Title:
Perfect World by Brian James
ISBN 0-439-67364-X, Scholastic Inc., 2004. 292 pp.
Genre: Coming of age
Characters: Lacie Joanna Johnson is a teenaged girl who lives with her mother and younger brother Malky. Lacie’s friend Jenna always seems to know how to be cool, especially when it comes to hanging out with boys, but Lacie just can’t keep up. Avery and Benji are the two boys that Lacie and Jenna start dating.
Plot:
Perfect World is told through the mind of Lacie
Joanna Johnson, a confused, frustrated teenage girl who feels like she doesn’t
fit in no matter where she goes, and can no longer relate to her best friend
Jenna the way she could when they were younger. She spends a lot of time
lamenting the suicide of her father, and taking care of her younger brother
while her mother works two jobs so they can afford to keep their house in the
suburbs. Her brother Malky was too young to remember their father, but Lacie’s
mother continues to avoid the topic while Lacie would like to acknowledge it,
which causes a lot of tension in their household.
Jenna is constantly pressuring Lacie into doing things she is
uncomfortable with, and Lacie normally complies out of fear of losing her best
friend. When Jenna finds a boy she likes, Avery, she convinces Lacie to start
dating Avery’s friend Benji. Initially Lacie cringes at the thought of having a
relationship with this boy, but when she takes the time to get to know him, she
realizes they have more in common than she would have guessed. She finds
herself developing a meaningful relationship with Benji, while at the same time
drifting farther and farther away from Jenna.
Comments:
The events that take place in Perfect World are realistic, and are all
viewed through the perspective of a teenage girl’s confused, naïve mind. The
narration is sometimes awkward to read due to a lack of commas, which I believe
is intentional and is meant to mimic the thought process of the protagonist.
Her inner turmoil is conveyed through repetitive phrases and streams of
questions that are full of angst. The problems Lacie faces are for the most
part problems that all teenagers encounter at some point, and the characters are
all believable and easy to relate to.
One problem I had with this novel however, is that at times
the narrator seems more naïve than one would expect a high school freshman to
be, especially in terms of sexuality. By high school most girls know the name
for the male “thing”(60) and the place on a girl where her “skin is folded
together”(73), or would have at least adopted the colloquial teenage slang for
them. Perhaps I would not have minded these euphemisms so much, if they had not
been used so repeatedly throughout the book, and if they didn’t reflect an
attitude towards sex that one would expect from a six-year-old. Although Lacie
sees and partakes in numerous sexual activities at various points in the book of
her own free will, and seems to fully enjoy these experiences, she expresses
them with more of an infantile ignorance than a teenage curiosity. She
describes the acts in detail but does not demonstrate any understanding of
them. Generally the novel takes a voyeuristic approach to teenage sex, which
might make some readers uncomfortable (not necessarily a bad thing). There is
also a sub-plot about dead cats that I couldn’t understand the significance of.
That being said, Perfect World is a fairly intense
read, and is a realistic portrayal of the struggles of a teenager who feels she
doesn’t belong in the “perfect world” she lives in. There are some meaningful
and touching relationships that develop in the novel, as well as some thoughtful
insights on life, which make this book worth reading.
Suicide, animal torture, sex. No swearing, though.
Books:
Lucas
by Kevin Brooks (2003), I Was a Teenage Fairy
by Francesca Lia Block (1998), Junk (Smack)
by Melvin Burgess (1996), Go Ask Alice
Anonymous (1971)
Films:
American Beauty directed by Sam Mendes (1999),
Thirteen directed by Catherine Hardwicke (2003),