Why This Needs to Be on Your Shelf:
- It’s about a bisexual girl who gives anonymous love advice
- There are loads of discussions surrounding biphobia within and out of the LGBTQ+ community
- This is filled with sound advice that will actually open your eyes and make you feel like less of a romantic shipwreck yourself
Review:
Let’s state the obvious first: this premise is what queer dreams are made of. A high school student giving love advice by replying to letters that are delivered to a secret locker? A bisexual girl who seems to be able to fix everyone’s love life, except her own? Outstanding. The concept of the story drew me in from the first page.
That being said, it took me quite a while to get into this story but once it got going, I was hooked. Darcy and Alex are an interesting couple to follow, especially since Alex is ostensibly cynic about a lot of what Darcy does and yet, their chemistry was off the charts. There was some iffiness and miscommunication in the latter part of the book that made me want to tear my hair out considering the protagonist gives others the advice to never let miscommunication be a barrier, but obviously it’s quite a difficult rule to follow once you’re in the driver seat of romantic relationships. I think that was clever juxtaposition of relationship theory vs. practice but there were some bumps that made me want to put Alex and Darcy into a locked room and have them fight it out.
While I enjoyed this novel for the most part, I do have to mention that it gets quite repetitive at times. This, in part, is due to the subject matter of replying to letters and yet having no luck in your own romantic life, but it often took me out of the story when Darcy was so confident in giving advice to others but not taking that advice to heart herself. There is a learning curve she is on and yet I had some trouble staying engaged in the story around the middle point. This might have also been in part because I didn’t really have a feel for Darcy’s character until the 70% mark – her character arc is almost entirely stuffed into the last third of the book, which was a bit overwhelming to me.
As a side note though: this is a very subjective opinion, but a lot (and I mean A LOT) of people have compared this to Sex Education and since I couldn’t really get into that show either, I think it shows perfectly that this book will definitely appeal to anyone who loved that show because (as far as I can tell from my limited knowledge of the series) there are loads of parallels to Otis and his advice giving in Perfect on Paper. I could name at least twenty people off the top of my head who will love this because this book is great, it just won’t be for everyone (which is fine because it’s 2021, we’re all allowed to have different tastes in books, right?)
Ironically enough, the love problems and advice giving were some of my favourite moments in the story. I loved the diversity of relationships and problems that Darcy had to wade through (all while having an unrequited crush on her best friend who might have also sent a letter in at some point in the past) and how she used examples to illustrate to her readers what they could do better in terms of communication and transparency. There is also a big thing at the end of the novel where I felt like Darcy lived out her wildest dreams and what would make a fantastic TV show with Darcy fixing people’s relationships with epic make-up dates.
By far, my favourite part of this book was the discussion of biphobia. Gonzales mentions this in her Goodreads review and it’s an important point: so often, bisexual individuals are told that it’s just a phase or that, if they end up with someone of the opposite sex, they are not really bisexual. These are both two very harmful, toxic and unnecessary stereotypes that should just be eradicated already. I loved how Gonzales addressed this biphobia and how it brought together Darcy and her ostensible nemesis in this book because both of them had struggled with the same kind of prejudice and internalised it to a certain degree. There was also a lot of discussion about seemingly innocuous comments from people around you that will marinate in your brain over time until you begin to question your sexual orientation’s validity. Gonzales shined with their exploration of what it means to be queer and how that affects people’s opinion of you.
With quirky, flawed characters and profound discussions of biphobia, Perfect on Paper is perfect for fans of Becky Albertalli and anyone who’s ever given relationship advice while being a hot mess themselves.
Perfect On Paper is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of March 9th 2021.
Will you be picking up Perfect On Paper? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
Her advice, spot on. Her love life, way off.
Darcy Phillips:
• Can give you the solution to any of your relationship woes―for a fee.
• Uses her power for good. Most of the time.
• Really cannot stand Alexander Brougham.
• Has maybe not the best judgement when it comes to her best friend, Brooke…who is in love with someone else.
• Does not appreciate being blackmailed.
However, when Brougham catches her in the act of collecting letters from locker 89―out of which she’s been running her questionably legal, anonymous relationship advice service―that’s exactly what happens. In exchange for keeping her secret, Darcy begrudgingly agrees to become his personal dating coach―at a generous hourly rate, at least. The goal? To help him win his ex-girlfriend back.
Darcy has a good reason to keep her identity secret. If word gets out that she’s behind the locker, some things she’s not proud of will come to light, and there’s a good chance Brooke will never speak to her again.
Okay, so all she has to do is help an entitled, bratty, (annoyingly hot) guy win over a girl who’s already fallen for him once? What could go wrong?
