I had no idea what to expect going in when I got approved for this ARC, but what I ended up getting was a fast-paced thriller with an enthralling plot. Yes, it does have heavier themes, but this very much reads as a YA novel. The teens acted like teens, not adults in their early twenties, and it didn’t go too far over the top with the action. I thought this was such a great, fast read. It was easy to follow, and I loved the thrilling elements that kept me on the edge of my seat. I found myself wanting to keep reaching back for the book every time I had to put it down, which is always a good sign that I'm loving it. Overall, I absolutely loved this read and will definitely check out more of Tracy's books in the future!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book!

This books was great! The characters and the plot are well written and interesting. The story is interesting and I would definitely read it again.

I enjoyed The Perfect Girl. To be honest, when I first requested it I wasn't aware it was a YA novel. It surprised me though in the best way! I could see it on the big screen. It reads faced paced and is entertaining! Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher.

Jessa Morgan is known as the polite, organized, ultimate yes-girl. Perfect Jessa, never does anything wrong, and that’s how she likes it. The keeper of peace.

Jessa invites her friends over for a sleepover when her parents are attending a party in town. It starts to storm really bad and the power goes out. Jessa is doing all she can to keep the peace with her friends, but some things they just need to get off their chest. Unwanted guests start showing up, and when Jessa finds herself in a situation where she has to decide if she should be herself or put the good girl aside and stand up for herself in the name of life or death.

I love YA, and even though I didn’t hate this book, I did find myself forcing myself to reach for it. Every time I’d start reading it, I’d start to get more into it, but then I’d break and it’d take me forever to pick it back up.m. I gave it 3 stars. I just felt like it was extremely slow in the beginning. With Thriller/Horror, I always expect there to be a WOW within the first couple of chapters. It took some time, but I’m glad I stuck it out. I enjoyed seeing how everyone came together in the end after such a time they went through. Their bonds were unbreakable by then and it was nice for redemption!

Thank you Feiwel & Friends, as well as NetGalley for the ARC of Perfect Girl by Tracy Banghart. All words and reviews are my honest thoughts.

Teens sleepover goes seriously wrong. If you love classic horror movies you'll really loved this. The characters were all interesting and well written. I liked the focus of Jessa and how being “perfect” affects her friends as well as herself. The writing is very good. This was a quick and easy read that I recommend.

Many readers will relate to Jessa and her anxieties, her identity as a perfect girl. The one parents like. The one teachers trust. But there's always someone who *doesn't* like the perfect girl. That is relatable too. This thriller is a fast-paced read with a satisfying end to the mystery.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc to review.

Jessa has always been polite and a rule follower, raised to be the "perfect" girl. She is happy to play the part that her parents and society want her to as a goody two-shoes. A freak storm causes the sleepover to go south when the power goes out. Her friends start fighting, there are unexpected visitors and lots of jump scares. A killer who was searching for the perfect girl has targeted Jessa and now she must change everything about her self to stay alive until morning.

First off the description and cover of this book caught my interest straight away. I liked the idea of a play on the "virgin" stereotype often found in horror movies. This was a very quick read and easily bingeable. There is a lot of character development with Jessa that makes her more relatable including dealing with her internal anxieties. There are a lot of characters added to the story so you don't get to feel as connected to most of them and it can get a bit jumbled at times. this is a fast paced thriller with an interesting story line that I enjoyed reading.

Perfect Girl follows Jessa, who is seen as (for lack of a better fitting term), a perfect girl. She is internally struggling with the pressures and expectations put upon her due to this, which I really appreciated and related to. One night, Jessa hosts a sleepover with her friends in their secluded home & as the night goes on, people are at each others throats & it spirals from there.

I thought this was such a great, fast read. It was easy to follow and I loved the thrilling elements that kept me on the edge of my seat. I found myself wanting to keep reaching back for the book every time I had to put it down, which is always a good sign that I'm loving it.

My only critique is that the twist (to me at least) was one that I ended up guessing earlier on which was a bit disappointing. This could very well be due to me reading a ton of thrillers so I will absolutely not fault this book or the author for that. Overall I absolutely loved this read and will definitely check out more of Tracy's books in the future!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for the arc in exchange for an honest review!

This book have me the most unhinged mean girls vibes and I loved it. I know it’s YA but didn’t read as such which I definitely appreciate!

