A Place Called Perfect: 1

Product Information

Imagine living in a perfect town where everything is neat and tidy, the kids are polite and well behaved and the tea tastes like the best thing you can imagine. Sounds great, right? Well, not if the tea is actually hypnotising you and the glasses you are made to wear twist reality to make everything seem perfect and hide the truth… The book has a dystopian feel to it, with those people that conform to Perfects society being allowed to stay in Perfect and those that don’t being cast aside to No-Man’s Land. A theme that runs through many of my stories and books is conformity and people not standing up for what they believe, instead choosing the mass opinion. I also love the difference in people and find it fascinating how we label a person as odd if they are not following the "rules" of life, perhaps they are just being themselves? 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. A Place Called Perfect is an impressive debut. Looking forward to sharing this with my own children and to reading more from Helena Duggan.

Edward and George Archer have built this perfect town, but not all the citizens conform and do not become perfect citizens. Violet is one of those citizens and very soon Mrs Moody, the school teacher diagnoses Violet as having IDDCS (Irritable Dysfunctional Disobedient Child Syndrome) and Violet is placed on medication. However, Violet only pretends to swallow the pills because she does not want to be perfect. Helena Duggan is from Kilkenny, a medieval, haunted city in the south of Ireland. She’s pretty old, like 31 or something but her friends say she’s never grown up, so like she’s probably really only 13 in brain years.Violet Brown and her parents Eugene and Rose, move to Perfect. Perfect is a perfect town, with perfect citizens who drink perfect tea, but if they take off their special rose tinted glasses, the people are totally blind. Dr. Eugene Brown was a top Ophthalmologist, (eye surgeon), and had been headhunted by the Archers to fix the problem. Eugene moved to Perfect with his wife Rose, and ten year old daughter Violet. Sure enough the next day all three went blind and needed the special glasses to be able to see again. Another theme of mine is our reliance on pills and potions to fix our problems, to make us "normal" but what is normal?...

Throughout all this there's a serious message to be found too. The book makes us think how we may be unwittingly made to fit a "perfect" mould, and how we may be oblivious to it all, content with following the majority without any questioning. The town of Perfect was run by the Archer Twins, George and Edward. Just like the place name, everything was perfect, except for one thing, all the residents went blind not long after arriving and needed special pink rimmed/rose tinted glasses to be able to see again. The only thing that would have made the book even more gorgeous is illustrations. A bit in the style of the chapter headings. A Place Called Perfect is Helena Duggan's debut novel and is the book #1 in this new series. The book is aimed at young adults, but is also suitable for adults who enjoy reading fantasy. A thoroughly enjoyable read. I do want to read about what happens next, so hopefully the wait for book #2 will not be long. This is one of those books that you think about when you’re not reading it and can’t wait to find out what happens next.But when her optician father has been offered an almost perfect job in this new location and despite her unwillingness, Violet must do as she is told, so she moves to Perfect. Violet was a little girl with a big imagination, but even she knew she wasn’t imagining that something was wrong in Perfect, especially when her father went missing and her mother didn’t seem to care. With echoes of Roald Dahl, Neil Gaiman's Coraline, the Wizard of Oz and the films of Tim Burton, this is a charming, whimsical tale sure to appeal to those who enjoy quirky, imaginative stories. Whilst the adult characters go blindly about their daily perfect lives it is left to the children to seek the truth of the matter and discover what the fiendish Archers are planning. Or are you considering it, after reading this review? Let me know in the comments if you’re into magical tween fiction too!

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 neat and tidy and perfectly behaved all the time? Once they move to Perfect, Violet finds things to be very strange indeed. For one, the town is ridiculously perfect- and the people, even more so. The tea is delicious, and the rose-tinted glasses everyone has to wear seems to protect them from blindness- what even, right? Violet hates all this (except for the tea, which, admittedly, is absolutely delicious), and once her parents start turning into people she barely recognized, with her mom taking up baking and what not, and her father suddenly disappears on a mysterious business trip, Violet realizes that something is definitely not right about Perfect. I first starting thinking about this story when I bought a pair of old bifocal glasses in an antique shop in Australia. I loved them, and still carry them everywhere with me. I had contemplated taking out the glass and replacing it with my own prescription...That notion started me on the train of thought for this book...

All of these thoughts mashed together, produced Perfect...its streets and people, No Mans Land and its oddities, The Ghost Estate and it's dark corners, Violet and Boy, Edward and George Archer and their estranged and rebellious brother William, Iris and Macula and their inner strength, The Watchers, The Reimaginator, The Tea, The Orphans, The Eyes, The Graveyard and all the things in between... Violet discovers that Bungalow, one of the Watchers that she can now see, goes into people's houses at night after the curfew, collecting imaginations from the rose coloured glasses and transferring them to jars in the Archers Optical Emporium. Violet from following Bungalow, sees that the jars glow. One jar has her name written on it and says 'processing'.