Perfect World
This is not the sort of story I would recommend to a young, impressionable, teenage audience. The story is well-written in its hallucinatory fashion. It may even merit series literary discussions. However, it is full of what the author believes is the main theme of teenage existence in the twenty-first century. It is a male view of what he thinks teenage girls are like. Wrong! It's a stereotyping portrait of young females.
The story alludes to a tragedy, but never clearly identifies the extent of the tragedy. All the reader ever discovers is that Lacie was the one to find her father dead in the bathroom. There was lots of blood and the horror that paralyzes her emotions suggest that it was a suicide. This nightmare haunts the girl as she sets about to discover who and what she really is in a "perfect" suburban neighbourhood where nothing is or should be different or out-of-the-ordinary. "Perfect" is defined in negative terms and "perfect" becomes the ideal of all that is not right in the world.
Lacie helps her Mom by taking care of her younger brother after school. Her Mom has to work several jobs so that she can keep her family in the safe, little, "perfect" house in the safe, little "perfect" neighborhood. At this point, the reader can sympathize with Lacie. She witnessed something horrible and it turned her world upside-down. However, Lacie is vulnerable. Insecure in her unhappy memories, she clings to her friend Jenna, who has reached the age where boys are more important than girls. This in itself is understandable. But the author takes this interest to the extreme, with very explicit sexual scenes. Jenna's exploits influence Lacie and leads her to explore her own sexual fantasies, without, I might add, any consideration to the idea of "safe sex." Hardly an appropriate novel for a young, impressionable reader! So much for James' "Perfect World!"
