Gilly Macmillan

A Novel

The Perfect Girl

Denaiir

Zoe made some bad decisions when she was younger due to peer pressure and it resulted in her taking the blame, because no one else was there to do it. After she paid her dues, she and her mom moved to a new town in hopes of a fresh start.

However their seemingly perfect new life has cracks, and soon tragedy strikes again.

This book had quite a slow pacing, it was not an action-packed thriller. However, I found the various POVs and timelines pretty interesting, even though it was a bit long sometimes. The ending was also pretty satisfying for me, and therefore I would recommend if you like slow-paced stories.

To everyone who knows her now, Zoe Maisey - child genius, musical sensation - is perfect. Yet several years ago Zoe caused the death of three teenagers. She served her time, and now she's free. Her story begins with her giving the performance of her life. By midnight, her mother is dead. The Perfect Girl is an intricate exploration into the mind of a teenager burdened by brilliance, and a past that she cannot leave behind. Praise for Burnt Paper Sky: One of the brightest debuts I have read this year - a visceral, emotionally charged story. (Daily Mail) . . . heart-in-the-mouth excitement from the start of this electrifyingly good debut . . . an absolute firecracker of a thriller that convinces and captivates from the word go. A must read. (Sunday Mirror) If you love Gone Girl and Before I Go to Sleep, you need to read this. (Closer) What an amazing, gripping, beautifully written debut. Burnt Paper Sky kept me up late into the night (and scared the life out of me) (Liane Moriarty - author of The Husband's Secret) Burnt Paper Sky is that rare thing in reading - a book which hooks you and keeps you focused on it until the end. (Shotsmag) This accomplished, intelligent debut should come with a warning - it's completely addictive. A nail-biting, sleep-depriving, brilliant read (Saskia Sarginson) Every parent's nightmare, handled with intelligence and sensitivity, the novel is also deceptively clever. I found myself racing through to find out what happened (Rosamund Lupton) Tightly focussed and fast-paced. You won't rest until you really know what happened (Lisa Ballantyne) What an exciting debut! Burnt Paper Sky kept me up until the small hours, from the nightmarish moment when a mother first realises that her son has disappeared, to the dramatic denouement. Gilly Macmillan's voice is innovative and confident, and she creates a cast of very human characters. There's a page-turning urgency, combined with an insightful exploration of the emotional fall-out after the abduction of a small child. Meanwhile the media and internet community are shadowy figures whose pitiless speculation and harassment seem all too believable. Burnt Paper Sky is written with passion and insight. Bravo, Gilly Macmillan (Charity Norman - author of After The Fall) Deft, tense and utterly gripping, Burnt Paper Sky stays with you long after the final page has been turned (Tim Weaver - author of Never Coming Back) This pacy, emotional and expertly characterised novel's sure to follow in the footsteps of fellow thrillers such as The Girl On The Train and Gone Girl by soaring to the top of the bestseller charts (The Media Eye) A powerful page-turner and damning commentary on this age of the internet, where everyone has an opinion and a forum in which they can voice it. (Woman's Weekly, New Zealand)

Sam Kiszonka

I'm still not sure how I feel about this book.
It was an okay book with a decent twist at the end, but I really struggled to get through it. 

I think that because it was compared to 'Gone Girl' and 'Girl on the Train' my expectations were set too high. It definitely was not the 'psychological thriller' that I was expecting it to be.

Ruth Parker 

This book sounded like it was going to be amazing. But I found it lacking... in plot and substance. The writing was fine, good even to be honest but it just plodded along and it was nothing spectacular. And the plot just dragged. I felt like this could have been a novella and still had the same information in it.

Dorian Avers

** spoiler alert **
           The Perfect Girl is a novel about a girl named Zoe from a very small town. A piano prodigy, beauty, and recent ex-con. She was 14 when she made the decision to drive a few friends home after a party, and thus her tale of sorrows begins. The case is full of lies and cover-ups and after Zoe is found guilty she spends months in a juvenile detention facility. Fast forward to around 2 or so years later and Zoe is back to playing her piano. This time with a new step-brother and a whole new family, her Second Chance Home. Although the perfect facade displayed by all it's inhabitants do not match what's underneath. Shocking. There's a murder, a suicide, a new life, abuse, and of course lies. This book takes place over the course of two days with multiple flashbacks and hot-potato narration changes. 

