Review - The Problem With Perfect by Philip William Stover

Ethan is the producer of a very popular gay lifestyle show, Myles of Style, starring Chase Myles, a very attractive young man Ethan met in a small cafe. Unfortunately, Ethan has created a bit of a monster with Chase, who treats everyone with disdain and is known for his frequent tantrums on set. It’s only a few weeks until pride and the pressure is on to get all the content filmed for the big day. True to form, Chase throws a fit and walks off the set. When he doesn’t return, it turns out he’s flown off to a circuit party in Florida. Ethan may be the man behind all the content, but he can’t finish the work without Chase, and there’s a lot riding on their big pride events, including a big promotion. Ethan is at a loss until he remembers Chase has an identical twin brother, Beau. He drives hours to upstate New York to track Beau down and convince him to pose as Chase.

“The Problem With Perfect” is a starkly contemporary story set in the world of lifestyle video series powered by social media. There’s an echo of classic screwball comedies to the setup, but everything else about the story is entirely too believable. To be honest, I had trouble really getting into this book. The writing is very good and the situations Ethan and Beau find themselves in are realistic. It took me quite a while to figure out why I wasn’t being pulled into the story. I finally concluded that the problem was Ethan. He’s a very driven man, which you can understand. Ethan is dead set on climbing the corporate ladder, even if the higher he goes, the less joy the job brings him. As the ruse with Beau impersonating Chase grows ever more elaborate, I just couldn’t understand why Ethan persisted.

It’s not that I couldn’t sympathize with Ethan. Getting caught up in the “rat race” is all too common these days, and easily relatable. The problem was empathy. Ethan is self-aware enough to question whether or not he really wants this big promotion, yet at every turn, where new challenges present an opportunity to re-think things, he continues to charge ahead. I found it really hard to relate to someone who would compromise their own happiness and integrity to that extent. The story is all about Ethan’s journey to a better place, so he does get there in the end. It just takes him far too long.

The story is narrated entirely from Ethan’s point of view, so we get to know Beau through Ethan’s eyes. Beau is the opposite of his twin. Kind rather than cruel. Calm when a storm rages around him. As Beau opens up about his past, though, we see he was once very much like Ethan. Beau’s personal history helps Ethan to see where he is headed.

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“The Problem With Perfect” is available from Amazon (commissionable link).