Two stars for the fact that this book was just okay and I did read it through to the end, although once or twice I was tempted to stop. I found the characters unappealing and the story repetitive. I also guessed quite early on who the person was actually causing the problems.

The only surprise for me was the very last sentence of the book. What did it mean? Please explain it to me if you understand!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster AU for providing me with a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This thriller follows the Adler family - parents Thomas and Viv, and children Eli and Tarryn - as they are harassed in their own home and their lives begin to fall apart as they try to figure out why it’s happening.

The chapters, which are narrated by a different family member each time, are short and keep the action going and the tension high. The secrets are fairly run of the mill thriller fare, but I couldn’t stop reading to see whodunnit and how!

Some of the plot actions didn’t make a huge amount of sense (looking in particular at Viv and Eli without being spoilery) and the ending….isn’t, but this doesn’t detract from what ends up being a book that has me checking my door is double bolted!

CW: sexual assault

“The Perfect Family” by Robyn Harding …….perfect?I don’t think so….and not particularly likeable either, when we get to know all their dirty little secrets. Outwardly, Thomas, Viv, Eli and Tarryn seem ordinary enough but all have insecurities, hidden flaws and dodgy dealings, and possible enemies to boot.
When their house is egged and worse…..they all become worried that they are to blame or blame each other with no honesty at all. The violence escalates, until a climax of sorts brings the family to heel with some resolution and healing. But are their problems over??
The novel is written from the point of view of each member of the Adler family and is fun to read but their actions and reactions are kind of unrealistic in my eyes and while serving a dramatic purpose, caused me to lose interest a little. Thanks to NetGalley for the advance digital proof copy.

An addictive rollercoaster-ride-come-train-wreck plot told from the POV of the four Adler family members, each of them hiding a perverse little secret. The twists and turns kept me hooked right until the end. I especially liked Tarryn’s character and MORE POWER TO ROBYN HARDING for having the guts to write in a teenager’s side-gig like this one (no spoilers!). I also enjoyed the underlying theme of Gen-X vs Millennials. As a Gen-X woman this really floated my boat.

I never have any idea who’s to blame in most psychological thrillers, and the way Harding brought together four disparate threads in this book really kept me guessing.

Negatives:

I read The Swap by the same author last year and it’s honestly one of the best thrillers I’ve ever read. With two sociopathic characters as leads, The Swap was always going to be hard to beat, and it was. The Perfect Family is good - just not quite as good.

The Adlers weren’t all that bad to me. Sure, they’re self-absorbed, but none of them are truly evil. Other reviewers have found them annoying. I found them entertaining.

However, the ending of the book lacked the shock factor for me that The Swap had. I’m not going to give anySynopsis: Thomas and Viv Adler seem to have it all: two fabulous children (Eli and Tarryn), successful careers and a beautifully restored home. But then someone starts to terrorise their perfect existence. It begins with eggs being thrown at the house, but soon it’s smoke bombs, a dead rat in the fridge, slashed tyres and finally, violence. Each family member has a secret and as events turn ever darker, they stop looking outside of the family and begin to suspect each other - with life-altering consequences.

Positives:

thing away, just that the denouement wasn’t all that devastating.

In all, I devoured this book in one sitting and I can’t wait for Robyn Harding’s next book. Thanks to @NetGalley for providing the ARC.

The Adler family are so obsessed with outward appearances, they can’t see how they are all falling apart individually.
What a brilliant book! Each character has their own trouble going on in their own world while the rest of their family is experiencing the same thing.
Thoroughly enjoyed this read.

Thanks to #netgalley and #simonandscheuster for the early read.

It is always exciting to get hold of a new Robyn Harding book, I always know that it will be a page turner. The Perfect Family did not let me down, as ever it was a clever and addictive story. I don't know how she keeps doing it but I am so happy she does. An auto buy author for me and many others, I can't get enough.

Meet the Adler family. From the outside they have it all - parents Thomas and Viv along with their 2 teenage children Eli and Tarryn. But behind closed doors they are al hiding secrets from each other and the world. But who's secret is bad enough to make somebody attack their home, throwing eggs, slashing tyres? Individually they all feel guilty that is happening to their family, and feel that it is their own fault.

The characters in this story are not really very likeable but it makes you think, it could be your own neighbours or friends. You never really know what is happening to people. and how far would you go to protect those that you love?

Thank you Simon and Schuster and Netgalley for my advanced copy of this book to read.

