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Title: Pushing Perfect
Author: Michelle Falkoff
Narrator: Kathryn Griffiths
Format: Unabridged
Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
Language: English
Release date: 12-29-16
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Genres: Teens, Fiction & Literature
Publisher's Summary:
Kara Winters is always striving for perfection. But when her anxiety takes over, the price of perfection spirals out of control....
'Perfect' Kara Winters has always hated her nickname. Especially now that she no longer lives up to it. She used to have normal friends; she used to be normal. Now all she wants is to get into Harvard and leave high school behind.
So when the pressure to ace her exams finally gets to her, Kara does one tiny bad thing, just to help out, to ease the stress. If it will help Kara get a perfect exam score and one step closer to a new life, it's a price she's willing to pay.
But she never expects to get caught out. Or that Alex, Raj and her other not-so-perfect new friends might get embroiled in a horrible mess that could ruin all of their futures.
Sometimes perfection isn't what it's cracked up to be.
Members Reviews:
Interesting characters, unbelievable plot
GRADE: C-
Somebody is blackmailing Perfect Kara for buying two anti anxiety pills to help her through the SATs. And Kara's not the only victim. Some of her friends are also targets of the anonymous blackmailer. Can they figure out who's behind the texts before their worst secrets are exposed?
For a character as supposedly bright as Kara, she lacks common sense and practical problem solving. She resents her Perfect Kara moniker, yet tries to live up to the name. Beginning when she develops a severe acne problem, she pushes her friends away and refuses to tell then why. Additionally, she had anxiety and panic attacks and her parents never got help for her. Kara and the supporting characters were interesting, complex and had unique backstories.
I had a hard time buying into the blackmail storyline. For Kara, buying two prescription pills would have earned her at most, the chagrin of her parents and perhaps a lecture from authorities, if it came to that. Why she decided committing actual felonies to appease the blackmailer made zero sense. Her friend Alex's poker enterprise was completely unbelievable. Only Justin's blackmail reason felt legit. The payoff for the perp and the reasons felt disappointing.
I like Michelle Falkoff's writing style and characters, but the plot needed to be more believable with a better resolution for me to recommend PUSHING PERFECT.
When expectations become too much...
Expectations are hard to live up to. Whether they come from our parents, our teachers, friends or worse yet, ourselves, the pressure can feel insurmountable. The expectation to live up to some ideal that has been built up over the years can break any person leading them to make some ill-fated decisions. In Pushing Perfect, "Perfect Kara" who has always been an overachiever, succumbs to the pressure to remain on top.
As the blurb explains, Kara takes a drug that's supposed to help her stay focused during her SATs. Attaining a perfect score is the only option she can see that ensures her future. It's at this point as the stress builds that she starts to question her motives, sifting through which ambitions truly belong to her and which of those belong to her parents. Things take an alarming turn when she is contacted by a stranger who knows her dirty little secret, and who threatens to expose her if she doesn't follow through with their instructions.