A sweet read! Loved the story as well as the characters! Hard to put down once you start! That's how quick you are drawn in this book! Highly recommed!

I was really looking forward to reading Southern Perfection, but I ended up being completely underwhelmed. I was expecting something a bit more like One Chance Night by Eliza Boyd – which I only gave three stars, but for some reason really sticks out in my mind – so I think I can partly blame my expectations for the reason that this book fell so flat.


However, the synopsis is also hugely misleading. Referencing appearances being ‘not what they seem’ and ‘all the questions are answered with one night, one song, one story, and one boy’ you’d think this would be a cute contemporary romance and not much deeper than that, right?

Wrong! The secret that Raegan Lowery is hiding is that her Grandaddy has leukaemia, so there is far more to this story than I’d expected. If this had been more obvious based off of the description I might not have been as disappointed, but I was looking forward to reading a summery romance, not a girl struggling to come to terms with her grandfather’s impending death.

If Southern Perfection had been solely focused upon Raegan and her Grandaddy, I probably would have given this a higher rating. That plotline is handled very well. Raegan wants her Grandaddy to undergo chemotherapy, while he values the quality of his life over the quantity so is hesitant to do the treatment. This is highly realistic (although Raegan wasn’t as supportive as I thought she could have been. Her constant storming out and flouncing off didn’t seem like the actions of a girl who would do anything to keep her Grandaddy happy).

But, of course, there has to be the romance aspect, and I HATED the relationship between Emmett and Raegan. Emmett has recently come back to town, and because he gave Raegan a toy bunny rabbit when her parents died when she was seven, it’s a-okay when they fall in love within a week.

Raegan hides Grandaddy’s illness from him, then gets really pissed off when he figures out something is going on… Then Emmett hides something about Grandaddy from Raegan, so they have another blow out, just for him to hide something else from her as soon as he possibly can. What?! Just learn how to talk to each other if you really love each other that much!

Not only that, but this book is really poorly written. The characters are flat, and even though Grandaddy’s ill I just couldn’t find the energy to care because none of the characters are three-dimensional. I’ve lost a grandparent to cancer, so you would think this book would hit me right in my feels, but I felt completely neutral (comma bored) throughout the entire story. I just wanted it to end, and I really wish I’d DNF’d.

I was tempted to give Southern Perfection two stars, because the discussion of Grandaddy’s illness was very well done, but then the epilogue happened. OH BOY. I have no words for how much the ending irritated me. Blegh. Nope.

Southern Perfection is a sugary sweet love story between a girl who has a lost nearly everyone and the stepbrother of her cousin (just for that extra southern "twist"). Raegan lives with her grandfather after the rest of her family has died and does her best to be perfect for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Her romance with Emmett is lackluster but cutesy. Souther Perfection is lacking depth, but has a wholesome ring to it that will appeal to those who don't think that teen romances should be super-sexy.

Unfortunately this story just really didn't work for me. I found the story to be completely over the top in almost every aspect. Reagan is just the most perfect girl to the point where every time Emmett is with her in town random people feel the need to tell him how amazing she is. We also have to here from basically any person who meets the pair of them that they can tell that 'Emmett' has it bad. People like Cole and Reagan's grandfather are also constantly talking about their romance as if it is this fated, meant to be romance and it just felt very over the top.

I also struggled with the writing. I found it very difficult at times to determine who was speaking at times and the character's overused each others names in conversations constantly. The characters would constantly start a sentence with the other characters name despite being mid-conversation, it just felt very strange.

I also really didn't like almost every character's insinuation that Cole is in love with Reagan and not thinking that that is weird or inappropriate, despite the fact that he is her cousin and he is 25 to her 17. Even her grandfather feels the need to assure Emmett that nothing is going on between Reagan and Cole.

While I found the part of the plot surrounding Reagan's grandfather's illness very sad, I really didn't understand Reagan's decision to not tell either Emmett or her best friend about the illness, especially once her grandfather himself has told Reagan she should confide in them.

Unfortunately I really didn't enjoy this story, but it has a lot of really positive ratings and reviews so there are definitely a lot of people out there who would recommend picking this up.

Reagan is smart, a cheerleader, kind, and sweet. Jace is a butt quarterback and he wants to be with Reagan. But then Emmett moves back to town and Regan had never forgot him. Regan ois very close to her grandfather Diver as when her parents and grandmother were killed in a fatal car accident she goes to live and be raised by her grandfather. At that time Emmett and Reagan had been close and he gave her a stuffed rabbit when she was reeling from her parents death even though she was five she never forgot how special she had felt with the gift from Emmett and how sweet he was to her. Now, Regab, her grandfather, and her cousin Cole- who is Emmett’s stepbrother. run the family farm with a few others. Regan now have feelings for Emment that she has never had for another guy.Reagan doesn’t date she is just friends with everyone. But Regan has a secret she won’t tell anyone not even Emmett who she has now fallen for.
I enjoyed this story. I really liked Emmett especially when he reached out to a five year old girl who had lost her parents and grandmother and gave her a stuffed animal. This was a sweet, short, intense romantic book. I loved how the story was about family and how important family was. This was repetitive at times and that was a little annoying. Also when the POV changes it got a little confusing especially at first until you got more used to this writing style. I liked how this showed keeping up appearances isn’t the most important thing to do. I did like the plot a lot. Sometimes I choked up when writing this and other times I chuckled. I loved Emmett and Reagan together and how they interacting with each other. I also liked how protective Cole is of Reagan. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I recommend.

This book was cute, but maybe a bit too young for me!

Four stars! Loved this book and will be buying a paperback copy soon as well as reviewing it on my blog.