Perfect

Written by Ellen Hopkins and Christina Wildson

Narrated by Aya Cash, Heather Lind, Aaron Tveit and Tristan Wilds

What would you give up to be perfect? Four teens find out in the New York Times bestselling companion to Impulse.

Everyone has something, someone, somewhere else that they’d rather be. For four high school seniors, their goals of perfection are just as different as the paths they take to get there.

Cara’s parents’ unrealistic expectations have already sent her twin brother Conner spiraling toward suicide. For her, perfect means rejecting their ideals to take a chance on a new kind of love. Kendra covets the perfect face and body—no matter what surgeries and drugs she needs to get there. To score his perfect home run—on the field and off—Sean will sacrifice more than he can ever win back. And Andre realizes that to follow his heart and achieve his perfect performance, he’ll be living a life his ancestors would never understand.

A riveting and startling companion to the bestselling Impulse, Ellen Hopkins’s Perfect exposes the harsh truths about what it takes to grow up and grow into our own skins, our own selves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
• Release date: Sep 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781442344945

Ellen Hopkins

Ellen Hopkins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of numerous young adult novels, as well as the adult novels such as Triangles, Collateral, and Love Lies Beneath. She lives with her family in Carson City, Nevada, where she has founded Ventana Sierra, a nonprofit youth housing and resource initiative. Follow her on Twitter at @EllenHopkinsLit.

Reviews for Perfect

[spacecelest · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book put me in a LOT of emotional distress. Somehow every book I read by her leaves me in tears. If you have read impulse then definitely read this book. It gave me the closure I needed to move on. If you are in a bad place mentally I don’t recommend though lol

[kennylef_495849271 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was so well written and it should be of those books that all young adults read. This author is so awesome at true-to-life stories. Can't wait to read the next one!

[S. S. Yolken · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A story folded up messily into a paper airplane...

Years ago I realized I don't read Hopkin's books to like the characters, I read them to watch awful people burn and suffer. Her books are a series of unfortunete events and awful people mixed with some decent or good people. This one is very much an issue of caring as this book focuses on rich, mostly-white kids getting away with too much and their parents who are focused on reputation and wealth pulling strings and making excuses. There's a lot about the rich to not like, the higher class and the way they raise their kids, but this book nails it in making almost every parent so disgusting and awful that I want them all to burn.

Hopkins delivers a wonderful tale of how parents can ruin kids and pressure can make everyone into monsters. These characters are lacking in my eyes, nothing compared to some of her other books. There are sparks or pieces of more to them, but even the prose they are presented in feels like it lacks her usual spark. It was sluggish to read this book, and by the middle I only kept reading to watch them all burn and it go to hell.

Some of the characters really drag things down, Jenna's motivations are severely flawed, starved for attention yet never happy when she has it. Kendra is over the top and should be dead halfway through the book, seriously, she should be dead not stumbling. It's unlikely by the end that Kendra or Sean will actually be alive, and honestly I couldn't care less about Sean's fate.

Cara soars but also flounders with her awful experiences and lack of peace, Andre is mostly a solid character with his African heritage being shoved down his throat to the point who he dates reflects on if he's being true to it or not(with undertones of if a black man dates a white woman he's betraying his race, wth), and Sean...

Sean is a control freak, a maniac. His sentences are all about how he's planned not only his future but Cara's. How he will destroy her if she leaves, kill men she dates if not disfigure them, and corral her towards the future he wants most. Sean is a disgusting character who gets worse and worse and seems to need Conner's fate more than Conner.

Speaking of Conner, having forgotten Impulse a lot. Conner is the perfect example of a character who is good, and he gets the hell out of this book and stays out.

Really this book is a three star to three-point-five star read. It's not awful but it involves a lot of alcoholism, child grooming, child abuse, rape, date rape, substance abuse, and drugs. A lot of the handling is bad, Sean should be in jail or arrested, and Cara should be getting therapy – a lot of it. Conner deserved better parents, hell, everyone in this book but maybe Andre deserved better parents.

[RJ Roque · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A raw take into what it means to live up to expectations. Brilliant storytelling and euphoric character development . Must read!! Not dependable on the first book at all, yet I'd read Impulse first .

[heatherfoeh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my all time favorites!

[amanaceerdh · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

surprisingly good to be a romance novel!!! i could not put it down!

[casey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I can't give an honest review yet because I haven't read it but after reading the previous reviews I needed to make people aware that the majority of these reviews are referring to a completely different book and author. This is not a romance novel.

[Jenna Capuano · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heart-wrenching, genuine, and thought provoking in the extreme. A necessary addition to any teen (even adult) bookshelf, especially in a society that is hyper-focused on all the wrong things.

[lauren2013_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A satisfying read. The story is sweet and the characters are charming. However, just like the first book, Paradise, the plot starts to wane just before the end.

[annbury_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This book was recommended by someone I respect, so I struggled through half of it before abandoning ship. The characters are unbelievable, the story line even more so, and the entire thing is painfully written. Don't waste your time.

[myntop · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Although I mistakenly read some of this series out of order, I am TRULY loving the Second Opportunities books from Judith McNaught. This book, I felt, was much more in depth than the previous two I've read in this series. I love how much back story they gave on both main characters. I love the drama and I also really love the secondary romance going on with Julie's brother. This is a good series for anyone who loves a good mystery rolled up with a romance.

[mom2lnb · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Judith McNaught's Perfect is the second book in her Second Opportunities series and the second book by her that I've read. The first book of the series, Paradise, was an amazing read for me that now has a place among my all-time favorite romances. I'd heard equally good things about Perfect, and while it was a great read, it ever so slightly missed the bar that Paradise had set. Much like with Paradise, the hero and heroine of Perfect are given extensive backstories that begin when they're both pretty young, but unlike Paradise, their romance doesn't get started until over 100 pages into the story when the hero kidnaps the heroine, taking her hostage after escaping from prison. Not only did it take significantly longer for the romance to get started, but having it start the way it did, put a bit of a damper on the initial emotional connection for me. Even though I never once believed that Zack actually murdered his wife, his actions at first aren't exactly honorable. The more time they spend holed up in their mountain hideaway, the better things get, but eventually, they still must part ways. After that, there were a few parts that moved a bit slowly for me, because I was beyond eager for the real killer to be found and for them to reunite. Also, Julie is extremely trusting of Zack, but when things go badly and her trust is truly put to the test, she comes to believe he really is guilty. At this point, she starts dating an FBI agent who was working on the case. Even though it was clear that she still loved Zack through all of the turmoil, I once again, couldn't help feeling like there was a bit of a damper on that all-important emotional connection. Admittedly the author did bring things full-circle with a touching reunion, and while the subsequent scenes of Zack and Julie's two week courtship were kind of sweet, I couldn't help feeling like things maybe could have been wrapped up a little sooner. Overall, though, despite my few nitpicks, Perfect was an enjoyable read.When the story opens, Julie is an eleven-year-old street urchin, who was abandoned as a baby. She was shuttled around from one foster home to the next her whole life, and she can't even read. In spite of her circumstances, she's obviously a brilliant, sweet, empathetic girl, who I liked immediately. She just needed responsible adults in her life who were willing to help her reach her potential. She found that in her psychologist who recognized that potential and helped get her adopted by a loving family who then helped her reach it. Now, as an adult, she is a teacher, not only of kids, but also of a group of illiterate adult women. Julie's family gave her their absolute trust, so she in return decided to be 'perfect' to be worthy of that trust. I think in large part because of the love and trust her family showed her, Julie is very trusting of others, which is why she fell for Zack's story and gave him a ride after he'd escaped from prison. Even after she found out who he really was and he'd officially taken her hostage, she handled herself very well. She used her intelligence and ingenuity to try to escape, but when all her attempts failed, she still lashed him with her sharp tongue. Eventually, after being holed up with him in a luxury mountain-top cabin for a few days, she comes to believe he couldn't possibly be guilty of his wife's murder. That's when things start to heat up between them. After Zack sends her home so that he can flee the country, she stands by him, maintaining his innocence to the press and never painting him as the monster they seem to think he is. She's his staunchest supporter and loved him to the point that she was willing to run away with him until some unexpected information comes to light. Then her faith in his innocence falters. While I understood her reasons and very well might have felt the same way, I couldn't help feeling that it somehow marred her love for him just a bit. Even after that, though, it's obvious that she still cares for him and it killed her to do some of the things she did. Once the real killer came to light, Julie was more than willing to make amends, but by then, Zack didn't want anything to do with her.When we first see Zack, he's eighteen and being thrown out of his privileged life and luxurious home by a seemingly cold-hearted grandmother. After that, he hitches a ride to Hollywood, where he gets discovered and builds a new life for himself as an Academy award winning film actor and director. Unfortunately his cheating wife is shot to death on the set of his latest movie, and everyone believes Zack did it. He's convicted and sent to prison for 45 years, but after serving only five, he's about to go insane and decides to make a daring escape. Things don't quite go as planned, which is how he ends up kidnapping Julie. From those opening pages, Zack is a pretty sympathetic character, who I never believed killed anybody. He does make some threats against Julie and hold her at gunpoint, but he also shows some surprising moments of vulnerability, which convinced her (and me) of his innocence and decency. Julie is a breath of fresh air to Zack, partly because she isn't particularly impressed by his super-stardom, and partly because she's nothing like the starlets and other Hollywood types who were only interested in him for what he could do for their career. She's pure and innocent, far from the jaded, cynical person he's become. Her zest for life is infectious. Being around her makes him feel like a different person – someone normal. Except for one sex scene that was rather rough and not really my cup of tea and which I mostly understood his reasons for and for which he later made up, Zack is a tender and considerate lover. He also behaves selflessly in sending Julie back to her family, refusing to take her with him out of the country. Zack has some hard, stubborn alpha male moments, but also plenty of kind, loving moments that help to make up for them and balance him out.Before reading, Perfect, I had no idea what the connections were between it and Paradise. Even though they didn't share the same last name, I thought maybe Julie was Matt's sister from Paradise. That definitely wasn't the case. I guess Ms. McNaught just really likes the name, which is fine by me since that's my name too.:-) Anyway, the actual connection is that Matt and Meredith, the hero and heroine of Paradise, appear several times as secondary characters. Matt is Zack's best and really his only true friend, and he and Meredith are the only ones who never lose faith in Zack's innocence. In fact, Matt moves heaven and earth to prove it. We also get to see more of Matt's amusing bodyguard/chauffeur, Joe O'Hara, who apparently appears in another of Ms. McNaught's books, Someone to Watch Over Me. We also meet FBI agent, Paul Richardson, who seems like a good guy but who kind of gets left out in the cold when Julie and Zack reunite. He shows up again in book three of the series, Night Whispers.Even though there were a few small things that kept Perfect from being 'perfect,' it was still a very good read. While the book as a whole might not have been quite flawless for me, it did contain one of the most perfect love scenes I've ever read in a romance novel. Once Zack and Julie finally start talking and getting to know one another on a more personal level, it builds a strong sense of intimacy and connection that makes their first love scene utterly beautiful. It's filled with the tenderness, love and passion I crave in a romance. Zack's love letter to Julie is also pretty darn perfect. Those things alone made it worth all the ups and downs they have to suffer through to get their HEA. With two keepers in a row under her belt, Judith McNaught has earned a spot on my favorite authors list, and I look forward to checking out the rest of the Second Opportunities series and more of her backlist titles soon.

