As I read Her Perfect Life, the new psych thriller from Emily Shiner, two sayings kept going through my head.
“The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” and “Be careful what you wish for.”
Millie finds out the truth of both of these old adages, and she is the worse off for it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The book starts with a great psych thriller premise (and there’s really no spoiler, because it’s all in the blurb). Identical twins have a shared secret; one wants revenge, one has a seemingly perfect life in comparison.
What could go wrong?
Turns out, everything.
Again, the blurb gives a lot of the plot away, which I kind of take issue with. I would have preferred to know less about Eve’s life going into the book. It would have been nice to have the same perception as Millie. I think it would have made Millie more sympathetic.
As it is, even before the prologue, the reader knows that Eve’s life isn’t as wonderful as Millie thinks.
About that prologue – it felt like it almost gave too much away. By blowing the entire surprise of Millie’s revenge, a potential twist was missed.
The author has several twists still in store, but in all honesty, for me, the plot was already revealed and therefore not as engaging as it could have been.
I also thought that Mya and Garth were pretty inept at their chosen profession (no spoiler). It is actually surprising that they were as “successful” as they were.
In truth, none of the characters were very likable, which made it hard to care about any of them as the plot progressed. However, the plot itself was still good.
That makes the plot the true star of the Her Perfect Life. Even though I didn’t like the characters, I wanted to see where the author was going to go next.
I would recommend this book based on that alone.
Author Bio
Emily Shiner always dreamed of becoming an author but first served her time as a banker and a teacher. After a lifetime of devouring stacks of thrillers, she decided to try her hand at writing them herself. Now she gets to live out her dream of writing novels and sharing her stories with people around the world. She lives in the Appalachian Mountains and loves hiking with her husband, daughter, and their two dogs.