I am a huge @rhardingwriter fan! When I first read The Party, which was amazing, I bought and read her entire backlist, on Kindle, on online book stores, and I think one was Incredibly hard to track down and eventually I found it at some obscure book store because I was obsessed. Then I read Her Pretty Face. Then once I read The Arrangement, I remember telling EVERYONE who would listen about her books. They have EVERYTHING!

I read The Swap only at the start of this year. I saved it for my Summer holiday and ignored my family because I couldn’t put it down. I know we often say “I couldn’t put it down” which means we loved reading it, but I pretty much couldn’t put it down. And when, under duress, I really had to, all I could think about was picking it up again.

What I love about her books is how an action - which can seem minor at the time - has a potential flow on impact and highlights family disfunction.

It’s this type of event and family disfunction that’s perfectly portrayed in The Perfect Family. OMG OMG OMG! Again I loved the interactions between the characters, and how each action impacts on the other. It's a great portrayl of family and how one mistake can influence... well... everything.

Have you read a Robyn Harding book? If not, please, do yourself a favour and give one a go. Releasing in Australia 28 July. Thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest and very excited review.

#bookstagram #domesticsuspense @simonschusterau #weekendreads #netgalley #theperfectfamily

Robyn Harding at her best!

Thanks to @netgalley and @simonschusterau for providing me with an ARC copy of this book for review.

Take a family of snappy characters, each with a dark secret, and see what unfolds when the truth comes knocking on the front door of their perfect house.

Told in multiply POV’s, you get everyone’s perspective in this family of four. And while each member is concealing things they have done, they process each others reactions in order to understand the current situation. They are under attack!

Yeah, it might be just kids – teenagers being stupid, or it might be someone else.

What would you do if your home was being targeted night after night, escalating from eggs to assault?

I enjoyed all the intricate and well-developed plots that kept me guessing till the very end of this unpredictable thriller!

The Perfect Family by @rhardingwriter is out on July 28th, 2021.

Happy Reading!
Kelly 🧡

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I haven't read a Robyn Harding before. This story is well written and captivated my attention in the beginning. The words did flow easily through out, but at times it felt a bit dull and I was just waiting for the story to end!

Once each of the four character's terrible secrets were revealed, I no longer cared what happened to any of them. Clearly they were unlikable in so many ways.

I kept reading till the end to find out who were behind all of the attacks...that too was a weird combination of mini twists?! The ending was bizarre which I am still puzzled about...

Thanks to Netgalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

An interesting story of families and the secrets they hide. The Adler family appear perfect but each member has a secret. When they become the victims of escalating vandalism, they fear their secrets being revealed but each is unsure if they are the intended target.

Kept me entertained and intrigued with an interesting twist to the tale. Would recommend!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced digital copy of The Perfect Family. As expected , this family is far from perfect, but what I didn’t expect was to find it difficult to relate or barrack for any of the four main characters. Whilst the novel was fast paced, it felt chaotic with four varying viewpoints and lack of clarity with some of the situations that arose throughout the novel. Overall, it felt unrealistic and forced. I loved Robyn Harding’s previous novels and will read her future stories but this one won’t be much more than a distant memory for me.

The Perfect Family - Robyn Hardin



I was given an advanced copy of this book by the publisher in order to provide an honest review.

Robyn Harding is from Vancouver and has written novels such “The Swap” and “Her Pretty Face”.



One the face of it the Adlers appeared to be the picture-perfect family. Thomas was a successful realtor, Viv had her interior decorating business, Eli was at college playing soccer and Tarryn was your typical teenage girl attending high school.

So why were they suddenly being targeted? Who would want to harass them like this?

As it turns out the Adlers were not so perfect after all. They all had their own secrets they were terrified would come out and haunt them. Secrets they were determined to keep from each other and never see the light of day. Yet how far would they be willing to go to protect themselves, protect their loved ones?

Eli was doing well at college; he was the popular kids who made friends easily and did well at school. So why was he suddenly dropping out of college and ignoring all of his friends?

Tarryn was being moodier and surlier than usual and given she wasn’t the most popular kid at school, but that was normal for teenagers. Yet she was lashing out more and withdrawing into herself and acting like another person – what was causing her to do this, what was she hiding?

Viv has a successful hobby business, yes, she didn’t exactly make a lot but she was happy and she was good at what she did. So why was she so miserable? Her kids didn’t want to talk to her and her relationship with her daughter wasn’t good but surely that could be prepared. But her husband, that is what got to Vivi the most was Thomas. He was hiding something but she didn’t know what, if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t want to confront it, but like she had a right to judge.

