Review: My (Im)Perfect Love by Melody Sweet

My (Im)Perfect Love (Lyrics of Love #4)
by Melody Sweet

My Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Contemporary Romance
Age Category: New Adult
Type of romance: MF

Blurb:
She’s wounded and hurting. He’s desperate for forgiveness. Can best friends overcome their big mistake and answer love’s call?

Nessa:
I should have known better than to cross that line with Jimmy. But we were high off our new record deal and I fooled myself into thinking that he’d finally fallen in love with me.

I’ve been pining for him since the ninth grade, but he made certain after our magical night that I knew I was nothing more than a good time to him. I couldn’t take it, so I ran away, and now I’m a broken, wounded version of the girl I once was.
The motorcycle accident has stolen my hand and I’m left with nothing.
Drumming was the only thing I was good at.
I can’t even do that anymore.

I want to shut out the world and disappear.
But Jimmy won’t let me.
He wants me to forgive him, claims he made a big mistake.
Do I risk trusting him?
Do I risk his imperfect love when I’m on the verge of shattering?

Jimmy:
I was an idiot.
I never saw Nessa as anything more than a friend, until we crossed that line and I realized that I loved her. It freaked me out, so I played the fool and pretended like our night together hadn’t changed a thing.
Now she’s hurt. And it’s my fault.
I have to make this right.
I want to.
Nessa’s opened my heart to a whole new way of life. A life I never thought I wanted, but one I now can’t live without.

I want to help her.
Make her fall in love with me all over again.
But can I be the man she needs?
Can a guy who’s spent most of his life screwing up, finally prove his worth?

My (Im)Perfect Love is a standalone book in the Lyrics of Love sweet contemporary romance series. If you like rock star romance, redeemable bad boys and feisty drummer girls, then you’ll love Melody Sweet’s profound novel.

PLEASE NOTE:
This book was previously published as True Love by Melissa Pearl. It has been rewritten and re-edited to this sweet romance edition. Enjoy!

My Review

I received a free copy of this book form the author and voluntarily reviewed it.

My (Im)Perfect Love follows the story of Nessa and Jimmy, they are both band members of Chaos. Nessa has always been in love with Jimmy, but he just sees her as a friend. Their band gets a record deal and in the high of celebrating they end of sleeping together. The next morning Jimmy says it meant nothing to him and Nessa leaves to put some space between them. She ends up in an accident where the loses her left hand.

We met Nessa in My Hometown Hero briefly when she meets Josh and he is the one to find her after the accident. This book starts with the accident. Through flashbacks we get to see what happened before this. I almost wish we could’ve seen that first part play out first so you really got that impact of what Jimmy did at the start, but the way the flashbacks were used did work here. I also like the role that music plays in these stories.

I was a bit hesitant to start this one as I figured this would be a difficult book to read. Nessa loses her hand and with that her place with the band Chaos. This book is every bit as emotional and angsty as I had expected, but I also enjoyed it a lot more than I would’ve through. My favorite part of this book is Nessa’s journey. We find out the real depth of her feeling of being inadequate and how after the loss of her grandma and now her hand all those doubts come back. She really struggles, but it’s so awesome to see her slowly find her way and deal with it. I thought it made sense how the way she grew up with a disapproving mother influenced and how much that still hurt her. It was great to see her work through all these things and find peace with herself in the end.

I have to admit I didn’t like Jimmy at first, what he did was just plain mean. It becomes clear he really feels bad about how he acted and that he acted that way because he was afraid, but he hurt Nessa really badly. He has to figure out who wants to be and show Nessa he will always be there for her. I liked seeing a bit of that struggle and how he tried his best to be better. It wasn’t always easy and his fears felt realistic. However his story wasn’t as gripping as Nessa’s story to me. And I don’t really care for the whole playboy falls in love trope, but I did like these two together. And Jimmy is really sweet and patient with Nessa and I liked that.

I thought it was fitting how Jimmy really had to work for Nessa’s forgiveness. Nessa has always loved Jimmy and when he sleeps with her and then discards her, he really hurts her. She is loath to trust him again and I kinda liked that she didn’t trust his new intentions too easily. It made sense that she wouldn’t trust him immediately again, but I also liked she eventually let him in again.

These to were great together, but I would’ve loved to see a bit more of their friendship first. Now we only see the later part of their relationship and at times I didn’t really feel the deep friendship they’re supposed to have. They also both could be very stubborn at times. They were great together when they finally let the other in and I liked seeing Jimmy try and convince Nessa that she was perfect just the way it is. The epilogue was awesome too and really brought a smile to my face. I liked the way their romance progressed and the way jimmy was there all the way showing he was there for her, but Nessa also had to make a step and effort to come closer to him.

To summarize: This book was an awesome read. It was hard to read at times as Nessa has to deal with the loss of her hand as well as past hurts. This book is emotional and angsty. It’s also a book about dealing with your fears and finding peace with yourself. I really liked Nessa’s journey throughout this book, it was hard to see her struggle, but it also felt realistic and I liked seeing her work through it all. I didn’t like Jimmy at first as he did something that really hurt Nessa, but I liked how he realized it and had to face his own fears and fight for the girl he loves. These two were great together and I liked how Jimmy was there for her and told her how beautiful and perfect she was. It was a beautiful story and I really liked seeing how Nessa changed and grew throughout this book. This book was a great read and I look forward to the next one in this series.

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.