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Reviewed by Rabia Tanveer for Readers' Favorite
Perfection and Other Illusive Things by J Mercer is about loving yourself for all your flaws, even if they might hold you back from what you think is best for you. Eden already has almost everything she wants. She is a good student; her future is very bright in terms of higher education and she has good friends who genuinely care for her. The only thing missing in her life is Hawk. The gentle poet writes for her school’s paper and most of his brilliant lyrics are to his best friend Ivy. Eden wants him, but they are so different from each other. Even though everyone warns her against it, she pursues him and that starts her downward spiral. Sometimes, what you want is not what you need. Eden just learned that the hard way.
Perfection and Other Illusive Things by J Mercer was the perfect pick me up. Eden is not the typical YA heroine you come across and that is very refreshing. Her vulnerabilities and her constant struggle to please herself were very relatable. John Green has the knack for saying things that we all think yet we never speak them. This is a trait I never found in other writers until I read this novel by J Mercer. Eden shares some very hard and uncomfortable things that we all think, yet we are too embarrassed to say them out loud. She acts upon what she wants, what she thinks is best for her, and isn’t that how all of us are? She was chasing after a different kind of perfection, she was looking for something that made sense only to her, but that is not how the world works. The author encapsulated the teenage years and high school angst well. I was sucked into the story because I found Eden and Ivy too powerful to ignore. These two girls are so different from each other yet they show two very real sides of us as people. I enjoyed this book and wish I could give it more than 5 stars!
