Perfect Little Angels by Andrew Neiderman
Perfect Little Angels
Synopsis:
Justin Freeman and her parents move into a new neighborhood where everything seems too good to be true. The people are all polite and helpful; the neighborhood itself is clean and respectable; but the owner, a doctor, is more than just any physician looking after the health of his patients. He is actually an intelligent, manipulative sadist who wishes to first test his experiments on the oblivious citizens of Elysian Fields.
Review:
Perfect Little Angels was an okay read. Really it is told from two points of view, one of which I loved and one of which annoyed me greatly. So it was great and not so great at the same time. Some slight spoilers ahead.
This story starts off with an amazing prologue so I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen. I loved the Eugene part of the book. They were really great and I loved trying to figure out what was going on with him. He was a wonderful character for a book like this. It is obvious what Dr. Lawrence is doing in the rest of the town, but not as much with Eugene. He is kind of crazy and it is kind of gross at some points, but in a way that I enjoy. If you don't like really horrifying things, really cringe worthy things, you probably want to skip this book.
The rest of the story is told from Justine's point of view. Justin and her family have just moved to Elysian Fields and they have to get with the program quickly. Justine knows something is up, but then she starts to be affected by everything and starts forgetting what her old life was like. She does have the one other girl in town who tries to help her not succumb to everything, but man Justine annoyed me. So like everyone in town is being controlled by the doctor, but Justine is so stupid. Once she realizes this she thinks oh I will just tell my parents. They will listen to me even though they are like zombies and totally not themselves anymore. I mean they are my parents of course they will listen to me! She was told again and again that she has to try and blend in, and she just doesn't really try very hard. Even once she is afraid of what will happen she is still like whatever. I expected more from her. If you were in her situation would you really be so blase about it? Would you really not try very hard to blend in? Really? She was annoying. Her decision making was terrible. The way she went about things and spoke about things didn't come across as realistic to me. Even when she is affected by everything there was still something off about the way she was (and not because of her being affected by everything). I didn't believe she was becoming one of the zombie people. Then when she wasn't I didn't really believe she would be as stupid as she was.
So everything that was going on, the premise of the story, is interesting. If not for Eugene and his parts I wouldn't have enjoy the book very much. It is a Stepford story with a crazy doctor. It was just alright. Then you get to the end and the epilogue was not the best. To have someone come and tell everyone exactly what happened, have the reader read in detail what happened in a very straightforward outlined way, well it was just not that good. If you read the book you know what was going on so...Or maybe just show a conversation between a few people with the key highlights. It just was unnecessary and made it end on an even lower note than it was. Too bad the whole thing couldn't have been as entertaining as the Eugene chapters (note the Eugene chapters are pretty messed up so you should be prepared for that).
Rating: ★ ★
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