I received an eBook ARC copy via the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

"A picture-perfect trip goes horribly wrong in this fast-paced exploration of friendship and the dark side of social media."

"Everyone wants to be them, but internet fame comes at a price…"

Two days after arriving in Iceland for an influencer event, Alabama Wood goes missing. Two of her fellow influencers, Celeste and Hollie, both have something to hide. What are they hiding? Was it fatal to Alabama? Or was there something more at play? Something even darker than either Celeste or Hollie could even imagine.

The book alternates between POVs of Celeste and Hollie and alternates timeframes and locations. You really have to be paying attention to when and where. There was no clear cut explanation to the flashbacks. None of it really added any significance to the plot itself. So much of the book could have been cut out because it really did not have an affect on the plot. Also Hackett's writing style was hard to follow at times. Even though at the beginning of every chapter, the POV you were in would be listed as well as the when and sometimes the where. But that did not stop Hackett from using that POV's name numerous times in a sentence. I get it, I'm reading from Celeste's POV. And not just that, the book just didn't seem to flow.

The story has a good basis. Instagram influencers all piled together for a trip. One mysteriously goes missing. A close friend with something to hid. A fellow influencer who has even more to hide. It was a great, great concept. But honestly, it completely fell flat for me. I had to push myself to finish this book. It was so boring and repetitive at times. And I am not usually a negative reviewer and I am trying to be positive about this book. It was a great concept. Just not well executed.

Again, this is my opinion and thoughts. Yours can be completely different and that's okay!! That's the beauty of book reading! Everyone is going to have their own thoughts and opinions! And just because I didn't like it, doesn't mean you won't! Happy reading!

-good plot line
-alternates POV & time-past & present
-interesting read with crazy characters
-didn’t like ending; too drawn out and a little predictable; cheesy
-not sure if I want to read the next book if there is one
-themes: mental illness, food binging, social media influencers mental game

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I tried really hard to read this. I read around 30% and couldn't. Change of timeline for every chapter, back and forth, kept me off the hook. I didn't connect to any character or plot. There are number of characters that I got confused and half my time is gone to correct my imagination of characters and timeline.

Thank you Netgalley for the advanced readers copy of this title in exchange for my reviews/opinions. This was an okay book. I did finish it, but it took some time. There could've been a little more action, and less character background.

This was a page turner!
It’s about some influencers that take a promotional trip to Iceland. On the trip, one goes missing. As the Icelandic police search for leads, secrets and lies come to light

Great premise just didn't quite fully execute for me. I think it's been marketed as a thriller, although I don't think it really falls into that category. There's certainly nothing scary or heart pounding.

Influencers living their lives for the Instagram likes and followers. Drinking revolting shakes and pretending to love them all in the name of click bait

When a leading brand invites Hollie, Celeste and Alabama amongst others to Iceland to promote their products the needier side of the characters is revealed.

Told through multiple POVs and with vague back stories brought to the service there just wasn't quite enough "oomph" to this one for me.

I would have loved to see a bit more grit in each of the characters and more back-story on all of them, and definitely more intrigue and mystery.

I'm probably sounding a little harsh, it certainly wasn't a bad read, just not one that will stay with me.

Social media influencers seem to be trending now. This story was interesting but a little confusing at times.
Many thanks to Crooked Lane Books and to Netgalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book really just took me for a ride. I loved the build up, the character development, and the writing. I would definitely read more from this author!

I think that perhaps books with influencers aren't for me anymore. The past two have irritated me because the characters are all so shallow and only care about the way their image is portrayed to people who don't even truly know them. There have been books in the past where the characters are still good people in real life and that helped me to pull for them, but this one just missed that for me.

I was also bored at times while reading. I thought there would be more "on the edge of my seat" moments, but it lacked that in my opinion. I figured I knew what happened from the beginning because of the kind of person Alabama was, and I wasn't wrong. A little anti-climatic. Overall, I wish the characters were either truly terrible, or had at least some redeeming qualities so that we could choose to like or hate them. Most of them were just in between for me and it made the read feel a little blah. I did however want to book a trip to Iceland immediately, so there's a positive!

Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane books for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

Everyone wants to be a influencer but you can still have your own opinions and feelings. How far would you take it?

I was immediately interested in this book after reading a brief synopsis. The Perfect Ones by Nicole Hackett is a story that revolves around a missing Instagram influencer named Alabama. Within a couple of days of arriving in Iceland for a press trip, this girl is nowhere to be found. Who knows what happened? Is it her best friend or another person from the trip? And why?

Synopsis:

Two days after arriving in Iceland for a promotional trip, Instagram influencer Alabama Wood goes missing. With no leads, the Icelandic police start their investigation by focusing on the two influencers seemingly closest to Alabama on the trip: Celeste Reed, Alabama’s best friend of ten years, and Hollie Goodwin, fitness guru and Alabama’s unwilling idol.

