Picture Imperfect by Jacqueline Wilson

Book Review Dec 14, 2025

Format: Hardback

Publication Date: 28 August 2025

💭 My thoughts...

3/5 stars

Fresh off the back of re-reading The Illustrated Mum, I was excited to get stuck into Picture Imperfect and see where Dolphin, Star and Marigold ended up. What I got was a realistic look at how a traumatic childhood can impact an adult life. None of them had really escaped their background in the way I'd hoped they would - they were all still trapped by their circumstances by some degree. While this is probably truer to life, it meant that I didn't quite get the uplifting story that I'd hoped for.

As usual, the author captured the totality of the human experience in a very balanced way. Every single character had something likeable and something unlikeable about them. The only character that I liked the whole way through the book was Dr Gibbons - the world needs more doctor's like him!

I appreciated the story-telling in this one, but it didn't quite give me the sense of satisfaction I had anticipated.

📖 Synopsis...

Dolphin has spent most of her life looking after her mentally ill mother, and she's tired of putting everyone else above herself. Her lovely neighbour Lee offers her a glimpse of a different life, but she also feels the pull of her sister's request to nanny for her nephew, and the draw of irresistibly charming Joel. She has to decide if she is going to repeat old patterns, or create a new path for herself.