In Perfect on Paper,
Leah on the Offbeat meets To All the Boys I've Loved Before: a bisexual
girl who gives anonymous love advice to her classmates is hired by the
hot guy to help him get his ex back
Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.
Darcy Phillips:
• Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee.
• Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
• Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
• Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
• Does not appreciate being blackmailed.
However,
when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker
89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous
relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for
keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal
dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him
win his ex-girlfriend back.
Darcy has a good reason to keep her
identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some
things she's not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance
Brooke will never speak to her again.
Okay, so all she has to do
is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s
already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?
Copy received from Hachette Australia for an honest review
I absolutely adored Only Mostly Devastated when it came out, so it was a no brainer for me to read Perfect On Paper.
I liked how this wasn't about how perfect everyone was. Our leading lady Darcy is anything but perfect, but really, are any of us? I think those that say they are are liar. We all have flaws, it is how we deal with them that makes us.
I adore Darcy's relationship with her sister Ainsley. But it is her relationship with Brougham that is the best.
I love the evolution of their relationship. For something that could have turned out nasty and bitter, it was just lovely to see their friendship bloom, and could it be something more?
Now, I am the first to admit that I am not the biggest fan of YA stories - and it is nothing to do with the stories, it is me being an old fart, old enough to have birthed these babies. However, the maturity of the characters jumps off the pages of Perfect On Paper. Sure we still get some juvenile, immature things, however for the most part they don't feel that young.
Brougham was all that and a bag of chips for me. I loved how his Australian-ness came through, and I laughed - and shared with my Aussie friends - the Aussie-isms that came through. I kept going back and readind them they amused me so much.
So many different kinds of relationships are dealt with in this book, and I felt that they were dealt with well.
I am really looking forward to whatever Ms Gonzales brings us next.
