The Perfect Family: Shalini Boland

It's October, so I'm reading thrillers - original, right? I don't know if this is just a "me" thing, but I tend to collect thrillers and then never actually pick them up. October's spooky vibes seemed like the perfect excuse to tackle my stack. First on the list was The Perfect Family by Shalini Boland.

"Sometimes I forget myself. I let myself relax and believe that everything is okay. But it's never okay. And I can never relax."

This book was given to me by my mother, after she read it on a trip home to the UK. She included it in a stack of paperbacks, along with the comment "some of these were pretty good." That's always fun, because you don't know which ones were in fact pretty good, and which ones you should probably skip.

The Perfect Family tells the story of a busy British family- Gemma, a mother who is overworked and overburdened, Robert, a father who means well but is slightly out of touch, and their two young daughters, Eva and Katie. It is clear that Gemma is struggling to handle all of the challenges in her life, so isn't she lucky when the perfect nanny appears out of nowhere to make everything better! I knew from the start that Sadie was bad news, but even I can admit that the twist at the end was unexpected (though not necessarily the twist I wanted). I felt that the story dragged in some places, that the relationships and backstories of the characters could have been more developed so that we really understood the psychology behind their choices, and that some more Easter eggs could have been hidden throughout, in true thriller fashion, so that by the end you can't believe you didn't see it coming.

Unputdownable? Probably not. In my opinion, The Perfect Family was perfectly fine.

Well Read Rating: 3/5 Stars