Review - Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch

What would it be like to be treated as a pet in a gilded cage?  To have everything you could ever want, but no real freedom to enjoy it?  What would it be like to be auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder as their…play thing? 

Those are the questions facing Ella, the main character in the book Perfected by Kate Jarvik Burch.

Okay so right off the bat I’m going to say that I was not a fan of the premise of this book.  A world where legislation has passed to make it legal for humans to be bred to perfection and sold as pets?  Really?  Are you serious?  But wait…how far from the truth could this story lead?  Is it too completely ridiculous to think that somewhere in the future, someone is going to come up with the completely insane idea that humans COULD be sold as pets?

That idea aside, once I got over the idea, I was actually drawn into the story.  Here you have Ella, who has been bred to be exactly this, a pet.  She has no real idea about the outside world and how it works.  All she knows is how to be demure, how to maintain her posture and her etiquette in ways so as not to anger or upset her masters.  She doesn’t really understand the truth about her situation like an outsider looking in would.

Once bought and paid for, Ella is swept away to a beautiful house, lavish clothing, and the family of the very person who made this sort of thing legal.  She’s told that there had been a pet before her but she’d had to be sent back due to…flaws that couldn’t be fixed by the family themselves.  It isn’t until later that you realize how grave a situation that really is. 

Also, upon meeting the family, she also meets Penn.  He’s the son of the Congressman whose bought and paid for her, and ultimately ends up being something infinitely more. 

Now I have to admit, I’m a sucker for the sappy moments in life and this book definitely has those moments interspersed throughout it.  I found myself rooting for Penn and Ella and wanting them to have the freedom they both longed to have.  Because while Ella is the pet, Penn is just as trapped as she is. 

I won’t give you any more details other than the fact that I actually very much enjoyed this book.  The plot was interesting and seemed to read seamlessly.  The characters were believable, some likeable some not so much, and the ending left me eager to read the next installment of the series.  I ended up giving this book a 4 out of 5 stars on GoodReads.

This is definitely an intriguing first book to the series and I cannot wait to read the second installment entitled Tarnished, which hits bookstores on December 1^st.  If you’ve had a chance to read Perfected, let me know what you thought in the comments below!

Thanks guys for taking time out to read my review and, as always, “Spread the joy of reading!  Lives can change with the turn of a page!” 

See ya! J