The Perfectionists
Author: Sara Shepard
Publication Date: October 2nd 2014
Publisher: Hot Key Books
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~
In Beacon Heights High, Nolan Hotchkiss is king. His charm, wealth and good looks are deceptively seductive, and many are the students whose lives and reputations have been ruined by it. All while Nolan continues to reign, unquestioned and undisrupted. Until now, that is.
Mackenzie, Ava, Julie, Caitlin and Parker seemingly don't have much in common. Each has their own friends, dramas and goals. But one thing they do share: they all have a deep hatred of Nolan Hotchkiss. And they all think it's about time he paid for what he's done. They come up with the perfect murder - a hypothetical murder, of course. It's all wishful thinking ... until they wake up one morning to find that their wish has come true. Nolan has been killed - in exactly the way they planned. The thing is, they didn't do it. So who did?
Let me introduce to you Pretty Little Liars 2.0 The
Perfectionists.
Now, I couldn't get into the Pretty Little Liars books, but
I'm addicted to the show, and The
Perfectionists reconfirms why. Yeah, the show is getting as repetitive as the
books when it comes to A, he's A, no,
she's A, no, she's A. Wait, he's A,
no he's A. Wait- who's a, what's an
A? Who the fuck is A? The
characters are more fleshed out and it's so damn entertaining to watch. Key
word watch. When it comes to reading,
I however, like more substance that these don't give. The Perfectionists is easily going to get compared to Pretty Little Liars, being from the same author and all, and being in the same genre as it. But the thing is, this is Pretty Little Liars, yes we have new characters
I am mad at it, not because it's basically Pretty Little
Liars all over again but because it's impossibly shallow and flimsy when it
comes to motive of everything.
Murder, the girls' family predicaments and relationships and just ugh. It's all
so stupid and simple that the book literally wouldn't exist if the girls just
went to the police and said, hey, we were
involved, we planned a prank, but we did not kill him. Would they believe them? Probably not straight away,
they'd look into it, but the thing is, why
would they do that, go to the police to tell them what they know if they did
it? By not even trying- and hiding- they just made themselves plain old
guilty.
Now, let's get into the family situation, I loved that one
of the girls had two mothers, yay for diversity, but then there's Parker (Minor Spoiler, not really a spoiler) who's father beat her and the last time left
her with all the scars on her face. So she hides herself away because of it. Okay, I get it, I would too for a while, but she's
just so freaking superficial that I couldn't feel sorry for her. And the
father, God, this is worse and seems highly unlikely, (an
abuser is an abuser straight forward, okay? They don't need to make excuses to
beat someone, so why would he go around following his daughter documenting
things she isn't supposed to be doing and then shove photo's in front of her
face and hit her for it?) O-kay. I'm not even going into how superficial Julie is about her
home life, like her life would be over if
people found out so she might as well just go kill herself now, while Caitlin who's
brother did actually kill himself because he was being bullied. So hey, Julie.
No, kill me, please. I'm leaving that there because things might get mean-this
is me being nice.
Oh, oh, creepers step right up. We're in a town full of
psycho's and again, that felt
unrealistic that somehow that everyone they thought they could trust turns out
to be a skeevy pervert. Really? Because that
happens. We're living in Hollyoaks, UK-ians.
The also, very familiar, The Bad Seed takes place, remember
that episode in Pretty Little Liars? It's in The Perfectionists too, only, the
film and a film studies class and not the play. Totally different, guys. Totally different.
Pretty Little Liars 2.0 is The Perfectionists, with a plot
and story that has been done before, changing character names, adding another
and changing the sex of the mean character who meets his, well, karma, does
not, a new story make.
Rating: 2/5
