Perfect Girl by Tracy Banghart 🔪

Jessa has been raised to be the “perfect girl.” She is unfailingly polite, never rocks the boat, and always follows the rules―no matter what. Her friends love to give her a hard time for being such a goody two-shoes, but Jessa likes it this way. She knows what's expected of her, and she's happy to be the person her parents (and society) want.

When a freak storm takes out the power during a sleepover at Jessa’s creepy, old house, things go south before the pizza gets cold. Her friends are at each other’s throats, unexpected guests keep showing up (some more welcome than others), and it’s not just her brother serving up jump scares. A killer looking for the perfect girl has targeted Jessa, and she’ll have to reject everything she’s been taught if she wants to keep herself―and her friends―alive until sunrise.

Who knew perfection could be so dangerous?

I'm gonna start with the only positive thing about this book that's actually something rarely seen - the main character HAS GLASSES. And yes, that fact is heavily incorporated into the story!!

Imagine a killer is chasing you and somewhere along the way you lost your glasses and can't see shit...How terrifying is that? VERY. I'm also in the glasses club (tried contacts, didn't work out) and this part of the story made me feel very self-conscious and I wondered how I'd react in this situation.

Moving on, everything else about these characters was straight-up annoying. Everyone saying how Jessa is the "perfect girl" got boring pretty quickly - "oh she's the best student, the most polite, she can't say no, she's the teacher's pet etc." WE GET IT. It was so forced that in the end, when she decides to stop being so "prim and proper" and have her badass moment of character development, it feels cheap because we didn't see this growth on our own, every step was heavily explained and told, like we're dumb...

Jessa's brother was horrible towards his sister and I despised him. The whole crew - Jessa, her brother and her friends -made so many questionable choices that I truly wonder how they managed to survive anything by that point. I mean, seriously, there's a huge storm outside, rain pouring, a tree fell and knocked down important poles/wires so there's no electricity and what did they do? Every single one of them randomly went outside ON THEIR OWN without telling anyone where they're going...

Even the mystery itself was bad. I guess who the villain was the moment we meet this person and their motives were dubious at best. Most of the book was spent talking about perfect lil Jessa and her friends playing stupid games in the house so only like the last third is actually about the killer and their plans. The explanation was unsatisfying as was that ending.