Thomas knew his wife was being distant, he knew she knew he was hiding something but he couldn’t bring himself to be honest with her. To admit to her what had happened, what he had let happen. It would mean the end of his marriage if he did and he loved her, he truly loved his wife, he couldn’t hurt her like that. Still, he felt like everything happening to them was his fault, he couldn’t even protect his family, how could he make this all stop?



“The Perfect Family” is a thrilling fictional story about the perfect family that was full of secrets. Showing that no matter what something or someone may present to us if you look deeper, what you find may surprise you; but how you also should not judge a book by its cover. This was an amazing story with lots of action and twists and turns, a book you simply couldn’t helped but be pulled in by. And if you can’t tell not one you can put down (I finished it in one day!). I highly recommend this book to other readers, the plot definitely keeps you engaged and on the edge of your seat.

It’s time to stop opening books with a house fire and then cutting back to the events that lead up to the arson. It’s played out at this point. You could say that there are little fires everywhere, and we as readers need to put them out. Robyn Harding’s book has an ironic title, but that’s the only thing ironic about it. A standard issue “family in shapeless peril” story, A Perfect Family is the right choice for the entirely undemanding reader.

The Adler Family appear to be living the American dream: wealthy without being obnoxiously so, a son ostensibly in a prestigious college, and a daughter who … actually, there’s no facade there. Nobody even pretends to like Tarryn. So why is a campaign of harassment being carried out against the family’s home, and why does it seem to be escalating into potentially life threatening peril? Every member of the perfect family has a reason to be targeted, and each one of them is remaining tight lipped.

Told in alternating first person chapters focusing on each member of the Adler quartet, Harding never makes any of her characters seem like paragons of virtue or particularly evil. Matriarch Viv beats herself up over her kleptomania but still does it; patriarch Thomas’ crime is instantly white anted by the fact that he instinctively knows that he didn’t do it, and Harding didn’t bother to write him as an unreliable narrator; Eli’s own sin is pretty bad, and the self-flagellation he commits by way of atonement can only lead to one result; Tarryn … no one really knows what’s going on there.

You can take three members of the family as boilerplate, and then you can look at Tarryn. Harding is clearly not writing for anyone who’s ever used the internet, as Eli identifies his sister as a “social justice warrior” (red flag!), she calls herself “sex-positive” (to a particularly twisted value), and derides other people as “normies” (abort! Abort! Completely wrong angle, Harding!).
Tarryn’s partially incoherent plot line is a semi-reactionary warning about the dangers of “Online”, but Harding was so desperate to get Tarryn’s voice correct that every time she appears on the page she doesn’t flirt with ridiculous stereotypes so much as french them. The level of contempt that Harding seems to feel for the character is communicated viciously; if there was ever any affection for this youngest daughter in the author’s heart, it didn’t make it to the page.

Harding pushes her cipher characters through a paint by numbers plot that offers no surprises or provokes any real sort of emotional response. Ennui and suburbia are a natural combination, but Harding does nothing to rebel against this. The characters aren’t prisoners of society, but temporary self-imposed exiles looking for their way back in. And of course they will: the Adlers are as non-stick as they come, and there’s no room for social commentary here.

It all collapses into an anti-twist on the last page that is less surprising than it is inevitable. A Perfect Family is an almost serviceable but completely uninspired example of suburban pseudo-crime. If the crime isn’t shocking, the characters have to be well drawn. A Perfect Family fulfils neither brief, and its awful teen portrayal drags it firmly into safely ignorable territory.

What more can I say except that this is a fantastic page turning; gut wrenching; edge of your seat psychological thriller. Going to be up there as one of my best reads for 2021!

Meet the perfect family - the parents are Thomas and Vivian Adler and they have two children, son Eli is 20 and daughter Tarryn is 17. Thomas is in real estate and Viv does interior design when she can, otherwise she ‘stages’ houses that Thomas is selling to make them look more attractive. When the story starts Eli has come home from college for summer break but he has no intention of returning because of something that happened there. Tarryn is a bratty teen with few friends and a chip on her shoulder and a secret life.

Their house is under siege from neighbourhood kids, they think. It’s being egged one day and tomatoed the next. Who is doing this and why? Well that is the question as every family member has secrets, stuff they are ashamed of, and they all think their secrets are the cause of the harassment. Eventually things take a darker turn when actual damage is done. Thomas installs cameras but all they show is dark shapes wearing hoodies, it could be anybody. The attacks continue and get more scary, more cameras are installed and on it goes.

You know how this is going to go. Eventually something terrible happens and all the secrets come out. It wasn’t particularly thrilling as the reader learns the secrets quite early one. The only question is who is doing the harassing? The book was readable enough and I did mostly enjoy it but it was quite predictable and it didn’t bring anything new to the table. Nevertheless the harassment would be quite unsettling for anyone and it was fun watching the family squirm!

