Silverman’s sophomore beautifully captures the struggles of academic pressure and trying to do it all, which, for bisexual Ariel Stone, means maintaining the GPA that’ll keep him valedictorian (even while he’s struggling in AP Calc BC), being violin first chair (even if that requires learning a brand-new, difficult piece out of nowhere), being there for his best friend (who suddenly needs his violin skills as well for her own dreams of the future) (and yes, by the way, she is a lesbian), and observing Jewish traditions of Shabbat dinner and holidays with his family (including his similarly overachieving little sister). But it’s while struggling to get his math grade up that he finds the most desirable distraction of all: Amir, a classmate who’s never quite seemed to warm up to him but suddenly makes Ariel feel, uh, quite warm all over. Amir turns out to be the best thing Ariel never knew he needed, but he might be the one commitment that takes Ariel’s stress level over the top.

Any perfectionist will identify with Ariel Stone, whose unwavering focus on the perfect application to Harvard begins to wobble under the weight of self-doubt, and the unrealistic expectations he places on himself to maintain a perfect grade at school, be a good son and brother, be present for his friends and support their demands on his time, and foster a blossoming romance with family friend, Amir. Reading this book may elicit stomach knots of recognition as Ariel hides the fact that he is drowning, not waving, until a near-tragedy causes a reassessment. Enjoyable for older adults, but most pertinent for its target young adult audience. – Megan Osmond

This review will appear in Romantic Intentions Quarterly #4, out January 8.

"There's this thing AP kids do. We act like we don't care, like those perfect grades appear without effort. We pretend to study only in the five minutes before class, and we shrug our shoulders when teachers hand back tests with As scrawled across the top. But we also make sure to keep those tests flipped up on our desks, so everyone can see how smart we are and just how naturally it comes."

I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at Sourcebooks Fire, who can pretty much always be counted on to publish lovely and diverse YA novels. Trigger warnings: anxiety.

Ariel is a high school student poised to be valedictorian, first chair in violin, and accepted to an Ivy League university, but it all hinges on him maintaining a perfect GPA for his senior year. When a failed calculus quiz threatens to ruin his plans, he throws himself even harder into studying. The more the sleepless nights and canceled plans pile up, the further his grades start to slip until he’s forced to find a tutor. Amir is great at calculus, and his family has been friends with Ariel's for years. Ariel doesn't have time to add a relationship to his list of things to do, but the more he gets to know him, the more he realizes that Amir is nothing like he thought.

This is a solid contemporary novel with a strong theme and a diverse cast. It expertly handles the pressure and anxiety students face, in ever-increasing amounts, to do well in school and get into a great college. I found it easy to relate to Ariel, since I was also a wreck at seventeen, and I had a fraction of his commitments. School shouldn't be that taxing until graduate school, and maybe not even then. There's a damaging culture in academia where everyone pretends they have their shit together, even when they're maximum-level stressed, and it's well-represented in the book. Silverman offers no easy solutions for these problems, and I like that about the novel. Ariel's healing process is slow, with an emphasis on family, religion, and strong relationships. While the tension in the book is never that high, it shows realistic problems with realistic solutions.

The characters are wonderfully diverse. Ariel and his family are Jewish, and there’s attention to the language, food, and holidays in the story. Amir and his family are Muslim and Pakistani, and Ariel's best friend Sook is a chubby Korean bisexual. Ariel is a flawed and three-dimensional main character; he makes mistakes, but his heart is usually in the right place. Ariel and Amir's relationship is one of the major threads of the novel, and it's really cute. It's a slow enough burn that we see them getting to know each other, and like the rest of the book, they work realistically through their problems. Their families are important aspects of both their lives, which is necessary (but surprisingly rare) for fiction about high school kids. Ariel's family relationships are some of the most important in the novel, and they're overwhelmingly positive. While I didn't fall in love with this book, it's very well done and I'd absolutely recommend it for fans of contemporary YA without the excessive drama.

I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.

