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A review by eternalcat
My Flawless Life by Yvonne Woon
2.0
Before I got to 75%, I thought this book was average. Not amazing but also not terrible. However, the ending ruined the story for me.
This book was a slow burn. From reading the blurb on Goodreads, we know that something bad happened in Hana's life and her father, a senator, was arrested for an accident. But we don't find out more about what happened until about 30% into the book, and even then, we only get a peek of the day Hana's father was arrested. It's not until about 70% into the book that we learn the big mystery.
Here's the summary with spoilers:
The book alternates between the present and two years ago. We learn about how Hana met Luce and how Luce was cool because she didn't care what people thought about her. Hana on the other hand worked very hard to appear perfect in terms of her image, her grades, her activities so she could get into Yale. With two high powered parents, she had a lot of pressure on her. After getting into a fight with Luce and later her mother (or maybe the other was switched), 15 year old Hana decided she needed to do something that would make her feel free. She decides to take her parent's car out and drives it to Luce's house. Keep in mind, Hana is 15 and doesn't have a drivers license. The two girls break into a local country club, swim in the pool, and on the drive back, Hana hits a woman. The two girls argue about what to do and Hana convinces them both that she did not hit a person, but a statue and everything is fine. A few days later her parents notice the damage to the car and Hana tells them she took it to take Luce and her sick dog to the vet and hit a deer on the way. Or something like that. Are there deer in D.C.? I honestly don't know but that seems like a bit of a stretch.
Sometime later, the news report that a hit and run victim was found. The car is identified at Hana's dad's car and he is believed to be the driver because the driver is wearing a baseball cap that Hana's dad owns. Her dad decides that he will take the blame so that Hana's life is not ruined. Her family has to sell their massive mansion and pretty much everything they own because of legal fees(???). Honestly the book is not very clear on why they are "poor" now. Wouldn't a powerful family have insurance? If someone is involved in an accident, wouldn't their insurance cover it? Or couldn't they get a high-powered lawyer that would minimize the damage? I also didn't get why Hana wouldn't tell her parents. I wish there was more of an internal discussion of Hana saying that her parents viewed her as a perfect child and she didn't want to ruin the relationship with her parents. She was 15 years old, I don't think the fallout of the truth would have been as bad as a grown man hitting a woman with his car and driving away. Especially a man who is a senator.
After her dad's trial, all of Hana's friends stopped talking to her and she became a social outcast. Again, not sure why people would stop being friends with her over something her dad supposedly did. No one but Hana, her parents, and Luce, knew what actually happened.
In the present, Hana gets a mystery text hiring her to follow Luce to help her figure out a secret. The short story is the Luce's boyfriend is cheating to get into a fancy college. He hired someone who looks like him to take a college admission test for him.
Hana and James, a former friend, now a current crush, work together to try to solve the mystery. At some point Hana tells James what actually happened and he asks her how she feels about the fact that her dad is rotting in prison.
This is the part that ruined the book for me. The unreliable female narrator. At this point we get a fourth wall break and Hana speaks directly to the reader saying she's sorry, she didn't mean to mislead us. Basically, her dad was convicted to 3 years in jails and all the scenes we got in the present where Hana comes home from school and talks to her dad were flashbacks.
The unreliable narrator bit annoyed me because it came out of nowhere. I wish there were other instances where Hana told us, the reader, something, and it is revealed to be a lie, but nothing like this happens until Hana tells us her dad is in jail.
At the end of the book, her dad is released early and from the reunion scene, it seems like the entire 2.5 years that her dad was in jail FOR WHAT HANA DID, she did not visit him. Why???
Two things that generally bothered me in this book:
Hana says she's picked apart by the media in the flashbacks. But she's a senator's 15 year old daughter. Who has that much interest in senator's kids? There are so many senators, I doubt that media people are that interested in commenting on what senators' kids are wearing, saying, etc.