I found all the characters quite unlikeable, particularly the children criticising their parents when they were guilty of similar behaviours. None of the friends or colleagues were particularly likeable either. It was very hard to care about what happened to any of them. Also, I didn’t think the portrayal of the police was accurate, at least I would hope not. I once had an intruder in my home, one night when the kids were in bed. When I confronted him I don’t know who was more scared and he just bolted Naturally I called the police but they took it very seriously indeed. It wasn’t until a bit later that I got quite shaky. I would like to thank Netgalley for providing a free copy of the book, I am reviewing it voluntarily.

Perfect Family that is not that perfect!

Thomas and Viv Adler and their children Eli and Tarryn are the envy of their neighbors: they are attractive, successful, have wonderful manners, and have a well-kept home.

Until one day, when they awoke to find the porch covered in eggs. Thomas is sure that it is a joke committed by a few unsupervised children. However, a smoke bomb in the front paddle and the car's cutting tires are beginning to worry the family. Cameras that monitor only display hazy photos of weird people in hoods. And the police deny the attacks, claiming that they are the work of bored teenagers. When the attacks turn violent, the Adlers feel helpless since they are unable to identify the perpetrators. And each new violation raises the bar. Because everyone in the Adler family is hiding a secret, not only from the outside world but also from each other. And secrets can be highly dangerous...

This twisted and interesting story about a family's perfect facade will keep you turning pages until the explosive end.

I enjoy the way this is written and every chapter reveals the little pieces of their secrets that leave you intrigued and want more. With every fresh insight into their life, the anticipation of finding out why everything happens to them is growing. I found it especially unique to find out who the tormentor was. I did not love the finish of it, but an excellent read, altogether.

I really want to see what Robyn Hading will write next!

Thank you, NetGallery for the opportunity to read and review this book. Thank you to Robyn Harding for this amazing book.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Certainly not this. The Adler parents trying so hard to be the perfect family and their offspring not cooperating with them in the slightest. They are all lucky the weight of all their secrets didn't sink them. I kept willing them to open up. But whether from self-centred self-preservation or the mistaken idea that saying something would only hurt someone or worsen the situation, the layers got heavier and heavier. There was always enough of a hint to make you think you knew what was going on .... but you were wrong. Told in turn by each of them, I was still left guessing. Definitely worth a read.

To Thomas and Viv Adler appearances are all important. They have the perfect house in an affluent neighbourhood, flashy cars and the perfect family of two seemingly nice children, a boy, Eli, at college and a girl, Tarryn, heading that way when she finishes school in a year or so. Not surprisingly Thomas and Viv both have jobs where a perfect facade is important. Thomas is a realtor, presenting perfectly styled houses to buyers and Vivian is an interior designer.

However, get to know this family and below the surface they are anything but perfect. They all have ugly secrets they are too ashamed to tell the rest of the family. But when their house becomes the target of petty vandalism - pelted with rotten eggs, tomatoes or smoke bombs - they all start to wonder if it's something to do with their actions. As the vandalism ramps up into more sinister pranks, the family starts to fall apart as their fear and anxiety escalates.

This is a deliciously fun character driven domestic drama. I enjoyed learning all the flaws of this far from perfect family. Each of the family has their own distinct voice and gets their turn to have a say as we poor readers try to unravel who is targeting them. As the family starts to fall apart, the suspense builds up to reach a climax that shocks them all. An addictive read for fans of domestic suspense.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance release copy. The Perfect Family will be released on the 27th of July 2021. Keep an eye out for it on shelves around you!

I read this back in lockdown (yes I’m that behind in reviews 😂) and it actually broke my slump! Robyn Harding is an instant buy for me now so this was an instant request. The Adler’s seem like the perfect family, but what lies beneath the surface? Are they really as perfect as they seem? I completed this in one siting and although it was bat shit crazy, I lived for it!

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/

An oddly entertaining story that follows a seemingly normal suburban family with a lot to hide. It is a suspenseful novel that for the most part kept me guessing throughout. There were certain scenarios that I found quite humorous, though I’m not sure this is the author’s intent. The secrets that each member of the Adler family held were bizarre, yet entirely plausible, and I think this is what kept me captivated. I wanted to know what they were hiding and why the family were being targeted, just like any nosey neighbour should. Harding, did well to provoke my curiosity towards the closed doors within my own neighbourhood. Although it’s not the usual nail biting, edge of the seat thriller that I like to immerse myself in, it was a quick and easy read with just enough believability to keep me going.