I really enjoyed this book! It was honestly a bit stressful at times, I'm not sure who was more worried about Ariel's GPA - him or me, but that was something that I loved about it too; it was so honest. I remember feeling the exact pressure that Ariel does in this book when I was in my final year of high school. If anything, the pressure on kids to get great academic results has only gotten worse in recent years to the point that it's actually ridiculous. I loved the overall message and the characters and the romance was cute too! Definitely recommend this one.

While I did enjoy reading this, I feel like feel like a lot of things fell short for me.
The biggest disappointment ended up being the fallout of Ariel working himself so hard. This whole book is centered around how he is stretching himself thin with all of the classes and extra work he does outside of school and I was expecting it to lead to some big event at the end when it all comes crashing down, and it didn't. There is definitely a point where it becomes too much and Ariel realizes that, but it wasn't nearly big enough to make it feel like there was a point to this whole story.
I also wasn't a huge fan of the romance. I didn't hate it, I just felt like it was underdeveloped, which is really sad because I though it had such. good. potential.
While I wanted to like this book a lot more tan I did, it was no where near being a book I dislike, and I the first half of the book made me so grateful that I am not in school anymore.

This book was very relatable. To anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by school or college, this book is for you. It’s the story of Ariel, a senior in high school, who is so focused on getting good grades and getting in the best college, that he forgets to relax. I felt his struggle when the author described how he stayed up all night finishing homework, how a bad grade made him panic in the middle of class, and finished books at the last minute.

Aside from finding the book relatable, there are other aspects that I enjoyed. It was a very diverse book, featuring characters with different ethnicities, religions, and sexualities. I also learned a lot about Jewish traditions throughout the main character’s experiences. Some characters were very close with their families and it something very nice to read about.

Overall, I give it 5/5 stars.

Many teenagers and perhaps college students will relate to this book. The pressures of high school and the college admission process can be extreme and it's easy to take on too much. Ariel is a high-achieving senior, hoping to be admitted to Harvard. When his senior year classes are a bit more difficult than expected, things start to get out of control for him. However, he finds tutoring in a family friend, who quickly becomes more than a friend. This story is not terribly original, as I've seen similar plots in countless TV shows, movies and books. Nonetheless, it was a short, enjoyable read, with engaging characters and fun subplots

I am definitely going to re-read this when it comes out so that I can discuss it with all my friends and followers.

YOU ASKED FOR PERFECT follow the story of Ariel Stone, a boy who is being negatively influenced by academic pressure. I can relate. My first year of college I was a top student, but there are always hundreds of obstacles in life and now as a second year student, all my grades are going down due to the problems I have at home.

Unfortunately in my case I did not meet someone who would take my mind off school. but at least I got to imagine myself as Ariel Stone in an alternative universe. Academic pressure can hurt our mental & physical well-being and Silverman captures that incredibly well. It was realistic in the sense that this book did not go into the teenage romance drama path and instead focused on the actual problem that Ariel was trying to solve, his grades going down.

At the end of the day this book taught me that life has ups and downs in every aspect of it & you can strive for perfection but I genuinely believe that it is impossible to be perfect and that is completely fine. 2019 will be the most diverse year in publishing and I really cannot wait. Our main character, Ariel, is bisexual and Jewish (Laura is Jewish too) and the love interest is Arabian and queer I am queer too).

3.75 STARS. How disturbing this book was to read as a parent of two teen boys, I felt it The book did a fantastic job of portraying the stress that kids can be under due to college admissions. Being smart getting straight A’s isn’t going to cut it anymore, you need to be a standout, special. Although it was forever ago I remember how hard high school was to navigate without all of this on top of it, I couldn’t imagine being a teenager today. This hit home, I I see the stress my boys deal with, on top of the competitive nature of schools today. Very interesting

4.25 stars

I loved this book so much. The story it tells is one that I think many students can relate to. This book deals with the pressure people feel to always do a good job in school and to always be the best. Ariel, the main character, is trying to juggle his life and the huge amount of workload the school is putting on him. Having lots of extracurricular activities and being in AP classes seem to be the only ways to get a place in the best college possible. That's not what education and school should demand from students and young people in general. School should be a place where people go to learn with their peers, not one where they stress themselves. I think it's unfair and absurd how schools and also colleges during the application process demand so much from their students. I was really stressed for poor Ariel and I was so happy when everything turned out okay in the end.
I really enjoyed the relationship he had with his family and other loved ones. I cannot recommend this book enough, go read it!

