Review: The Perfectionists (In which my inner bitch comes out to play, bitches.)

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 four five liars, and our mean girl boy is Allison Nolan (because that makes a difference) it's so not Pretty Little Liars. It's like it's trying so hard not to be it that it is it.

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