Book Review: You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman

I thought this book was good. But, as much as I relate to the main character and his situation, for some reason it didn't really emotionally affect me or draw me in as much as I wanted it to. But I suppose that is pretty difficult to do for a book that is less than 300 pages. I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads. To me, a 3/5 means that the book was pretty average. A 3-star book usually means that it didn't really annoy me or make me mad, but it also didn't really make me feel anything profound or deep.

I definitely relate to Ariel's situation a lot. I was that kid in high school that was in a lot of AP classes. The difference between us is that my school wasn't very competitive. So even though I was an AP student, we were still allowed to slack off a little. My parents were also very strict with me so I definitely feel the pressure of being expected to be perfect all the time. His sensitivity at anything where his facade starts breaking and people can see that he's not as perfect as he likes to pretends to be... This is me to a tee! It was crazy to read those moments where we feel like the same person.

I did relate to Ariel's situation, but at the same time there were a lot of things that didn't directly apply to me. And because they didn't apply to me in my situation, I tended to think he was being melodramatic or overreacting. In addition to that, as someone who graduated high school pretty recently I found some of the stuff he did pretty unbelievable. For example, he didn't have a lunch period because he squeezed in another AP course. Maybe some high schools you would be allowed to do that, but it just seemed like a reach to me. Ariel is also bisexual and Jewish, both of which are not something that I can relate to. But the Jewish focus would throw me off a little bit because there was a lot of terminology and traditions that weren't explained and I had no idea about.

I think the plot was extremely predictable. Exactly what you think is going to happen is exactly what does happen. At least for me. I didn't really feel much of a emotional attachment to any of the characters or to the friends, family or romantic relationship. There were a lot of characters and we didn't get to know them well enough so that I could be able to connect the name to the character. The romantic relationship was not nearly fleshed out enough for me to care. But, a good thing about this cast of characters was the representation. Ariel and his family are Jewish, Amir and his family are Muslim, his best friend was Korean. So that is great for that type of representation to be present in the book.

Additionally, Ariel is bisexual, which is wonderful for LGBT representation. The romantic relationship takes a background role in this story. LGBT people deserve content that doesn't focus on the trauma of coming out. The family members in this book were very accepting of the LGBT community. But I also couldn't help but find it unrealistic that the two families would be so accepting that they would even be encouraging them to get together.

Because I did relate a lot to Ariel there were a few quotes that really stuck out to me. This was one of my favorites. It's not the most profound quote in it's verbage--it's just a simple back and forth conversation--but for some reason I really related to it:

"Capitals of all the countries."

"What?" We didn't do that until ninth grade. Though I'd be no help to her now. It's the kind of information you forget a week after you learn it.

Oof that one really hit home for me. I really hated this during high school and college. That the focus is on grades and memorization and cramming for tests so that you don't actually learn anything. What you learn is how to game the system, basically.

And here's another similar one: "They make us think the grade is more important than the learning, and that's messed up. We're all overwhelmed. You're not alone."

Also a nitpicky thing--Amir is a fake Harry Potter fan, I'm sorry. He said that Ariel was a Griffinclaw. This is a terrible analysis! Yes as a second choice for a house he probably would be a Ravenclaw, because he is really smart obviously. But he is like 90% Slytherin. He is ruthless in the way he games the system to always end up on top. His number one character trait is that he's ambitious. I'm just saying...

Another thing- I loved that there's a matzo ball soup recipe at the end. So cute!

Overall I thought it was good, but I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. But it definitely didn't hurt to spend my time reading it, especially since it's so short.

I will delve a little bit into some spoilers down below. Here's your warning.

***SPOILER SECTION***

This should probably be pretty short because there aren't too many spoilers to discuss. It's a pretty short book. And as I said above, nothing really happens that you wouldn't expect to happen. And it's a pretty mundane story that you know won't have any extreme twists and turns. But anyway, one of the biggest "spoilers" has to do with Ariel's sister, Rachel. She basically gets sick from the stress of her school work. I definitely saw this coming pretty early on. I did like this. I feel like most stories show compare the major character to a side character that is completely different from them. And based on the side character's downfall, the main character knows what to change about themselves. Here Rachel was a mirror of Ariel, so it was interesting that here they were able to teach him a lesson by showing what could happen to him if he continues down this path.

***END OF SPOILER SECTION***

I hope you all enjoyed my review. Have you read this book? If so, let me know your thoughts down below!