Arc Review: Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch

Title: Perfected
Author: Kate Jarvik Birch
Publication: July 1st 2014 by Entangled: Teen
Genre: Young Adult ~ Dystopia
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Cover Rating: 5/5
Overall Rating: 2/5

Review copy provided in exchange for an honest review.

I was bred to be the perfect pet. I was bred for my beauty and grace, to be a showpiece, an ornament to sit upon the couch, to sing, to dance, to play the piano and paint. I was bred to willingly put my owner's happiness before my own.

Until Penn. The handsome and rebellious son of the congressman who owns me, he's the only person who's seen past my perfect exterior to the girl underneath. Falling for him is forbidden. Falling for him is freeing.

But there's a dark underworld lurking beneath my pampered life. The only thing more dangerous than staying with Penn's family is escaping it, because if I fail, I face a fate far worse than death...

For fans of Kiera Cass's Selection series and Lauren DeStefano's Chemical Garden series, Perfected is a chilling look at what it means to be human, as well as a stunning celebration of the power of love to set us free, wrapped in a glamorous—and dangerous—bow.

What can I say about Perfected? It wasn't a bad book or anything. I liked the idea of it and I'm usually a big fan of dystopian books like this but my overall feeling with this book was "meh". I really wanted to love this book because I'd been highly anticipating it but I just didn't. I guess it wasn't the right book for me. But I'm sure there will be other people who'd like it more.

I had no big problems with the main character, Ella, except that she was a bit dull. As were all the other characters as well, I'm afraid. There were no characters that I genuinely liked or rooted for. I didn't even like Penn or Ruby. And I have to mention that the congressman was really freaking the hell out of me. Such a creep!

Through the book every now and then hints kept being dropped about the family's last "pet" and what happened to her. Honestly, I had guessed what happened pretty early on so that left me feeling quite underwhelmed. 

It's true that I was kind of wigged out by the whole owning humans that are bred to be pets thing because I don't see how something like that would ever happen. Don't get me wrong, I do like the concept of it in a dystopian book like this but I just couldn't get into it. The characters, the story line, the writing. It was all mediocre to me. 

So all in all, Perfected by Kate Jervik Birch fell a bit flat for me. But if I have to say one possitive thing it's that the book reads really quickly and I was done in no time because I did want to find out how it would all end. So that's something I guess. Will I read the next book (if there will be one...)? I'm not entirely sure. I might read it just to find out what's going to happen next because of that ending.

About the Author: 

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

Kate has loved writing ever since she was a little girl. She wrote her first novel in fourth grade (the main character was suspiciously similar to herself). As an adult, her essays and short stories have been published in Isotope: A Journal of Literary Nature and Science Writing, Saint Ann's Review, Scissors and Spackle and in a forthcoming issue of Indiana Review. Her first play, (a man enters), co-written with Elaine Jarvik, was produced in 2011 by Salt Lake Acting Co.

​ Kate studied painting and drawing at the University of Utah and graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in 2005. The pattern and texture in her mixed-media floral paintings are inspired by her love for textile design and the decorative influence of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. Her work is currently being published by Poems Publishing and is sold internationally. Over the years her paintings have been used in feature films and TV shows, such as Glee and 21 Jump Street.

​ Kate lives in Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband and their three children.