She Treads Softly: Perfect Little Lives

Saturday, December 2, 2023

Perfect Little Lives

Perfect Little Lives by Amber and Danielle Brown
12/5/23; 368 pages
Graydon House

Perfect Little Lives by Amber and Danielle Brown is a so-so dark romance and light mystery novel.

The description is of a daughter, Simone, working to exonerate her father who was wrongly convicted for her mother's murder. Simone is 23 years old, just managing to get by, and an unlikable character. Her relationship with her boyfriend Reggie is dysfunctional and an investigative journalist wants to write about her mother's murder. Then she runs into an old neighbor, Hunter, and learns new information that might end up exonerating her father.

I pushed through Perfect Little Lives but was ready to toss it out after the first few pages. This was not a good choice for me at all. I would give it one star except it will appeal to some romance readers and I managed to finish it. If you like suspense and mystery novels, seriously look elsewhere. This is more a whining, toxic, crude, dysfunctional relationship problems kind of novel with some social commentary and a predictable mystery. Additionally, it is geared to young, new adult audience.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Graydon House via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.