3.75

I think that this is a book for everyone no matter what grade you’re in should read this because the pressure of school that’s weighing on them, they will find this relatable.
Ariel is a high school senior who has worked hard since his freshman year because he wants to get into Harvard. He has been under a lot of pressure to be perfect because of his parents. This story is truly heart breaking at times.
This book also does have religion in it and an it was done beautifully. Usually when I have read a book that has religion its over done and drawn out. Its like they are trying to cram it down your throat which I’m not a fan of. This book deals with Ariel being Jewish and his boyfriend Amir being Muslim.
I loved how REAL this book made the pressure of what its like to be in school but also how to deal with the pressure of everyday life.
After reading this book I would love to see this come into a tv show or a Netflix movie.

Thank you to Netgalley and Laura Silverman for an e-galley of this book. I immediately was attracted to the cover and premise and it exceeded my expectations.

Ariel is a high school senior set on graduating as class valedictorian and getting into Harvard. But then Ariel starts to struggle in Calculus. Eventually he decides he needs a tutor. That's when he hires classmate, Amir. Soon they discover an interest in each other besides studying.

All that said this isn't a LGBTQ+ coming-of-age story, although Ariel is bi sexual and there is a relationship between he and Amir . This is not the main story in the book- that is just the part of who the characters are. They are simply teens getting to like each other. I love this! The heart of the story is about teen academic stress. I felt Ariel's pressure along side him. When he couldn't breathe and felt dizzy my heart swelled. I really liked that although he was in a relationship that wasn't the answer. In fact, a relationship just became something else for him to manage. Ariel didnt get his answers in another teen . Much more realistically, he found help through his Rabbi (yes, great Jewish representation!) I appreciated the role the Rabbi played in the story. Her help wasn't necessarily in the form of religious guidance instead she was an adult that helped him look at what he was doing to himself and what he wanted from life. I could go on and on.

I will definitely be buying this book for my library and recommending it to many teens. My teen population can really relate to the achievement pressures of the characters. Thank you.

This book was very different from Laura Silverman's debut novel, which I loved, but this one was also very good and one that I think many of my students will be able to relate to. Ariel's anxiety was portrayed so well that it made me anxious just reading the book, and I liked that his Jewish faith was such an integral part of his life and not just a side note or throwaway character trait. I'll be pre-ordering this title for my classroom library.

Disclaimer: I received an eARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ariel Stone is a high school senior who has worked hard since his freshmen year to get into Harvard. He has a plan. He wants to be the first chair violinist and the class valedictorian, and he believes he has both firmly secured. However, when he fails an AP Calc quiz, everything that he has worked for feels like it’s slipping away.

He visits his guidance counselor’s office to discuss how to best handle this, and his guidance counselor suggests a tutor. Ariel decides to ask Amir, a fellow classmate who graded Ariel’s failed quiz for help. However, Ariel realizes that he may have asked the wrong person to tutor him because he may actually be falling for Amir.

Laura Silverman’s You Asked for Perfect is a brilliant book that a very specific number of teenagers need to read. I’ve gone through this high stress cycle of constantly doing homework, feeling like I have no time to do anything but that and volunteering for college applications. I’ve felt the exact pressure of what it’s like to finally get that coveted position in band, only for it to not be what I expected. I even ended up as the valedictorian.

But at what cost?

I wish I had this book earlier because I was doing to myself the same things that Ariel is doing to himself, but I didn’t realize what I was doing until I was no longer in that high pressure place.

