Review: "Just Perfect" by Hanne Arts

Just Perfect by Hanne Arts
Published 2014 via CreateSpace
★★

A valiant effort but the work of a relatively new writer. Just Perfect is trying to cover a lot of topics—bullying; family dysfunction and alcoholism; teenage relationships; anorexia. Unfortunately it struggles to hold on to more than one of these threads at a time, leaving the work feeling full of loose ends. Christina's eating disorder (which appears more or less out of nowhere, with her feeling no effects and attracting no attention until she is at a heart-could-stop-any-minute low weight) is a mix of On Death's Door and wildly incompetent care à la 'Well, you're perilously unwell but you can probably handle this at home on your own, hmm?' Consistent with a lot of teenage writing (consistent with my writing when I was a teenager), Christina's voice leans heavily into angst.

I see that there's a sequel—I will not be seeking it out, but hopefully it has a bit more balance.