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    Craving Perfect
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    Craving Perfect
    Unavailable
    Craving Perfect
    Ebook318 pages4 hours

    Craving Perfect

    By Liz Fichera

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    A Life Less...Hers

    Grace Mills craves being perfect almost as much as she craves raspberry scones. In fact, her life would be perfect if only she could lose ten more pounds, if only the pastry café she co-owns with her sister would turn a profit, if only the hottest guy at the gym would look her way...

    And then "if only" comes true. Grace is suddenly straddling two lives: an alternate reality where she's a size two, weathergirl celebrity and being chased by the hot guy. Only Mr. Gorgeous isn't very nice, and she doesn't get to eat...anything, much less bake!

    In her other life, she's starting to realize her sister is less than happy running the family café, and hunky Carlos, the gym's janitor, seems to have a secret crush on her. Maybe there's more to him than meets the eye...

    Grace is living two lives and it's beginning to cost her. Is there a way to pick one...that's perfect?

    76,000 words
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCarina Press
    Release dateJul 25, 2011
    ISBN9781426891939
    Unavailable
    Craving Perfect
    Author

    Liz Fichera

    Liz likes to write stories about ordinary teens who do extraordinary things.  Born in Park Ridge, Illinois, Liz moved to the American Southwest after college, never expecting to live more than one year among cactus and people who'd never seen snow.  She was wrong.  To learn more, please visit www.LizFichera.com.

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    Reviews for Craving Perfect

    4/5

    20 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Reviewed by ShannonReview copy provided by NetGalley (reposted from Shannon's site with permission)Not sure how to review this one, as I'm still scratching my head over it. Don't get me wrong, it was a cute if you don't delve too deep into what's going, but how am I supposed to review that? Then we have the story told in multiple points of view (which isn't always my favorite format) where one of those points of view may or may not be real. Confused????? Well, I'll give it a whirl. Grace Mills runs the Desert Java cafe with her sister Kathryn and wishes for 2 things: that she was the perfect female (who has blonde hair, a rocking size 2 body and unrealistically small size 6 feet) and that Max Kramer will notice her. As our story unfolds, she's managed to get one of those things...he's noticed her all right, as she takes a massive crash off the treadmill at the gym. The one person who does notice her is Carlos Flores, law student, part-time fighter and janitor at the gym. With some coaxing from his sister, he finally works up the nerve to ask Grace on a date, certain that she is "the one". Callie Collins is apparently the perfect woman. She has gorgeous blonde hair, a fabulous size 2 body, marvelous size 6 feet with which she can wear wonderful stiletto shoes and the object of every woman's desire as a fiance, Max Kramer. Just one problem, Callie is really Grace in disguise. By some means of mythical treadmill transportation, Grace get transported into Callie's body and not must deal with Callie's annoying personal assistant, Alexandra Summer, her job as a newscaster and the feeling of being less perfect than she was before. That's where I get hung up in this story. Did Grace really need to jump back and forth between her and Callie to really realize that she was worth more as a person that what she looked like on the outside? I would have thought a few more dates with Carlos and maybe Max showing his true colors at the gym and Carlos sticking up for her would have gotten us to the same place in the epilogue. The parts of the story that I enjoyed the most were the Grace and Carlos chapters. Could have done without all the rest.
    • 4/5
      I really enjoyed this book. The story was different then your typical contemporary romance. There was a bit of otherworldly vibe to it.Grace is struggling to lose weight and score the perfect man. One day she wakes up in another life as Callie. Callie is skinny, gorgeous and has an excellent career. But she's also engaged to the gym hunk that Grace has been ogling since she started going to the gym.I wasn't sure how she was going to be transported into this other life. But it turns out there is an enchanted treadmill that transports her to Callie's perfect life.Grace/Callie eventually realizes that being perfect isn't all it's cracked up to be. Her man isn't as faithful as she would like, her best friend is a backstabber and in order for her to stay skinny she can't eat her beloved raspberry scones.Honestly, the life she has as Grace is quite perfect. She works at a bakery with her sister, whom she is extremely close to, and meets Carlos, a fantastic man that works at the gym. He treats her like gold. Their relationship moved quickly, but that's how most romance stories are.
    • 5/5
      CRAVING PERFECT by author Liz Fichera is a fantastic escape! I was completely blown away by Grace Mill's run on the treadmill and she went to the gym just to ogle Max's hot body! Well a girl has to have an inspiration to lose weight. Imagine a girl rewarding herself strawberry scones after a vigorous workout. But she was craving the perfect body and the perfect man. And when she got her perfect body she found out that she could never eat enough. Her favourite occupation of baking was not of use to her after getting her perfect body. Guess what? She also found out that Max was not so perfect after all. Craving Perfect is a lovely story of sisterly love and responsibilities and of getting what you crave for. Liz Fichera did a fascinating job with this story. It is liberally spiced with humor, pathos and heartfelt emotion. It is potrayed with vivid atmospheric details. I felt myself in the Java Cafe Grace ran with her sister Kathryn and could almost taste the coffee! I liked this authors style. Her use of witty dialogue brought the characters alive!
    • 5/5
      I was totally in the mood for something different and since I rarely read chick-lit I opted to give this one a shot. Reading the summary it sounded like your typical chick-lit but with enough originality to make it interesting plus there’s even…
      
      Magic Treadmills!