Other high points: Ariel is Jewish, and this is very much a part of who he is. We see his family celebrate some of the high holidays, and he and his family regularly attend synagogue. His faith is important to him. Ariel is also bisexual, and this is not an issue at all in the story to anyone. His parents actually encourage a relationship with a male before Ariel is firmly committed to wanting to pursue a relationship. There are also strong family relationships, and parental figures are very present in this book. The diversity in this book is also very present and very real.

This is a book that’s just too perfect (sorry for the accidental pun) to fully convey how awesome it is so you will need to pick this one up to see for yourself how amazing it is.

Ariel Stone is determined to go to Harvard. But to go to Harvard, he needs to ace his classes, be first chair in violin in his school orchestra, keep up with his volunteer work, and still maintain relationships with his friends and family. His anxiety starts to build up when he fails a calculus test; everything feels like it's falling apart. When it's recommended that he get a tutor for calc, he almost says no, he realizes that his sister's friend's brother is doing great in calc. Ariel and Amir have known each other for years but haven't really become friends. Yet when they begin studying together something more than friendship sparks between them. But can Ariel add something else to his already busy life? How much more can he take before it all all comes crumbling down?

YOU ASKED FOR PERFECT has great Jewish and lgbtq representation in it! There is also positive representation of Muslim characters. It also portrays anxiety well and how doing too much can make it hard to function and just be.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc of this book!

Loved this! I think it’s an Important topic for those of us that struggle with perfectionism. A good balance of insight Into the importance of mental health.

I thank you Netgalley! All opinions are my own.

That being siad, this book was a good time. The characters were interesting, and the problems very real.

The biggest con is I had with this book was that the main character is always obsessing over school and sometimes It was too much. Even though that's part of his character flaw I'm guessing.

The romance was very cute and honestly I wish there was more of a focus on it.

Let's start with what I liked about this book. Ariel's struggle to maintain academic excellency in a high achieving school environment was all-too realistic. He taught himself to play the system to earn extra credit on poor assignments, insert as many AP classes into his schedule as possible, and choose hobbies a college would look favourably upon. Ariel found little joy in what he did. He carved more and more time from his family (the one thing he still kept for himself) and became sleep deprived, irritable, and reckless.

It was a scary journey into the effects of academic pressure. I saw myself in Ariel's pains, as I know so many readers will. Sometimes, I even caught myself thinking, "Okay, Ariel, quit chatting with your friends and finish that essay and maybe you won't be so stressed." He was stressed because of all the work, and the little time he had with friends was the reprieve. It's so, so sad how we are conditioned into believing more work is the answer. Not smarter work. Not better priorities. 

As much as I ached for Ariel's journey with schooling, I halted when it came to him as a person. He started his senior year, and it was like all of a sudden he didn't understand math and really, really found Amir (his close family friend) super sexy. As a reader, I'm told that Ariel is the top student in the school and that everyone thought he hated Amir. The introduction of these plot points just felt like poor writing to get the story rolling. 

Ariel and Amir's romance was very cringe-worthy. Leading up to the first tutoring session (and then during), every time Ariel looks at Amir he notes a different sexy/extremely attractive part of his body that he somehow never saw in all the years they knew each other. The fact that this attraction comes out of nowhere and is put in almost every thought Ariel has about Amir was overwhelming. What is worse is that before they make the relationship official, the pair do not talk of anything of substance. It's largely based on attraction. Afterwards, they have a running joke about Harry Potter but for as much as Amir seems to love HP, I never got the same interest from Ariel (he has nothing in his personal life that suggested it.)

I enjoyed the relationship between Ariel and his sister, Rachel. The way academic pressure pops up in her life was a surprise, but not unknown. Despite only being in fifth-grade, the realities she faces are happening more and more. I'm glad her story was brought in, too. And of course, Rachel is absolutely so sweet. 

