My [Not-So] Perfect Life: A Fill-In-The-Blanks Journal Spiral-bound – September 1, 2009

My daughter saw this book at a pricey bookstore and had to have it. I convinced her to let me check Amazon for it and we were both very happy to find the book and for several dollars cheaper than the bookstore.My daughter was 9 when she got the book and she really enjoyed reading it and filling out the pages with her opinions and thoughts. Great buy.

I bought this for my 12 year old stepdaughter, and she loved it. She filled all out in one day, for the most part. She did skip over some of the more "in-depth" questions, but she seemed to really enjoy filling this out. I think it's a great gift for a teen or tween!

My 12 year old niece loved filling in everything about herself. I didn't see her for a good hour after she opened it for Christmas.

I bought this for a 9-year-old girl as a birthday gift going on instinct alone. My partner argued with me that a book called My Not so Perfect Life is not ideal, as children nowadays have a lot to contain with without having the fact that their lives are not perfect rubbed in. However, he conceded that my choices are usually good and in any case we could always return the book if we thought it unfit. You can imagine how delighted I was to see that this book is everything I was hoping it to be and more.Beautifully designed, with sections to fill in, the book starts with the 'perfect' view on life, e.g. "I was a beautiful, bouncing baby. I never cried and I always smelled like rosebuds." Then it continues, "I checked with some people who knew me then. Here's what they say I was REALLY like as a baby."The journal proceeds from babyhood to childhood and has sections on nicknames, parents, friends, hair, cool, my room, school, fashion, love+stuff, destiny, and the future. It ends up cleverly by giving the child an exercise to write down what she thinks tomorrow will be like and then there is a page to write what the day was really like. It teaches children that not everything is as perfect as they imagine it to be and that not everything happens the way we wish for it to happen; nevertheless, life is still enjoyable.How more life affirming can this be? :)Used properly, this book will be a lovely aide-memoir for the future and will give the girl lots of giggles when she reads it with her own children one day and discusses the world with them.PS: the title in the book is done with a holographic label. When lying on a flat surface, all you see ismy * * *PERFECTlife ***where * stands for coloured dotsHowever, when you pick the book up and turn it a bit, you can see the top row of dots have been replaced with [not-so]. Very very clever idea! Well done to Karen Phillips (author) and Jessie Hartland (illustrator) and well done to Klutz for producing another quality book.I hope you have enjoyed this review and found it helpful.

bought as gifts for my nieces who loved them.