Practice Makes Perfect by Julie James

As you can probably guess by the cover, Practice Makes Perfect is a romance novel.  The first official romance genre novel I’ve ever read.  The closest I got before was with sentimental, saccharine stuff like Nicholas Sparks, which, in the end, felt unrealistic and sickeningly sappy to me.  The rest I owe to literary snobbery and my distaste of graphic sex scenes.  So I stayed away, until I started hearing awesome things about Julie James from around the blogosphere, including from bloggers and friends I wholeheartedly trust and who aren’t normally romance readers (See Michelle Read and Angieville).  There was bound to be some gentle-ish, non-cheesy romance out there that I could love.

Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson are both lawyers – overachieving, competitive, smart-alecky, and cocky ones at that. For eight years, they’ve been at the same firm, either butting heads or avoiding each other like the plague.  Payton was raised by an ultra-feminist, liberal, and hippie mother.  She’s earned every scholarship, university admission, and job she’s had, and although she’s more corporate and conservative than her mother, she’s almost as staunch a feminist.  J.D. comes from an entirely different upbringing.  His father, the honorable Judge Jameson has been a big-earning lawyer J.D.’s entire life. He graduated from Harvard, drives a Bentley, and takes full advantage of his elite club memberships.  As the decision for whom will make partner draws closer, J.D. and Payton couldn’t butt heads more in their passionate hate of each other’s big money or double standard feminism, respectively.  If they could be rational around each other for one minute, maybe they’d see they have more in common than they think.

Addicting, hilarious, and endlessly entertaining, Practice Makes Perfect completely surprised me. I haven’t had so much utter fun reading a book in a long time.  I alternately giggled, laughed, sighed, smiled, and/or developed a silly, shameless perma-grin on each page I read.  I couldn’t help thinking of romantic comedies in general, and concluding that this experience is far superior. (With the exception of a few excellent British film adaptations – you know which ones – but Julie James does throw in some funny P&P references).  Witty banter, anyone? The give and take dialogue between J.D. and Payton is smart and laugh-out-loud funny.  They are the kind of proud and vengeful enemies that create hilarious situations and repartee of the finest kind.  That we get to hear their in-the-moment internal dialogue versus the actual he said/she said makes it all the more humorous as J.D. and Payton slowly realize they may not hate each other after all.  This may have been the case of “right book at the right time” but Practice Makes Perfect was clearly different from other romantic books I’ve read.  Instead of feeling forced or trite the lawyer premise grounds it in reality, and the sexuality is minimal, mild, and decidedly un-mushy.  Sweet and predictable, yes, but I loved and devoured every minute of J.D. and Payton’s story.  I will be heartily recommending this to most of the even slightly bookish women in my acquaintance.

Afterthought: I can’t help wonder who’s name was going to be on the contract for partner. Does anyone know if Julie James has said anything about this? This may call for a Twitter query.

Second Opinions
Angieville Review
Book Binge Review
Janicu’s Book Blog Review
The Book Smugglers Review
The Bookshelf Review