Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry

56 reviews

leer_amor's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Animal death, Blood, Panic attacks/disorders, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Child abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Self harm, Death of parent, Excrement, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Vomit, Pregnancy, and Physical abuse

rebeccaelizabeth94's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was hooked from the first page of this book. It was so dark and twisted from the beginning. We find Hannah working in the hospital when an abused toddler comes in after being abandoned in a parking lot. The next day her husband Christopher is assigned to be the lead doctor on her case. He immediately falls head over heels for this baby and wants to help her in every way he possibly can. He convinced Hannah to become emergency foster parents for her. Despite the fact that they have no background with raising children, especially children with severe disabilities and CPTSD they get to be her guardians. Then when they try to get her real foster parents Chris makes the snap judgement to become her foster to adopt parents. Hannah goes along with it but Janie drives a wedge in between the couple. We see Hannah slowly unravel and Chris seems to think she is just a kid. We find out Janie is 6 and old enough for school but they enroll her in pre-school. She continues to get kicked out because she is aggressive towards her peers and throws her poop. ( unrelated to the plot but my opinions that I need to share: This child should have had in home care and psych help. She should have been enrolled in a public school so she could receive behavioral supports from the county. She could have been sent to the special services school and that could have helped. She needed routines and strong structured activities.) Hannah and Chris should have had some parenting classes but back to the story. Chris was obsessive in his need to save Janie and didn’t want her to get the support Hannah thought she needed. The demands that the therapists gave them seem cruel but in the grand scheme of things are more like consequences than torture. Hannah was right she needed some consequences for her actions but not to the level Hannah inflicted. Each character in this book was some form of twisted and it made for a dark but good read. Piper started as a strong ally but she slipped when she wasn’t doing frequent checks. Hannah should have asked for help and Chris should have been more receptive. He literally threw their lives away with his desire to help a child. He had noble intentions but he sacrificed his family for someone he didn’t have the skill set to help. It’s noble to want to help people in need but it’s wrong to insist you are the best person for the job when you don’t have the proper training and background.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Abandonment, Mental illness, Eating disorder, Excrement, Self harm, Murder, Vomit, Child abuse, Confinement, and Cursing

Moderate: Infertility, Physical abuse, Blood, Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Pregnancy

westernsunshine's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Animal cruelty, Murder, Physical abuse, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Animal death, Miscarriage, Drug abuse, Medical content, Excrement, Emotional abuse, Vomit, Pregnancy, Death of parent, and Confinement

coffeebookssleep's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Confinement, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Animal cruelty, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Grief, Medical trauma, Infertility, Emotional abuse, and Death

minimicropup's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Atmosphere 😕: Claustrophobic and uneasy. Some imagination crashing happens because minor details like appearance or locations are unnecessarily delayed in the story after readers may have already formed their own imaginings. Has a touch of "the" syndrome ("the bedroom by the family room", "the living room") where the layout of the house was confusing at times. 

Main POVs:

• A police interview with an overwhelmed social worker trying their best in a job where they are often forced to cut corners and make snap decisions on which families need their attention most
• An orthopedic surgeon eager to become a parent. Has a bit of Saviour complex particularly for children...can their unconditional love and lack of discipline heal a damaged child or are they making it worse by ignoring the reality of the situation?
• A nurse married to the surgeon, also eager to become a parent. Wants to adopt a baby they can raise together and isn't interested in raising an older child that would be dealing with trauma/abandonment issues. Do they have unrealistic, resentment filled expectations of parenthood or are they trying to set realistic boundaries and recognizing their limitations?

Cred Rating 👍👨‍👩‍👧: Plausible to realistic. Social workers are overwhelmed, the foster system is broken. Whether innate or caused, little brains aren't always wired right and some kids seem doomed to grow up into inherently dangerous people. But some of those same behaviours can also be little brains just trying to process massive traumas. Reminiscent of the Sabrina Caldwell case https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sabrina-caldwell-adoped-russia-brother-48-hours/

Reading Journey 🫥: Visiting someone's house for the first time and it's unexpected chaos - messy, smelly, kids running wild, no one seems to be doing anything about it...eyeing the door the whole time, can't wait to leave.

Good match if you like:

• Dark adoption and parenting dysfunction
• Creepy kid trope that isn't OTT (IRL horror energy with touch of supernatural possession vibes)
• Potentially unreliable narrator (paranoia/psychosis) treated with "pat pat, you're just hysterical honey" spousal support
• Kids behaving badly
• Flexible plot open to reader interpretation

Vibes: 🤢😡🤪

Content Heads-Up: infertility, adoption gone wrong, attachment and personality disorders in children, and death of a pet

cat, due to torture

Format: Kindle Unlimited

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Moderate: Murder, Infertility, Death, Medical trauma, and Pregnancy

Minor: Confinement, Violence, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, and Excrement

Animal related content involves

death of a cat at the hands of a child

. Medical content comes from the MCs being a surgeon and nurse, and the child being hospitalized for injuries. Medical trauma involves

biting, breast injury and infection, broken bones, birth, and mental illness in a hospital setting

beckyrae's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Torture, Grief, Emotional abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Mental illness, and Death

Moderate: Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Miscarriage, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Drug abuse, Pregnancy, Excrement, Gaslighting, and Infertility

uchihas's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

A fairly predictable story but the writing style, while a little flat in the beginning, was easy to read and flowed well. The story kept me interested regardless! Most of the characters were likable but Christopher was INFURIATING most of the time, and I wasn’t a fan of the ending even though it was the logical turn of events - just felt like things could’ve been tied up a bit more neatly. 

Please be aware there’s a somewhat graphic depiction of animal cruelty at one point! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal death, Excrement, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, and Violence

Minor: Cursing, Panic attacks/disorders, Bullying, Drug abuse, and Drug use

laurapaige's review against another edition

challenging dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Physical abuse, Excrement, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Abandonment, Child abuse, and Vomit

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Forced institutionalization, and Murder

Minor: Domestic abuse, Death, and Miscarriage

allielippe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The authors epilogue was cut on the editing floor, but she reads it on YouTube, it makes a much more satisfying ending than the book. Wish it had stayed in! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Mental illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Death of parent, Excrement, Grief, Child abuse, and Panic attacks/disorders

Moderate: Infertility, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Violence, and Vomit

chronicallyplotting's review

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

What did I just read?! I could hardly get myself to put this book down! It was so creepy,  disturbing, scary and yet I had to keep reading. I had to know what happened next. The character dynamics and shifts were amazing, I love how the author changes characters personalities in ways we don’t expect at times. Not only do we feel their POVs of the storylines change but also their thought processes of telling us what is going on and their emotions. We can feel each persons connection with each character to the point we start to love Janie through Christopher but forget we hate her through Hannah’s eyes. 
This is a book I will be gladly recommending to others to read but also adding the words… “don’t judge me” after it. 
Wow. I am impressed with the suspense and creep factor. 
And I am thrilled to have found another author who is using their career to write their novels.  Lucinda Berry’s novels being blurred lines between fiction and nonfiction based on patients she has potentially studied or had, this makes reading this book even more thrilling. The fact that characters like Janie exist is scary. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Infertility, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Abandonment, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Excrement, Medical trauma, Confinement, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis