“There’s the person you think you should be and there’s the person you really are. I’ve lost a sense of both.”
Perfect is the continuation to Flawed. It picks up a few weeks after Celestine runs away from her home to escape the clutches of Judge Crevan who she one knew as Bosco. She knows things aren’t same anymore. She know ‘she’ is not same anymore. But she can’t help but think if her life will ever get back to normal.
I enjoyed reading Perfect more than Flawed. There was continuously something going on in this book which was lacking in the first one. It was action packed with all the emotions in each and every chapter that I refused to put the book down. Celestine grows with every chapter; her confidence and her strength, her understanding of the society and the evil in it, is gradual and not sudden which made me like her more in this book. The development of the characters was smooth (Unlike Flawed where all of a sudden Celestine took a step to change her life forever!), the pace of the story was steady and the I don’t even have to say anything about the writing if you are familiar with Cecelia Ahern’s work! This story was also better constructed than Flawed.
I do have a problem as to how Carrick and Celestine developed “together”. It was not part of the smoothness I referred to before. I was not emotional after reading the story of Carrick. It didn’t touch me, I could understand that the things weren’t fair but the kind of emotion the author wanted her readers to feel, I couldn’t reach there. Another problem I had was with Mary May. In Flawed, I could understand her position; she was the evil whistleblower you had to be careful with, the one who would never go against the Guild, who did not even spare her own family. But in the second half of Perfect, a vulnerable side to her was shown, which I feel destroyed the whole image of her which was built up from the first book and I felt it to be unnecessary.
All in all, I enjoyed reading this book and will recommend it to all. It’s a light and quick read although it does deal with a lot of social issues which makes it gripping and convulsing.
RATING : 3.75/5 STARS 🙂
*Thank you HarperCollins India for providing a review copy of this book.*
Release Date in India: 15/04/17.
The Common Shelf 