Get Perfect On Paper Penned By Sophie Gonzales Viewable As Hardcover

bi girl mc, trans sc, VietnameseAmerican lesbian sc, bi sc, gay sc, pan nonbinary sc
tw: biphobia, internalised biphobia, toxic parents, drugs, alcohol, vomiting

If youve read Only Mostly Devastated, you probably more or less know what to expect here: teens who are allowed to make questionable choices amp mistakes, and to learn from them great dynamics between characters, be it friends, family or romantic partners and of course great writing.


Perfect on Paper offers all that, and more,

Lets start with the writing, Gonzales style is very clean, which is to say: its not purple prose, its not clunky, it doesnt feel like its unpolished.
Its clean. Its also fresh, and really does make you believe the characters are teens, And funny. Probably helps that my sense of humour clearly aligns with the authors, but the point stands,

The fact that the writing is so good, also translates into all the characters being well developed, superbly fleshed out.
Which is possibly my favourite part of the book, Because I dont just mean that yeah, its very easy to feel like you know all those people youre reading about amp like theyre real people.
I mean that they are people, they do things they regret later, they keep secrets they know they shouldnt, they hurt others.
None of them are perfect, least of all Darcy, And thats beautiful, frankly, since in real life no one is perfect either,

Darcy is an amazing main character, Shes kind of messy, in love with her best friend, and thinks shes smarter than everyone else at least a little bit.
She doesnt end the story like that, though, When I say all those characters grow and learn, Im dead serious,

Darcy has all the answers, She knows how to solve everyone elses love problems, She reads one letter, and shes already an expert about any given situation, And like with everything, there are a lot of sides to look at this from, Yes, the advice she anonymously gives people is usually spot on, No, she cant really know a persons full story from a few facts they decided to put in a note but the narrative calls her out on this.
Yes, its made clear that its easier to figure out what to do when youre not emotionally invested amp thats one of the reasons why Darcy is so successful.
No, she cant really take her own advice,

When it comes to her own love life, Darcy reads too much into things or just doesnt notice stuff, all depending on the outcome shes hoping for.
None of that smart assessment of situation she displays when telling others what to do, Very little logic, a lot of wishful thinking, Which, honestly, makes perfect sense,

Darcy is also bisexual, and to be honest, thats where the book truly gets to shine, You can clearly tell its an ownvoices story, with all the care taken to portray bisexuality, Not only in the very clear way of how the plot unfolds: Darcy is in love with a girl and then later falls for a boy thats not a spoiler, right yall must have been expecting that.
There are also discussions, internal monologues about what bisexuality actually is and how biphobia comes into play, I dont think Ive ever read a YA book with bi rep this good,

And yes, the Boy, Brougham is just so sweet, Basically always willing to help, to spend time with someone, make them feel better, But even more importantly, Brougham puts a lot of weight on other peoples feelings, opinions, boundaries, In a phrase, he respects people, If Darcy tells him she doesnt enjoy something, hell stop, A revolutionary concept, yes, I know,

Thats just to show you, though, what an important part relationships play in Perfect on Paper, Obviously the romantic ones, given the whole premise of the book, Even with those, Gonzales took some turns you might not be expecting some happy endings that dont look like them from the start.
But different kinds of relationships arent downplayed at all, Darcy and her sister are a major point in the story, Parents are actually visible here, and while theyre not always perfect, the narrative actually talks about that,

Perfect on Paper is a perfectly wholesome story about imperfect people, It will make you laugh, it will make you cry, it will make you yearn, It might even make you learn something, Most of all, it will make you feel loved, If I'm being honest, I don't even know where to start my review for Perfect on paper, so I'll just say.
. .
This book was everything!

I have only readya books this year, and this novel reminded me how much I enjoy this genre, and how I happen to miss it, so in some way it can be said it inspired me to go more often for books from that genre.


Perfect on Paper has amazing cast of characters, with great lgbtq representation,
Our main character Darcy is bisexsual, her best friend is lesbian, her sister is in transition, and they are also members of lgbtq group in their high school, that so many wonderful charaters are part of.


Now when we covered them, I want to sress out how joyful, fun and entertaining the plot is, I can't remember when was the last time I enjoyed a book so much,
This novel has onlypages, but I read it for days, because I wanted to spend as much time with it as possible.

However, I am sure it could be devoured in onetwo sittings only,

When Perfect on Paper came out a month ago, I feel it was talked about, but in my opinion it deserves bigger promotion because it really stands out and has potential to become one of today's ya classics.

I would also like to see it on screens one day, hopefully soon,

So if you want my advice, do yourself a favour and give this book a chance,
I am sure many people will enjoy it, take something out of it and understand why it deserves the hype.

I highly, highly recommend it, Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for a copy of this book in

exchange for an honest review,

actual ,/

I'm someone who absolutely hates love triangles, in any shape or form, Usually, this is because the person that the mc will end up with is quite obvious from the very beginning, and the only reason that there even is a love triangle is for the added drama.
This book has broken my streak of hating on love triangles just because they exist, which is definitely something I didn't see coming.


'Perfect on Paper' follows Darcy Philips, a bisexual teen with a secret: she's the one running locker, an anonymous dating advice service for her fellow classmates.
However, when Alexander Brougham discovers her secret, he has a proposal: Darcy helps him win back his exgirlfriend, and he keeps her secret along with generous pay, of course.
The only problem Darcy can't stand Brougham, and is in love with her best friend, Brooke, who she hasn't exactly been honest with.


Part of the reason that I love this book is because, as mentioned earlier, the love triangle isn't there to create more needless drama in the book, but rather, to explore Darcy's bisexuality and all that it entails.
This book itself is so, so, so important because of the way that it tackles bi erasure it acknowledges that bi's don't need to have been involved with both people the same gender as them or not to be considered bisexual, they're queer enough on their own.
I absolutely loved reading about Darcy's experience with the way other people reacted to her bisexuality, and the way others stood up for her as well.


The romance is absolutely adorable, I cannot even, Brougham and Darcy have such good chemistry, and the love triangle never felt like it was impeding the progress of the romance, but rather that it helped it along.


The characters, but Darcy specifically, were awesome, I loved how she was able to grow as a person over the course of the story she wasn't some picture perfect book character, but rather, a realistic teenager who made mistakes but also learned and grew from them, which really is an attestation to Sophie Gonzales' writing.


The plot was admittedly a bit all over the place, but in a good way It's a bit hard to explain, but it often felt like twostepsforwardonestepback with Darcy and her love triangle.
And while this made for some entertaining relationship dynamics, it could be a bit hard to follow at times,

Overall, I really, really, really enjoyed this book, and I would definitely recommend it to all the YA romance fans out there.
It was a little different than the books that I usually read, but I certainly don't regret picking this one up.




somewhat unrelated bi meme section because why not:











































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