Celeste and Alabama have grown apart recently because Celeste has been too distracted by her five-year-old’s behavioral issues and her husband’s refusal to admit that there’s a problem. What Celeste doesn’t tell them is how she has been coping with these worries and how it involves Alabama in ways no one would guess.

On the outside, Hollie appears to have everything—the husband, the body, and over one million Instagram followers. In reality, however, Hollie came to Iceland to escape the implosion of her life behind the screen. The only person who suspected something amiss behind Hollie’s precisely filtered pictures is Alabama.

This is told from multiple points of view, it’s an entertaining read with a good twist at the end. This is out now!

Unfortunately, this book fell flat for me. I found it hard to connect to the characters and really didnt care what happened. Loved the setting though.

Loved this book!!! If you like a good story filled with Influencers showing you who they really are underneath the facade of the internet then this one might be for you. The main characters were so well done and I could not put this book down.

I am in a confusion with this book. Although I read it in one day, I still was unsatisfied with what I've got.
The thing is that non of the characters were likable or at least tolerable. The constant whining and jeolusy made me cringe sometimes. The constant jumping between timelines made it even harder to conect with the story (one chapter was from one character from ''3 months before'', the next one was from another character ''3 days after'', the next one from ''2 days before'' and so on). Nothing much happened through out the book, but because I'm a little bit nosy, I was intrigued enough to know dirty secrets of each character so I continued with this book.
The ending was the wors, in my opinion. The plot twist was questionable and unrealistic, to say the least.
I think it's decent enough thriller for those who wants to try reading books in this genre, but for those who are well sesoned thriller readers this one might be a flop.

I am so disappointed with this book. It is not a thriller, it is not a mystery, I don't know what it is!

I read through it hoping and hoping something would happen, but nothing did.

Ending, what ending? There is no ending.

What was this all for (as Creed would say)... I feel cheated out of my time.

All the characters (except one) were so indistinguishable, so same-y... the setup, the location, they had such potential, but, still - nothing. At all.

Thank you for the ARC, NetGalley!

This thriller centered around a group of social media influencers took me a bit to get into because it was hard to keep the characters straight. They all seemed to have similar backgrounds and didn't have distinct voices so I found myself going back a few times to make sure I understood who the author was talking about. Once I finally got the characters down, I found this to be pretty fast moving but still not easy to tell what was going on because the timeline jumped around so frequently. I normally like dual timelines but this one was a bit too chaotic for me to keep track of. I needed a bit of a refresher every time something was referenced from a previous chapter. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Social media influencers on a vacation to Iceland sounded like an interesting set-up and it was, to an extent. My problem was that I couldn’t connect with any of the characters so when one of them disappears, I wasn’t too upset. The story itself was interesting and I loved the descriptions of Iceland, on my bucket list of places to travel, but it was difficult to feel the typical tension I feel when reading thrillers because of the way this unfolded. The ending had a nice twist but it was too little, too late for me. A good read but not so much a thriller.

Thank you Netgalley, Dreamscape media and Nicole Hackett for the audiobook ARC of this book.

This one had me sucked in by the synopsis alone. The premise of a blogger going missing in Iceland and two others being suspects was just brilliant.

The author did an amazing job at building each character completely and really exploring their lives. Just about all characters were unlikeable however I found that great because I suspected everyone of something

The narrators were incredible in this book and I enjoyed listening to them

The pace was on the slower side for me and but do love a slow burn. I did find the background details of our main protagonists made it a little slower than I would have liked however overall this was a good read/listen!

3.5/5

Thank you NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for the eARC in exchange for my honest review!

Let me talk about how gorgeous this cover is! I absolutely love the colors and design. I was immediately drawn to this cover and knew I had to read this book!!

I was really impressed that The Perfect Ones was Nicole Hackett's debut thriller. Her writing, the characters, the twists were all addictive! I read a few pages any chance I got...when I first woke up in the morning, in the school pickup line, while my kids were playing, and dove deep into the story after my kids were asleep. It was that GOOD!

The characters were very well developed and Alabama Wood wasn't as bad as I thought she was going to be. She was kind of like the Grinch. There was a small heart under that tough exterior of hers. Celeste I connected with the most since she's mother of a young child, and I really enjoyed how Hollie was from Dallas, TX. I lived outside of Dallas for three years and loved the Dallas references throughout the book.

I'm also a sucker for dual POV, so I loved how I was able to get each characters perspective. The twists toward the end were exciting and I didn't predict the ending AT ALL!!

I'm really looking forward to reading more from Nicole! Since she's a local Maryland author, I'd love to see a Maryland or DMV setting in her next book!!

This is going to be a tough sell for lots of readers since this is more a character study than a thriller, all about the inner thoughts, feelings and desires of the most vapid, self-centered, uninteresting women I've ever read. I can root for vapid and self-centered if they are interesting and I did not find these women so. This novel spent too much time belaboring innocuous minutia of these women's lives instead of revolving around the most interesting part--what happened in Iceland to Alabama. This book spends 75% or more of its space in the women's lives before and after Iceland, where it should've been flip-flopped. I found this to have no tension and to be quite boring.