I saved the possibly worst for last. I got so, so annoyed with Sook, Ariel's best friend. I really wish this character was not in the book. Sook's family is rich and has ties to Dartmouth. They want their daughter to go to Dartmouth (and have pulled ties for her to go there), but she wants to be a musician instead. The narrative is interesting in the beginning. Everyone in this book is focused on the traditional college track, but Sook wants to carve her own path. But Sook ends up representing the worst of "spoiled rich girl" stereotypes. The way this happened infuriated me because it diminished the entire beginning of her narrative AND reflected horribly on her friendship with Ariel. 

I would recommend this book for its accuracy in the effects of academic pressures. Halfway through I started wondering if there was something I was forgetting to do, a to-do list I should make. The ending could have been stronger and I didn't like Sook's character, but those aren't deal breakers. 

Review posting on blog (https://bookprincessreviews.wordpress.com/): Feb. 18 2018
Review posting on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2566524230): Feb 18 2018

I was drawn to this novel for two reasons: the same-sex relationship and the extreme similarity of the protagonist's situation to my own when I was in high school. Reading this story was almost painful for me, not because it was a bad story (it wasn't!) but because it stirred up so many memories and emotions that I haven't had to access since I graduated high school.

Ariel, the protagonist, is on track to be valedictorian (I was salutatorian). He's taking a million AP classes and has given up his lunch periods to cram as many classes in as he can to inflate his GPA (check). He's first chair violin in his orchestra (I played clarinet), and volunteers on the weekends not because he really wants to, but because it'll look good on his college applications (check). His days are scheduled by the hour, crammed with homework, studying, and extracurriculars, leaving barely any time for relaxation or even sleep. He does all this because he has his sights set on getting into Harvard (I wanted Yale). Ariel has no idea what he wants to study or what career he wants to pursue, but he's sure that if he gets into Harvard he'll eventually figure it out. And to get into Harvard he needs to be perfect -- he needs an A in every class, he needs to be first chair in orchestra, he needs to beat everyone else to get the top spot, no matter the consequences.

The physical and social ramifications of Ariel's obsessive need to be perfect are spot on. He loses touch with his friends because he can't make time for them. He becomes sleep deprived after pulling all-nighters to complete schoolwork and almost gets into a car accident. The psychological effects manifest in paranoid thoughts that anyone close to his GPA, like his main competition for valedictorian, wants him to fail (which is not so far-fetched, considering his feelings for her).

Ariel's relationship with Amir is sweet, but it is secondary to Ariel coming to terms with the fact that perfection is an unachievable goal. The romance almost seems unnecessary, like it doesn't fit in with this storyline. But I do appreciate the diverse ethnicities, religions and sexual identities in the story. I haven't read many YA books with Jewish characters that have such dedication to their faith, so that was a nice surprise. One thing I wish the book addressed more is the mental health aspect of Ariel's obsession. At many points in the book he seems to be spiraling, and I just wanted someone to notice and get him the help he needs. Therapy does wonders for kids who have perfection complexes and it would have been so nice for him to realize that.

I would hand this book to any teen who struggles with wanting to be perfect. There's also an audience here for those looking for LGBTQ and diverse reads. That being said, it might be hard to sell this one to kids who have struggles beyond being in the top ten of the graduating class. Ariel doesn't seem to have to address the question of "How will I pay for Harvard?" which is not the most relatable position for the majority of teens.

Like I said, this one was painful for me to read because I saw myself in Ariel. At one point in the book he gets annoyed when someone says high school doesn't matter after you graduate. How could that be true? How could he put in all that hard work for it to not matter? Well, of course it matters -- every experience matters, and leads you to where you are in life right now. But at the same time, high school doesn't really matter. I didn't get the top GPA and I didn't get into Yale, but I'm glad I didn't, because my life is amazing now. I hope kids who read this book realize it's okay to relax, enjoy being a kid, and not put too much pressure on themselves. Because things will work out. I promise.

I will be writing/posting a more complete review for this closer to the release date, but I absolutely LOVED this book. It's a love letter to overachievers, and it made me feel more understood than any other high school book I've read. I was fully invested from the first chapter, and I'm so excited for this book to be released so I can recommend it to all of my friends.