You Asked for Perfect

By: Laura Silverman

Narrated by: Michael Crouch

For fans of Adam Silvera and Nina LaCour comes a timely novel about a teen's struggle when academic success and happiness pull him in opposite directions.

Senior Ariel Stone is the perfect college applicant: first chair violinist, dedicated volunteer, active synagogue congregant, and expected valedictorian. And he works hard - really hard - to make his success look effortless. A failed calculus quiz is not part of his plan. Not when he's number one. Not when his peers can smell weakness like a freshman's body spray.

Ariel throws himself into studying. His friends will understand if he skips a few plans, and he can sleep when he graduates. But as his grade continues to slide, Ariel realizes he needs help and reluctantly enlists a tutor, his classmate Amir. The two have never gotten along, but Ariel has no other options.

Ariel discovers he may not like calculus, but he does like Amir. Except adding a new relationship to his long list of commitments may just push him past his limit.

©2019 Laura Silverman (P)2020 Audible, Inc.

Enjoyable.

An attempt to shine the light on the pressures of what teens wanting to get into an Ivy college must go through, mixed with an innocent gay teen romance. This is one of those books you'll just have to look past the very privileged backdrop and meet the characters in their world, not yours, if you can do that you'll find a muted teen experience that sometimes pushes the need to be perfect too far, meaning it just got a little ridiculous and no longer felt reality-based. All that said, the characters were likable and the teen romance was innocent but sexy which I appreciated for a high school setting. I also enjoyed the cultural experience it shared.

Cute. Sweet. Different Angle.

The writing is very sweet, the story marvelously diverse without the assumption that all characters are white and Christian :-) and the “different angle“ about and overachieving young queer man.

Of course because it’s a romantic novel there isn’t realism in his overachievement (One usually does not become that way without one’s parents contributing).

I would say my only critique is that the overachievement stress got a little annoying but I would not dissuade you from enjoying the book otherwise.

Like many novels in this genre it absolutely delivers with a very kind and sweet romantic story of two diverse young queer men.