‘Pushing Perfect’ by Michelle Falkoff
“We don’t have to be perfect to get on. We just have to be good enough”
“Perfection is an unrealistic aspiration”
“All this pushing for perfection is damaging, you know.”
Summary📜:
A story with a point of view of Kara Winter, the so-called “Perfect Kara” is mainly about a friendship drama revolving around 3 girls that shifts into a mystery because ‘Perfect Kara’ is not as perfect as she looks. Kara held so much secret herself. Her social anxiety. Her panic attacks. Her breakout face. And lastly, when she gets herself into some drug-dealing scene. The story then mainly becomes a journey of her with her friends finding out the blocked sender that manipulates them to be stuck in the illegal scene.
Comments💬:
This one was a reread. But, I love every single part of it because I don’t seem to remember much from my first read. I read some reviews on Goodreads about this book and found that a lot of people don’t like the story. I was surprised because I absolutely love the page-turning thrills of every chapter this book holds.
I understand why people find Kara’s personality annoying because she has such a negative outlook on herself. With all the insecurities and lies she made, she adds up the frustration people had on her. But, people like Kara do exist especially among teenagers. So, I mostly just sympathised with her rather than annoyed. The friendship drama revolving around Kara’s habits of making up lies shows that honesty and communication are important in a friendship. Kara is not being honest, then being all sad and apologetic and asking her friends to forgive her is the conclusion of how she is with her friends. However, she creates a new friendship with unexpected teenagers like Alex, Raj & Justin and begins to experience a new journey.
After the first quarter of the book, the story starts to become a drug-dealing activity. That’s when the journey begins. Every single chapter after will reveals an important discovery of the mystery. I can’t stop turning pages because the ending of every chapter is just intriguing. However, I did not like the ending very much as I really want justice for the teenagers that were manipulated into continuing the illegal works. It did not sit right with me that the case was easily handled with just mutual assurance.