[msralways · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible! I don't know which book I liked more: this one or Paradise. Zack and Julie made this story such an amazing rollercoster of emotions from one chapter to the next. There were times that I was dying form all the romance and the sexiness between those two, and then I wanted to throw my Kindle so far into the wall from frustration at the whole story. The ending was awesome! Amazing!

[versha.bharat · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I feel as if I have a finished a great emotional journey. Defiantly a great book from my favorite author. The book was just perfect as the title is. It is surly a 5 star book but I rated it 4 star because of the last dragging part, but surly I must tell u all, that just for the last part u should not miss the whole book bcoz I didn't. My favorite part of this book was the letters by Zack and Julie there were tears in my eyes when I read those. If u are planning to read this book then please go ahead u won’t regret.

[lindsaydiffee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Liked everything but the end.

[dawnlovesbooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

surprisingly good to be a romance novel!!! i could not put it down!

[maritesbanzuela · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I always think that the best way to gauge a book is to feel the character and the situation, and with this book, I felt both, love Julie Mathison and Zack Benedict....wish they were real people....Mcnaught is in a class by herself....

[ak_momma · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love, love, loved this book! I love how Judith can keep you interested the whole way through with so much suspense that you cannot put it down. Loved Zack's character!!! A must read!

[blingtastic · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

the sequel to paradise; good character development in the beginning but it declined and needed to be edited; hollywood references dated the book and made it soo far-fetched; and it was too emotionally driven too the point where it was forced; will not re-read