A Place Called Perfect: 1

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It is a lovely, enjoyable book that is just as good on the inside as the front cover looks. I also hear that there is going to be a sequel too. Violet and Boy form a beautiful friendship even-though they have been brought up very differently. They learn to get along together, although there are a few moments where they are not so nice to one another. They are very likeable characters. Violet goes from this little girl who is scared of everything, to one that is brave, resilient and determined. No sooner did she set her foot in Perfect, she knows that something is not right, that this is no ordinary place. Violet hates her new home, it's too clean, there are so many rules, everyone is so friendly. All in all the town is just too perfect and she can't really fit in. Violet never wanted to move to Perfect. Who wants to live in a town where everyone has to wear glasses to stop them going blind? And who wants to be perfectly behaved all the time?

A Place Called Perfect is an impressive debut. Looking forward to sharing this with my own children and to reading more from Helena Duggan.

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Helena has weaved a vivid tale about Violet, a new girl in a town call Perfect. Everyone wears rose-tinted glasses to stop going blind and promptly lose themselves in being perfect – including Violet’s mum. Her father, an opthalmologist (eye surgeon) is employed by the controlling Archer brothers who run Perfect and manufacture a rather intoxicating tea that perfectionists drink like water. When Violet’s father disappears, she uncovers the truth about Perfect with Boy, who comes from No-Man’s-Land where the rejects of Perfect live. And then strange things begin to happen. Her mom is acting a little too weird. Her dad is just disappearing on mysterious business trips. And everyone is wearing unique tinted glasses including herself. And then she is getting in trouble in school for every little thing. And apart from all this she is hearing strange noises. Nothing just makes sense. A Place Called Perfect, the middle-grade debut of graphic designer Helena Duggan, follows the story of Violet Brown who finds life as she knows it thrown up in air as her parents decide to move to a place called Perfect. Her father, a renowned ophthalmologist had been offered an attractive new job in this strange little town and Violet can do nothing but agree to this sudden turn of events- who cares if she has to leave her friends and everything she holds dear in her old life?

The only thing that would have made the book even more gorgeous is illustrations. A bit in the style of the chapter headings.Violet then meets Boy. Boy is different from the other people she has so far seen at Perfect, and with Boy helping her, Violet discovers that the two Archer brothers- her father's employers- are not who they seem to be. In fact, so cunning and dangerous are they that it's up to Violet and Boy to put their heads together and decide how to save the oblivious people of Perfect from the cunning Archer brothers. It’s a fun book with a dark side and a rather frightening premise that we can all see things through a different lens and lose our own power of thought – alarming similarities to our media driven world that sways public opinion on a single tweet. Then Violet met Boy, a little lad from a place called, No-Man’s Land, whom she could only hear when she didn’t have her glasses on, and only see with a pair of gold rimmed glasses that she found. Boy agreed with Violet that something was not right in Perfect. The two set off on an adventure to locate Violet’s dad and find out just what it was that Perfect was hiding. Ms. Duggan’s style of writing actually reminded me of Roald Dahls. The chapters are short, the plot is filled with mystery, adventure and strange occurrences, and the heroes are just normal little children.