You Asked for Perfect

by Laura Silverman

[readingwithwrin]

NetGalley, Publisher, FFBC tours for the free e-arc

Ariel is a senior in high school whose main goal for the past four years has been to get into Harvard. He has taken as many classes as possible, dropped a sport he loved and pushed himself harder to get the best grades and to be the best academically. He’s mostly accomplished that and why he knows he’s almost reached his dream he also knows that this last year of school means more than the others combined. He has to keep his grades up and pack in as many AP classes as possible in order to make class valedictorian and make his application for Harvard standout.

As the school year starts though things start going wrong, and Ariel has to make some tough choices. This is when we get to meet Amir and see their friendship grow. Amir is without a doubt one of my favorite characters in this book. He is so sure of what he wants to do with his life, and has worked hard to do that, but isn’t stressing himself out like Ariel is to reach that accomplishment. All of us need someone like Amir in our lives and I’m so glad Ariel had him.

Ariel also has good friendships with two other people that are both in a band and hope to make it big. These friendships we really see get tested throughout the time we have with Ariel, and they felt very realistic in my opinion as well.

Ariel also has an amazing family unit. His parent our loving and fairly involved in both Ariel’s life and his younger sisters life. They are also big in their Jewish Community and that plays a big part in all of their lives. The talks we get with them around the family table were so nice to see. We also got to know Ariel’s little sister who is also really great and I loved their interactions together.

Overall I really loved this story. It not only touches on the pressure that many high school students feel, and how that pressure is starting to be placed on kids younger and younger each year. While this book does go fairly in-depth with Ariel’s schedule and AP classes it was never boring. In fact, at times a found myself being just as anxious as he was because of how stressed out he was. His relationship with Amir was so sweet and I loved how things weren’t always perfect, it was realistic and I can’t say enough good things about it. I also really loved how their families interacted with each other and were close and actually enjoyed spending time together. I feel like that’s something we don’t see a lot in books and I really hope it becomes a new trend because I am so here for it!

I cannot say enough good things about this book. Please read it and enjoy it!