Review: Perfectly Impossible by Elizabeth Topp

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Contemporary, debut novel, Elizabeth Topp, Little A, Reviews

Perfectly Impossible

by Elizabeth Topp

Thank you Little A for this review copy!

Publisher: Little A

Publish Date: November 1, 2020

Hardcover

314 Pages

Standalone

Genre: Contemporary

In this witty debut novel, Elizabeth Topp crafts a story that ventures behind the fanciful facade of Park Avenue and into the life of one lovable type A assistant.

Anna’s job is simple: prevent the unexpected from happening and do everything better than perfectly. An artist at heart, Anna works a day job as a private assistant for Bambi Von Bizmark, a megarich Upper East Side matriarch who’s about to be honored at the illustrious Opera Ball.

Caught between the staid world of great wealth and her unconventional life as an artist, Anna struggles with her true calling. If she’s supposed to be a painter, why is she so much more successful as a personal assistant? When her boyfriend lands a fancy new job, it throws their future as a couple into doubt and intensifies Anna’s identity crisis. All she has to do is ensure everything runs smoothly and hold herself together until the Opera Ball is over. How hard could that be?

Featuring a vibrant array of characters from the powerful to the proletarian, Perfectly Impossible offers a glimpse into a world you’ll never want to leave.

My Review:

I know people who have the high level, executive/personal assistant job and it is NOT easy. 24 hours a day, 365 days a week. And it's like stepping into a completely different world. One you knew of, but wasn't sure if it REALLY existed like you see on TV. I was eager to read this as I wanted to get a birds eye view of sorts, through a fiction read on an all too real world. I'm a little confused. Is this supposed to be satire or a real, but comical also, look into this type of life?

Anna is an interesting character. As the Von Bismarks' personal assistant, she basically runs their life and is constantly juggling a zillion things to not only make sure their lives run as smoothly as possible (even with impossible requests...) she is also a struggling artist trying to launch her career so she can finally quit the current one she has. Cue in all the things that could happen that did happen which led to things that couldn't happen. WHAT. Yeah. She's a hard character to like. While the Von Bismarks are quite an interesting family, you expect that kind of behavior so you give them a pass for being entitled rich people. But Anna is also entitled and unexpectedly so. A very selfish character when you get down to it. I kinda loved to hate on her to be honest.

Here's the thing. I felt like I was going to dislocate an eyeball for how much I rolled them during this read. It's hard to feel any empathy for Anna. And the antics that ensued were somewhat humorous but got to be just a bit much as the story continued. It's fairly predictable and hits all the notes you expect it to. And this isn't a bad thing - I think I was just expecting a bit more of Anna trying to balance her two identities in a way where I could've rooted for her.

★★