Almost Perfect
By Brian Katcher (2009)
With his mother working long hours and in pain from a romantic break-up, eighteen-year-old Logan feels alone and unloved until a zany new student arrives at his small-town Missouri high school, keeping a big secret.
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Have you read Almost Perfect? What did you think? Write a comment below to share your thoughts.
3 thoughts on “Almost Perfect”
I loved this book so, so, so much. Beyond words, actually. As the description fails to inform, Almost Perfect revolves around the struggles of a transgendered woman (meaning she identifies as a female but is stuck in a male’s body) and her relationship with the protagonist Logan. Her identity crisis and isolation issues are tragically depicted and incredibly relevant to today’s society.
This novel was made perfect through its imperfections. For starters, the protagonist started the novel as an annoying little hypocrite. Without revealing spoilers, he basically blames Sage for a huge mistake he made. This made me yell at him – even though he couldn’t hear me – several times, to the point where my paren’ts shot me more than a few looks of deep concern. However, I soon found myself enraptured at how Logan matured and grew throughout the novel. Almost Perfect wouldn’t be realistic without characters so imperfect that they interfered with my mental sanity. I loved watching Logan become almost perfect, like the book’s title. It was a very fitting transition.
Additionally, I initially hated the book’s ending. I found it too rushed, too vague. I felt robbed of the closure I needed. Yet, after time, I found myself relating to the unsatisfactory last page. More than anything, Almost Perfect is a dead-on portrayal of real life where people don’t always have the courage, ability, or time to say goodbye.
This book is a novel that everybody should read. Period. End of discussion. I don’t want to give too much away, for fear of spoilers, but I will tell everyone I meet to read Almost Perfect.
Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher is a well written, clever and funny narrative following a teenager as he grows into a mature young adult and faces many challenges along the way such as being honest and working hard. Although I personally cannot relate to the book, it really opened my eyes where transgendered people are concerned. The book started off with such a light hearted tone and vibe that you wouldn’t expect the sad and meaningful message the novel is portraying. The one think I suggest if you do decide to pick up this book is to refrain from reading the summary on the book cover because it really spoiled the whole thing. Other than that, I found another book that I’m glad to have read addressing an interesting topic that is not frequently talked about. As the plot progressed, the tone of the novel completely changed and became frightening, violent and extremely intense which I found to add more depth to the writing style of Katcher. The book was very addictive and I found myself reading it at an incredible speed wanting to know what happens next in Logan’s life. Although the ending is a bit disappointing, I feel as if that only makes the book more realistic because not everything ends the way we expect it to. I recommend this novel to people who are willing to step out of their comfort zone and want to learn more about the hidden secrets kept within our society. T, Almost Perfect is truly a great and satisfying read.
Thanks for pointing out the over-informative cover – it annoyed me more thab it should have, but I really hate spoilers. I guess we can say Almost perfect was an almost perfect read (I know that’s cheesy, but I just can’t resist).