Not sure what kind of trees they have, but Hana and James constantly park under trees to hide their cars and apparently no one sees their cars. Guess trees make cars nearly invisible to normal humans.
This book was a slow burn. From reading the blurb on Goodreads, we know that something bad happened in Hana's life and her father, a senator, was arrested for an accident. But we don't find out more about what happened until about 30% into the book, and even then, we only get a peek of the day Hana's father was arrested. It's not until about 70% into the book that we learn the big mystery.
Here's the summary with spoilers:
Spoiler
The book alternates between the present and two years ago. We learn about how Hana met Luce and how Luce was cool because she didn't care what people thought about her. Hana on the other hand worked very hard to appear perfect in terms of her image, her grades, her activities so she could get into Yale. With two high powered parents, she had a lot of pressure on her. After getting into a fight with Luce and later her mother (or maybe the other was switched), 15 year old Hana decided she needed to do something that would make her feel free. She decides to take her parent's car out and drives it to Luce's house. Keep in mind, Hana is 15 and doesn't have a drivers license. The two girls break into a local country club, swim in the pool, and on the drive back, Hana hits a woman. The two girls argue about what to do and Hana convinces them both that she did not hit a person, but a statue and everything is fine. A few days later her parents notice the damage to the car and Hana tells them she took it to take Luce and her sick dog to the vet and hit a deer on the way. Or something like that. Are there deer in D.C.? I honestly don't know but that seems like a bit of a stretch.
Sometime later, the news report that a hit and run victim was found. The car is identified at Hana's dad's car and he is believed to be the driver because the driver is wearing a baseball cap that Hana's dad owns. Her dad decides that he will take the blame so that Hana's life is not ruined. Her family has to sell their massive mansion and pretty much everything they own because of legal fees(???). Honestly the book is not very clear on why they are "poor" now. Wouldn't a powerful family have insurance? If someone is involved in an accident, wouldn't their insurance cover it? Or couldn't they get a high-powered lawyer that would minimize the damage? I also didn't get why Hana wouldn't tell her parents. I wish there was more of an internal discussion of Hana saying that her parents viewed her as a perfect child and she didn't want to ruin the relationship with her parents. She was 15 years old, I don't think the fallout of the truth would have been as bad as a grown man hitting a woman with his car and driving away. Especially a man who is a senator.
After her dad's trial, all of Hana's friends stopped talking to her and she became a social outcast. Again, not sure why people would stop being friends with her over something her dad supposedly did. No one but Hana, her parents, and Luce, knew what actually happened.
In the present, Hana gets a mystery text hiring her to follow Luce to help her figure out a secret. The short story is the Luce's boyfriend is cheating to get into a fancy college. He hired someone who looks like him to take a college admission test for him.
Hana and James, a former friend, now a current crush, work together to try to solve the mystery. At some point Hana tells James what actually happened and he asks her how she feels about the fact that her dad is rotting in prison.
This is the part that ruined the book for me. The unreliable female narrator. At this point we get a fourth wall break and Hana speaks directly to the reader saying she's sorry, she didn't mean to mislead us. Basically, her dad was convicted to 3 years in jails and all the scenes we got in the present where Hana comes home from school and talks to her dad were flashbacks.
The unreliable narrator bit annoyed me because it came out of nowhere. I wish there were other instances where Hana told us, the reader, something, and it is revealed to be a lie, but nothing like this happens until Hana tells us her dad is in jail.
At the end of the book, her dad is released early and from the reunion scene, it seems like the entire 2.5 years that her dad was in jail FOR WHAT HANA DID, she did not visit him. Why???
Two things that generally bothered me in this book:
Hana says she's picked apart by the media in the flashbacks. But she's a senator's 15 year old daughter. Who has that much interest in senator's kids? There are so many senators, I doubt that media people are that interested in commenting on what senators' kids are wearing, saying, etc.
Not sure what kind of trees they have, but Hana and James constantly park under trees to hide their cars and apparently no one sees their cars. Guess trees make cars nearly invisible to normal humans.