I had really high expectations for this book. I had seen it talked about multiple times by multiple people and in varied places, so I thought it would be a thrilling read. I thought it would be similar to Gillian Flynn novels and I got easily hooked on all three of those. I was disappointed with this one, however. 
The story is told through multiple different perspectives which i do enjoy because it helps novels keep a good pace, but I felt, besides the name changes at the head of the chapters, none of the characters had very unique voices. I'd start reading a chapter and then realize a statement didn't make sense and have to go back and check whose perspective I was reading. This being said, I think that Macmillan has a more intriguing voice when she was writing from one of the males' perspectives. I think this is a weird thing to say, but it felt like she was more comfortable in that point of view. Her descriptions were more seamless and relaxed. With the women it felt as though she had to force their emotions and over-complicate the descriptions. My biggest problem was that Zoe was supposed to be a genius, with an IQ of 162. Macmillan said she was brilliantly intelligent, but she never took any actions or made any decisions that supported that statement. Besides her piano playing. There was a passage in there that said that she was emotionally and socially immature, however, so there's that. Even at the end when she comes up with her "brilliant" plan to save Lucas and Grace. She could've just left it at Lucas' confession or even said that she just stepped out of the baby's room and saw the last part of their encounter. Instead she says that Chris pushed her and she bruises her hip which can be so easily dis-proven because there's another video, taken from the same night that clearly shows her running her hip straight into the piano while running off. Any decent defense would've seen the video and that would've yet again shined a glaring and deceitful light on Zoe. 
This was a quick read for how many pages the book has, but an unsatisfying one. There's not really an aha moment. Everything that happens you can guess somewhat easily and even if you were to be wrong, it wasn't too much of a shock when you were proven to be. In the beginning of the novel she uses a lot of foreshadowing, like "in a few hours my mother would be dead", and that did keep me trudging through the reading. I never felt the air of mystery around me or suspense if I'm honest. The only time I exclaimed anything was when Zoe stepped up and talked about her bruise. And it wasn't, "wow, you shocked me", it was, "how stupid". 

I liked Macmillan's voice when it sounded more natural. When her explanations and descriptions weren't so stream-of-conscious and full of run on sentences. Towards the tail-end of the book, her voice was simple and the story flowed easily and that's the type of novel I wanted to keep reading. I did really like her hot-potato type of narration though. That was probably my favorite part. It felt like as one character was leaving the room they tossed the "potato" or narration to someone else who easily caught it, no fumbling, and carried on almost seamlessly. At the end of the book, in the About the Author, Macmillan said that she wanted the switching narration to seem "cinematic" and I think she really nailed this aspect. It was like when one character left the room and threw the narrative, the camera showed their back walking away and then panned to the newest narrator. 
 It was a very cool visual. Especially with Lucas being intrigues by films, it was a neat tie-in.

Michelle Boyea

** spoiler alert **
           This book was absolutely crazy to read.

First, it is horrible to see the way that teenagers can treat each other. The fact that two teenagers would lie about whether or not a fellow student had their drink spiked is horrible enough, but when it was the results of her going to jail, it is indescribably immature.

To see the way the main character was able to go on through her life is truly inspiring. While she was guilty of driving the car while intoxicated, she did not realize how intoxicated she was since her drink was spiked and if she was under the impression that she only had one drink.

It is saddening to see the way that her father failed out of her life due to this mistake. However, it is inspiring to see the way her mother and aunt rallied around her to make sure that she still had a great life.

The way the stepdad treated her mother and his first wife is appalling to see.

The way the two kids really don't want to make sure that their baby sister will not be treated the same way about him was great. Even though he did not kill the mother, it is very likely that he would have with the amount of violence that he was capable of at that time. 

The author did a great job at sucking you into the story and being able to see it from the main characters point of view. You were able to feel horrible with her scenes of her torment. You were also able to feel sympathy for her when all she wanted was to be accepted at the school. 

This author always does a great job and I look forward to reading more of her works

Somya Verma

The New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew returns with an electrifying new novel about how the past will always find us... "Literary suspense at its finest.”—Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Baby “A wonderfully addictive book with virtuoso plotting and characters - for anyone who loved Girl on the Train, it’s a must read.” — Rosamund Lupton Zoe Maisey is a seventeen-year-old musical prodigy with a genius IQ. Three years ago, she was involved in a tragic incident that left three classmates dead. She served her time, and now her mother, Maria, is resolved to keep that devastating fact tucked far away from their new beginning, hiding the past even from her new husband and demanding Zoe do the same. Tonight Zoe is giving a recital that Maria has been planning for months. It needs to be the performance of her life. But instead, by the end of the evening, Maria is dead. In the aftermath, everyone—police, family, Zoe’s former solicitor, and Zoe herself—tries to piece together what happened. But as Zoe knows all too well, the truth is rarely straightforward, and the closer we are to someone, the less we may see.

Steph

Mitz

Katrina Meyers

Perfect Girl

Sarah Bailey

Love Edwards

Samantha Care

Sonja H

Darkness

Maureen Carter

Roberta

Susan Forsythe

Taylor

To everyone who knows her now, Zoe Maisey - child genius, musical sensation - is perfect. Yet several years ago, Zoe caused the death of three teenagers. She served her time, and now she's free. Her story begins with her giving the performance of her life. By midnight, her mother is dead. The Perfect Girl is an intricate exploration into the mind of a teenager burdened by brilliance, and a past that she cannot leave behind.

The Perfect Girl A Novel

Reviews