Title: Perfect?
Author: Jeremy Johnson
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
ISBN: 9781612960043
Pages: 182, Paperback
Genre: Fiction/Suspense
Reviewed by: Gary Sorkin, Pacific Book Review
Book Review
Perfect? – With a question mark, is what Jeremy Johnson titled his novel because what seemed perfect from the “outside” was in fact broken and dysfunctional from within. In his fast-paced, soap opera style novel, written in a third person narration, Jeremy Johnson introduces us to the McDaniels; a socially upscale and wealthy Chicago family. Seth, the husband, is an executive with a major credit card company and a true workaholic. His beautiful wife, Jenna, is the “Cat’s meow” to her friends; the stay-at-home housewife with her flashy Beamer and Prada shoes – all gilding her exterior façade. They have a lovely daughter, Terra, and soon a new member of their family is born, Mikayla. The problem is Seth isn’t Mikayla’s biological father, nor did he know of his wife’s pregnancy. The family later finds out their new daughter is autistic, which places extraordinary demands on their choices for the future.This sets in motion the web of lies and deceit as Jenna conjures up stories as she tries to hide the affair that had gotten her pregnant, plus her addiction to pain pills, extramarital sex and alcoholism. Worse yet are her inner-most demons which she kept at bay by self-medicating herself into a semi-toxic mental state of mind. She’s not only fooling her overly trusting husband, but in a warped, self-denial way, she’s fooling herself.
Jeremy Johnson began his story with many classical character development techniques we all have read and are familiar with. He stereotyped Jenna’s character by her social status, her deceitful drug addition, even her dysfunctional ability not to change and do the right thing knowing her behavior was wrong. Seth is made out to be a bit naïve, accepting what Jenna tells him at face value; turning a blind eye because of his desire not to disrupt the seemingly perfect family.
Then once the foundations of the characters are established, Jeremy Johnson goes to work with his subtle twists of fate. For example, Seth, not previously suspecting his wife was cheating on him and is pregnant from another man, says to Jenna, “The doctor called and said you left your pre-natal vitamins on the counter at his office this afternoon.” A great line. Jenna began to confess to Seth and told him about the one-night-stand that lead to her pregnancy, and said she will have an abortion. Seth replied, “First an adulterer, now a murderer?” Another great line. It is this succession of credible events, terse dialogue, and creative circumstances that brings the reader deeply into this story, and created a page-turner that is difficult to put down. Although gun shots are fired within in the book, the bullets don’t compare to the powerfully potent sentences being fired out like a literary machine gun during the final few pages of the book culminating into a surprising climax.
Perfect? Is perfect entertainment. It is a very good book for taking on a trip, or reading on a plane, as Jeremy Johnson packs 7 years of the McDaniel’s lives into 184 pages full of twists and turns, suspense and some very fast moving storytelling. With his tricky foreshadowing of Jenna’s poor decision making, Seth’s weak personality, some drug-dealing sleazy characters, a FBI agent, a lawyer and some friends, you may think you know what’s going to happen. But I’ll bet you the “face in the shadows” at the end will be as much a surprise to you as it was for me once reveled. After all, the book wouldn’t be perfect if you could guess the ending, right?
