The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry

I picked The Perfect Child from Amazon’s First Reads because a suspenseful book about a couple trying to adopt a child with past trauma sounded intriguing to me. Also, Dr. Lucinda Berry is actually a childhood trauma psychologist and uses her experiences as inspiration for parts of her books. I have always enjoyed when authors use science and personal experiences to make their books seem more real. I would read another one of her books.

Book Stats

• Title: The Perfect Child
• Author: Lucinda Berry
• Genre: Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction
• Series: N/A
• Published: March 1st, 2019 by Thomas & Mercer
• Pages: 364
• Est. Reading Time: About 10 hours
• My Rating: 4/5 stars
• Buy Now: Amazon

The Perfect Child Plot Summary

Christopher and Hannah Bauer are the perfect married couple. He is a surgeon and she is a nurse and they are very happy together. The only thing that is missing and could make their lives more complete is a child. Since they are getting older and having trouble conceiving a child of their own, they are considering adoption.

One day the police bring in Janie, an abused little girl found on the streets covered in blood, for Christopher to perform surgery on. Janie instantly becomes attached to him and he becomes the only one she will trust. Christopher convinces Hannah they should foster and eventually adopt Janie.

After a while, Janie’s dislike towards Hannah intensifies and she starts manipulating Christopher to turn them against each other. When they finally find out what actually happened to Janie in the past, it is almost too much for them to bear.

Initial Thoughts

I thought the book started off a little slow, however, this was my first book read on an e-reader. So it could have been just me getting used to the Kindle and not holding a real book. I will write a separate review article about my thoughts on the Kindle later.

Each chapter is written in a character’s perspective. It is either in the perspective of Hannah, Christopher, or the police interview of Janie’s social worker, Piper. I have never been a big fan of books that jump back and forth between characters but the chapters are short and quickly come back to each person’s viewpoint. The story starts off in the present with Piper being interviewed for a homicide case involving the Bauers. As a result, the whole time you know something bad is going to happen but you aren’t sure what.

Then the story goes back to Christopher and Hannah when Janie was first found. I didn’t like how perfect Christopher and Hannah were in the beginning. They were so loving that I found them annoying but now I understand they had to be that way for their character development. We had to see that they were normal, loving, and caring characters first, to see how much Janie pushed them over the edge.

Favorite Quotes

“None of it was her fault. All she’d done was be born, and we didn’t get to choose our parents.”

– Lucinda Berry, The Perfect Child

“But neither of us had done anything special to have such easy lives. We’d just been born into them in the same way that Janie hadn’t done anything to have such a hard one.”

– Lucinda Berry, The Perfect Child

These quotes are from when Christopher and Hannah are talking about if it’s safe for Janie to leave the hospital. Since her biological mother was murdered and they still aren’t sure what had happened to Janie and her mother or who did it. The above quotes really spoke to me because we are all born innocent and the way we are treated as babies and children can have a huge effect on how we grow up and who we are as adults. There will always be the nature versus nurture argument and what is the best way to raise a child. Is Janie the way she is because she was born that way or because of her early childhood trauma?

“The best way to fix yourself was to get your mind off your own problems and help someone else with theirs. I couldn’t think of anyone who needed our help more.”

– Lucinda Berry, The Perfect Child

This quote is from when Christopher and Hannah are talking about taking Janie home from the hospital to be her foster parents. They believed it would cause her less trauma if she stayed with people she knew and trusted. They are trying to forget about their problems of being unable to have children of their own and help this child who needs desperate help right now. I like this quote because I will sometimes distract myself from my own problems by assisting others with theirs.

Final Feelings

Once I got into the book it was hard to put down. I don’t want to give too much away but I wasn’t completely satisfied with the ending. If you are looking for a perfect happily ever after, this isn’t the book for you. This is the first book I have read by Lucinda Berry but in her acknowledgment, she even says “I promise someday I will write a story with a happy ending. Just not yet.” This particular book isn’t going to go down as a classic but it’s a fast, entertaining, rollercoaster of a read, and I would recommend The Perfect Child if you are looking to knock out a quick thriller.

Have you read this book? Let me know your thoughts!