Jessa Morgan is the Perfect Girl between her demeanor, life goal, and grades. She’s been privately having a bit of a crisis about it, but all of her fears are brought to the forefront when what should be a perfectly normal a sleepover is taken over by a storm and strangers.

There’s no comp titles in the summary, but I would compare this to a Criminal Minds episode from the victim’s point of view. I had a really fun time. I found Jessa’s internal anxieties that drive her deeply relatable, especially when I was her age. Banghart writes her voice very distinctly and while I was reading I felt like I was a teenage girl again with teenage girl problems.

Inconsistent characterization really ruined my enjoyment, most of which is because I feel like a lot of interesting character beats were set up that just fizzled into nothing. It feels like Banghart has too many characters to juggle so a lot of development gets dropped in exchange for plot. Jessa and her older brother Josh are set up as a golden child vs scapegoat and they have plenty of sibling arguments, but nothing ever comes of the way their parents pit them against one another. I found Tiny to be a frustratingly inconsistent character, to the detriment of her internal logic that left her feeling like more of a powderkeg than an actual person. Alexis is disappointingly out of focus and I think might be the only one who has literally zero development, though that’s hardly her fault since most of her page time is spent either unconscious or near it. Kellen gets a lot of development early on, but it ends up feeling like that’s just so she has a (plot permitting) reason to fade into the background for most of the second act. Of our main pack of teenagers, only Jessa and Ryan feel like actual people.

I still found this book an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. If you’re in the market for a blood-pounding YA thriller, I think Perfect Girl will scratch that itch for a lot of people.

Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan for the eARC.

“I’d rather be a bitch than you’re perfect girl.”

Same. It’s actually so crazy to think of the pressure we get from our parents, or that is sometimes self inflicted, to be perfect all the time. I get it and can relate in a way but am also so glad that as the 4th and youngest in my family, my parents were like “you’re good right?” Any pressure throughout the years was definitely self inflicted on my part and luckily I learned to give myself grace for not being perfect.

Okay but this book definitely highlights one of my genuine fears of being abducted or attacked. And while this centers around high school kids, this is still a very real fear of mine that has me kinda always questioning who and what to trust, both in life and also in this book. I kept internally yelling at characters trying to get them to stop making dumb decisions while simultaneously believing that in a fight or flight situation I’d probably legit freeze and therefore be the first to die. And while thrillers don’t guarantee happy endings, I did have hope. I’ll leave it at that as I don’t know how to avoid another spoiler.

Thank you to the author for tossing in some 90s nostalgia. Buffy was one of my favorite movies growing up. This book was overall a quick and easy read that I found hard to put down. It touched on some tough but very real topics that not just high schoolers but people of any age may be able to relate to and it was nice to see Jessa’s character progression and how she was able to allow some mess into her life. I think maybe my one issue is that the characters went through this really traumatic situation together and there’s only the briefest mention of Jessa going to therapy but not a lot about how everyone was able to move on.

Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for this advanced copy!

A faced paced YA thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat till the very end.

I really enjoyed this book, while I thought it might be a little to YA for me at the start I was pleasantly surprised with the plot once it picked up. The characters all have their own personalities and the pace of the story was very good and keeps up with those of best selling thrillers I’ve read. I would highly recommend this book. I read it in less than two days!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan for the digital ARC copy all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book even though labelled as young adult fiction. This horror filled novel did not seem juvenile, in my opinion. The character profiles were well described and detailed and the plot is unique. The author has a fantastic imagination! Technically, I knew ahead of time that something spooky and thrilling would happen when teenagers are alone in the house and the power goes out in the midst of a powerful storm, not shocking! However, the storyline continued into unknown territory for me. I would never have guessed the events of the rest of the next 12 hours. Very well crafted with multiple side stories to make the plot even more suspenseful! Thanks to Net Galley and Feiwel and Friends for allowing me to review the ARC of Perfect Girl. It was a fun read!

#NetGalley #PerfectGirl #FeiwelandFriends

Perfect Girl is an engrossing page turner. It's Psycho meets Misery for the modern era. The characters were relatable and realistic and as a woman, the book made me question "When is it okay to put politeness aside for safety?"

At times, I felt that the main character, Jessa, was a little repetitive. However, she was still likable and I definitely still rooted for her. The cast of characters were diverse without their diversity being the focus of the book.

I would recommend this for any fan of YA Thrillers or just looking for a fun and quick read.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book!