      I won’t expand upon that… I’ll let you all read about that interesting funny tid-bit. :)

      Craving Perfect tells the story of Grace Mills, a baker in a pastry café that she co-owns with her sister Kathleen. Grace and Kathleen are quite close considering they are the only family each of them has left after the deaths of their parents. Grace is constantly ‘craving perfection’ and is always trying to lose more weight so that she can hopefully catch the eye of the hot guy at the gym, Max, that she’s been ogling over for several weeks. Which kind of turned me off from this novel and Grace in general because it’s more than a little obvious that Max is a superficial jerk, but don’t worry, you’ll end up loving Grace just like me.

      One day when Grace is at the gym she hops on one of the brand new treadmills (Yes! The Magic Treadmill!) and proceeds to black out and wake up as someone completely different. She comes to and finds herself the spitting image of perfection (read: Barbie) and engaged to Max. But is what she’s always dreamed of actually what she wants in the end?

      This book was GREAT and I loved it… super quick, fun, light read that took me maybe 24 hours to read. (Yes I slept). I loved how the author developed the characters and I loved how I ended up loving Grace in the end. Carlos, was plain adorable and I loved how infatuated he was with Grace even with the extra weight she always said she needed to lose. The writing was spot on and completely enthralling. It was interesting and extremely original story!

      Low Point
      The one and only low point in the novel that made me cringe (but still didn’t manage to lower the 5 star rating) was the professions of love after the very first date. You just don’t say I love you after the first date. It’s corny, clichéd, and it totally makes me flash back to my junior year of High School and how I agreed to go on a date with this guy because I totally loved his car and he told me he loved me after the first date. In case you’re wondering, yes, I did learn my lesson.

      One word of warning there is a lot of talk about raspberry scones. You will end up with a massive craving for them... I know I sure did. To make matters worse there is even a recipe at the end. I'm running to the store to buy raspberries right now.

      Don’t miss out on this little gem of a novel. Highly recommended as a light summer read.

      Interested in more of my reviews? Visit my blog!
    • 4/5
      Craving Perfect is the perfect fun beach read. I enjoyed it, though the whole time traveling/warped alternate life thing made no sense. Amazing how writing and story is great that you throw out and ignore the obvious.Grace is warped into her alternative life where she is Callie, a news anchor who happens to be dating her secret hunky crush. She becomes Callie while exercising at a fast speed on a treadmill at her gym. Yeah, that’s where the question marks start coming up. We get no explanation how this happens, but I just went along because I liked where Liz Fichera was taking me. In her real life as Grace she has gotten the attention of Carlos, the janitor at her gym. He seems like such a genuine lovable nice character, though he might be a little to romantic considering he said I Love you too quickly for my liking. A bit unrealistic, especially these days when being a commitment-phobe is ordinary and expected. So not 2011, if you know what I mean. I really enjoyed the lessons Grace learns during these time warps. Her mind is opened to so much, and she sees things clearly when in Callie’s shoes.Coffee, Books and Laundry
    • 4/5
      Review By Alaiel Kreuz: I'm a sucker for love stories, that's the true and Craving Perfect was a wonderful book for me. I had TONS of fun, and I mean, really, tons and tons of fun.The main character, Grace, was a really sweet and annoying girl that made me laugh and hit my pillow a few times.You see, Grace loves to bake pastries and cones, she simple loves to do that. And of course she loves to eat them as well, but most of them she keep them to sell them at their Café she and her sister own. But at the same time she wants to loose those ten pounds that are annoying her. And since her sister insists to go to a gym they do, and there she meets the love of her life, a handsome and sexy man named Max that looks down at her and ignores her every single time she looks at him.Sorry, did I say love of her life? My bad, he is an idiot. Period.Bur Grace, for some reason I can't understand yet, yearns for a single touch, a look (even when he looks right through her she imagines he is been shy!!!) of Max. Let me tell you, I hate when a woman acts like that, but the book was so good and the inner dialogues that Grace had with herself made the book a wonderful read.But despite the fact that Grace is blind our real hero is not. Carlos, a sexy, sweet and very very handsome guy that works at the gym finds Grace really pretty and cute, even her clumsiness is a good thing for him. And Carlos is far more that what Grace thinks...But things for Grace and her sister are not going really well and somehow every single time that Grace runs in a treadmill at the gym and manages to fall, literary, of it, she founds herself inside a different body, a woman named Callie who is perfection personified: beautiful, with a size two, a flat stomach, a long blond smooth hair and beautiful skin. And on top of that Max Kramer is her fiancé!Her life is about to take a real twist... a twist that only she can choose.Since i finished the book within a day I can say that I really enjoyed it.