah’s smiles, something else is lurking. Sarah’s career and personal interests were not all she put on hold to pursue marriage. She also put her feelings on the backburner and buried her emotions. But when she reluctantly goes to Hawaii for her honeymoon, these things come to the surface, and she is both pleased and alarmed by the sensory experiences she encounters. Terrified by her attraction to a handsome young concierge, Sarah is forced to confront her new feelings, as well as what she previously ignored, and she ultimately comes to shocking revelations about her upbringing, marriage, and future. Imperfect Paradise tells the compelling story of Sarah’s internal awakening and delivers a powerful message about hope, happiness, and finding your place in the world. A classic romance wit a contemporary twist, it is sure to appeal to fans of modern, liberating fiction.

My Thoughts

I can relate to Sarah in so many ways that it is not even funny. By the time she gets married you want to punch her husband in the face. He calls their honeymoon a vacation and even falls asleep on their wedding night. While neither of those things happened to me I can sympathize with her.  I realize there are two ways of looking at this book, one is those who like me sympathize with Sarah and on some level understand her. The other is those who will see Sarah as self-absorbed and maybe even a bit of an alcoholic. She does have those qualities but since the book is written in the first person of course she would be all about her.

Imperfect Paradise is a bit rough on the institution of marriage but as someone who has been through the ringer, so to speak, I can relate to the brutal reality of marriage at times. However I think it is a great read because Sarah shows us many of the things that modern women go through. Maybe not just modern women but modern couples as well. We end up living together for so long that when marriage finally comes we tend to take it for granted.