The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry

A Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestseller.

A page-turning debut of suspense about a young couple desperate to have a child of their own--and the unsettling consequences of getting what they always wanted.

Christopher and Hannah are a happily married surgeon and nurse with picture-perfect lives. All that's missing is a child. When Janie, an abandoned six-year-old, turns up at their hospital, Christopher forms an instant connection with her, and he convinces Hannah they should take her home as their own.

But Janie is no ordinary child, and her damaged psyche proves to be more than her new parents were expecting. Janie is fiercely devoted to Christopher, but she acts out in increasingly disturbing ways, directing all her rage at Hannah. Unable to bond with Janie, Hannah is drowning under the pressure, and Christopher refuses to see Janie's true nature.

Hannah knows that Janie is manipulating Christopher and isolating him from her, despite Hannah's attempts to bring them all together. But as Janie's behavior threatens to tear Christopher and Hannah apart, the truth behind Janie's past may be enough to push them all over the edge.

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Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse, Suspected Child Abuse, Animal Cruelty, Animal Death, Mental Illness, Mental Health Issues, Murder

I’ve been working toward Amazon’s Kindle Epic Summer Challenge and one of the achievements was to complete an Amazon Original Story recommended by their editors. I’d heard about The Perfect Child on TikTok, so when I saw it on the list of qualifying books, I decided to give it a read. Holy crap.

This book seriously gives me Orphan vibes. Granted, in this case our child in need of adoption isn’t an adult masquerading as a child, but still. The level of viciousness and abject hatred the child, Janie, shows in this book is nothing short of chilling. I found myself squirming in horror at some of the things that happen in the book – and not just things that Janie does, but other characters as well.

The Perfect Child is a combination of mystery, psychological thriller, and horror that just makes you want to keep reading to find out what is going to happen next. It is a chilling ride from beginning to end that will keep you on the edge of your seat and horrified to the very end.

The writing is very well done. The ideas brought forth in the plot are extremely well written and flow perfectly from one scene to the next. There are three points of view from which we read – Christopher Bauer (Janie’s adoptive father), Hannah Bauer (Janie’s adoptive mother), and Piper Goldstein (DHS Social Worker). These points of view work together seamlessly to give us the full picture of what happens from the start of the saga to the end of it. I’ve seen at least one other book by Lucinda Berry on KindleUnlimited and I am absolutely going to borrow it so I can read it as well.

I gave this book four stars. Obviously the book was amazing, but of course, there is always room to improve. In this case the ending. It was super abrupt. I’d have liked to have seen a bit more to the ending. To me it sort of left you on a cliff hanger and I wasn’t particularly fond of it. But the majority of the book was very well written and worth four stars.