Perfect on Paper Book Review (Spoiler-free)

Perfect on Paper by Sophie Gonzales

 Spoiler-Free Book Review 

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5 stars


The Blurb

Everyone in school knows about Locker 89. If you slip a letter in outlining your relationship woes, along with a fiver, an anonymous source will email you with the best advice you've ever gotten. 

Darcy Phillips, a quiet, sweet junior, is safe in the knowledge no one knows she's the genius behind locker 89. Until Brougham, a senior, catches her. 

The deal Brougham offers is tempting: in exchange for his silence--and a generous coach's fee to sweeten the deal--Darcy can become Brougham's personal dating coach to help him get his ex-girlfriend back. 

And as for Darcy, well, she has a fairly good reason to want to keep her anonymity. Because she has another secret. Not too long ago, she abused locker 89 to sabotage the budding romance of her best friend, Brooke. Brooke, who Darcy's been in love with for a year now. 

Yeah. Brooke can't find out about that. No matter what.


The Plot

This book is about Darcy Phillips, who runs a dating advice business out of locker 89. She checks it for letters after school when everyone else is gone because her Mom works at the school and has to stay in late. One day Brougham, an attractive senior catches her getting out the letters and blackmails her into being his personal dating coach to get his ex-girlfriend back for $25 per hour with a $50 bonus if it works out. The main romance is with him.

Darcy is also in love with her best friend Brooke. She has sabotaged her relationships with other people multiple times from locker 89 out of jealousy.

My Thoughts

I think it was a really fun read. The characters actually felt like teenagers *cough cough* Six of Crows *cough cough* with their thoughts and the overall way they acted and they were very loveable. There was a lot of drama, but it wasn't terrible, it was very entertaining, but not in a bad way!

It was great for binge reading in one day, like her other book Only Mostly Devastated which I also read really quickly. The pop culture references weren't too cheesy and the Australian stuff was so funny to me. How did Darcy not know what fairy bread was? 

The writing style was very fast-paced and crisp, and I just loved how clean it was which made it really easy to read. Throughout the book there were some of the letters she receives and her email responses, I found those sections really interesting.

The Characters

Darcy Phillips

I like her, she was very relatable to me, but she was an asshole at times. for example, when Brooke got a girlfriend and she tried to break them uptake whole time. She's done some messed up things out of love and jealousy before and for that reason she wasn't my favourite, but I have respect for her as a character and her personal growth.

Alexander Brougham

He was such a sweet little cinnamon roll, I want to give him a hug! I think he's my new fictional crush because he was so perfect and cute. At the start, he is portrayed as a bad person but as the narrator, Darcy grows closer to him, I love him.

Brooke Nguyen

Brooke was also really nice. I ship her wholeheartedly with Ray. She was also relatable to me because she loves doing makeup so much. I remember last year I was obsessed with makeup and skincare and would grab every sample and wanted to work at a department store when I was older. When she mentioned cut-creases and pressed pigment I just loved that.

Ainsley Phillips

She was Darcy's sister and I loved how supportive and trusting she was an their relationship was great. She has a YouTube channel where she does thrift-flips with voiceovers and I wish I could watch one of her videos in real life. She is also the founder of the Queer and Questioning club (Q&Q club) and transgender which was really cool.

Overall

Overall, this was a really fun and enjoyable read! 

Who I would Recommend this to

I would recomend this to people who like YA contemporary romance-ish. The writing style was the same in her other book, Only Mostly Devastated so if you liked this you can read that too.

Content/Trigger Warnings

Alcoholism, divorce, manipulation, bisexual erasure (countered), biphobia/some internalized (countered)

My Rating System:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = I would literally die for this
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ = Love
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Really Like
⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ = A Bit Better Than Like
⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Like
⭐️⭐️✨ = Meh
⭐️⭐️ = Don't really like
⭐️ = Hate, with a burning, raging passion

Comments

Popular Posts