A review by vacantbones
The Perfect Family by Robyn Harding

3.0

There was a chance the porch railing could catch fire, that it could climb the wooden posts and ignite the second story. If the smoke alarms didn't work...
Well, the world would be a better place without people like the Adlers.

In The Perfect Family we meet Thomas, Viv, Eli, and Tarryn, a family that looks to be perfectly composed from the outside looking in. Each family member is keeping a secret, and, when they become the victims of a coordinated string of attacks on their home, the poised unit starts to unravel.

This was a completely average book. I was initially intrigued by the writing style and enjoyed having the POV of each family member, but ultimately nothing about this book made it stand out from the rest of the pack. Perhaps this is due to the number of "bad neighbor" books I read last year, but alas. The multiple POV angle also felt a little repetitive at times.

The character of Tarryn was also entirely unbearable. Yes, teenager girls are savage beasts as a general rule, but her willingness to look past the extortion of her father in favor of feeling bad for the blackmailer made me think I was insane and putting words on the page that didn't exist. Also, she is entirely lacking self-awareness and her fallible ideas regarding social justice are worrying (very minor "spoiler": Tarryn is a cam girl, and she's also a minor. She genuinely believes that she is reclaiming her sexuality despite this fact in a healthy way). I had to restrain myself from skipping her POV chapters.

I wouldn't dissuade anyone from reading this one, but it feels like it was marketed as being more dark and disturbing than it truly was.