Review: Pushing Perfect by Michelle Falkoff
SYNOPSIS:
A girl’s quest for perfection results in dangerous consequences in this layered, suspenseful YA novel by the author of Playlist for the Dead.
How far would you go to be perfect?
Kara has the perfect life. She gets perfect grades. She never messes up. Until now. Because perfection is an illusion, and Kara has been struggling to maintain it for as long as she can remember. With so much pressure to succeed, it’s hard not to do whatever it takes.
But when Kara takes a new underground drug to help her ace the SATs, she doesn’t expect to get a text from a blocked sender, telling her to follow a set of mysterious instructions—or risk her dark secret getting out. Soon she finds herself part of a group of teens with secrets of their own, who are all under the thumb of the same anonymous texter. And if they don’t find a way to stop the blackmailer, their perfect futures will go up in flames.
REVIEW:
*Book Received in Exchange for Honest Opinion/Review*
A light, quick read with a mystery that I couldn’t solve until all was revealed. I enjoyed this book but I didn’t love it and I am not sure why but it the story felt like something was missing. The story flowed smoothly, there weren’t any gaps in the plot, and everything wrapped up in a nice little bow but as I closed the book…something felt off.
As I reflected on this feeling, I realized that I was not invested in any of the characters. While the book was a fast read, I never connected with any of the characters and they all had the emotional range of a potato. There was no character growth or development. Kara for the most part was still insecure, lying, and struggling. The characters are one-dimension, and fit the “rich-kid” stereotype where money is no object and ivy league is the only way to go.
There were also secondary characters that were introduced early on but then completely forgotten about and this left a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t understand the point of introducing characters that will be mentioned for numerous chapters and then it was as if they never existed.
It seemed once the mystery of Blocked Sender was solved, everything ended up perfect and the book wrapped up within a chapter. Which come on, give me something more than that. I understand the whole plot was focused on finding who Blocked Sender was and figuring out how to stop them but you can’t wrap up all the micro-plots in several pages without readers crying foul…and that is exactly what I am doing.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