Perfect Girl by Tracy Banghart is a YA novel that chronicles one seriously bad night amongst a self labelled "perfect girl" and her friends, as a major storm disrupts the power at her house and leads to a conclusion where this supposedly perfect young woman must break all the rules she's always followed in order to save her friends.

I suppose that I'll start with the good - it was a very fast read. And it was nice to have a main character who needed glasses to function.

Now to the bad. There was so much that this book failed to deliver on. The pointless flashbacks that discussed a character with NO connection whatsoever to our main group. The over the top, hyper-extreme, helicopter mother who conveniently was a nurse and therefore able to administer a correct dosage of drugs to just knock our main characters out (never mind that the drugs she used in quick succession were similar to what killed Michael Jackson). The incel antagonist, who ticks off every stereotypical attribute that a basement dwelling, chronically online, neckbeard should have. The abusive boyfriend who threatens the group, but then never shows back up again, despite the dropped threats that he might. The contacts that the MC doesn't like to wear, another Chekov's gun that is mentioned, but never utilized.

But the MOST egregious fault that immediately took me out of the story is the inclusion of a supernatural element that conveniently saves the day for the main characters. Like, it was a cutesy element early in the book, that was treated as more of a joke than something rooted in reality. Only for said supernatural element to be RELATED to the antagonists, and having a grudge to settle with them which led to their ends, but also led to a lessened destruction of the house. From what was described on the page, NO ONE should have survived the final confrontation, but thanks to the supernatural, all the good guys were okay beyond minor scrapes and wounds (even the gunshot wound and subsequent removal of the bullet is treated as not that big a deal) and the bad guys were dead and wounded. The level of suspension of disbelief necessary to swallow this ending beggars belief, and ruined the entire story for me.

I loved the story, the world building and meeting the different characters. I felt completely immersed in the story and couldn't stop reading it.

I really enjoyed this YA mystery/thriller. It was unputdownable and full of suspense! The author did a great job in keeping me engaged throughout the entire story. It kept me on my toes 90% of the time!

I really did not suspect a thing! I thought I was headed in the right direction trying to guess who the culprit was, but I got a pleasant surprise! My teen daughter would LOVE this novel! I know I did!

I will be reading more of this author. It is a 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ read for me! I truly enjoyed every minute of it and can't wait to read more of her books! I usually read books before having my teens read them, just to make sure they are safe to read. This is one of them! I will be purchasing this book for my teen daughter who enjoys reading as much as I do. 😊

I want to thank Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group of the complimentary ARC in exchange for my honest review.

To be published November 19, 2024.

Jessa Morgan has always been the perfect girl: nice, polite, a rule-follower. But one night during a sleepover as her house with some of her friends, a storm comes. The power goes out and scary things start to happen, and it only gets worse from there.

This was a good YA thriller mystery. It kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time. I recommend this book if you love a good YA thriller.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I want to start off by saying I really shouldn't have read this being home alone and in the middle of the night. I had the heebie-jeebies the entire time. Best believe my one potty break in between, I ran down the dark hall to my bathroom and back. 🤣🤷‍♀️

With that being said, I'm a wuss when it comes to suspenseful stuff that happens at night time. So maybe you won't have to run the marathon of your life down a dark hallway like I did out of sheer fear... but you might. This book was truly gripping, I started it at like 11pm and finished it before 4 am. Granted, I did regret reading it at those hours as it's now 4am, and I refuse to turn the light off or sleep. Either way, brilliantly written. There were so many suspenseful moments and so many twists. I truly enjoyed this one! Kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time (more like huddled in my bed with blankets, refusing to allow my foot to slip over the side of the bed, but same thing 🤷‍♀️). It was a great read, but I would suggest maybe reading it during the daytime promptly followed by a cute Pixar movie afterward so you can sleep restfully, lol

I received this ARC from NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends to read/review. All of the statements above are my true opinions (and partially from fear) after fully reading this review. Don't judge me 🤣

I really enjoyed this YA thriller. It keeps you on the edge of your seat from the very beginning.

I enjoyed the plot. Jessa, the perfect girl. She does no wrong. It was great to see such character growth among all of the characters throughout the story! It was also great to read about girls that aren’t all terrible friends. Alexis and Kellan are very supportive of Jessa, which was refreshing.

I really enjoyed this unique thriller and recommend it to anyone who wants a fast paced read.