Perfectly Normal, written by Amy Martin, is set in small-town America and tells of the ordinary lives of three high school seniors: Rachel Lord, Ellie Stengel, and Janey Douchette. Most schools have an in-crowd; in the case of Ridgeview High, those popular people are the Perfects—Lexi Grayson, Alissa Lofton, and Dani Maguire. Dani used to be pals with Rachel, Ellie, and Janey; however, in middle school, she traded them in for some flashier friends. ...more ( )

Set within Ridgeview High School, three best friends (Rachel, Janey and Ellie) are the nerds among the Perfects (Dani & her clique). However, one ordinary morning, Janey doesn’t show up and appears to be missing. Despite the weather, Rachel races to their old neighborhood hoping to find Janey among the abandoned houses, but Rachel never makes it. Rachel wakes up from her crash in the body of The Perfect Dani as she discovers her own body is sitting in a coma as a result of the crash. Rachel & Ellie must find a way to get Rachel back into her own body while maintaining Dani’s status at high school in the meantime.

I chose this book thinking it would be an ode to Freaky Friday, a movie where mom and daughter switch bodies, and it definitely started off as an enjoyable read along such lines. The high school setting is easy to relate to and the characters are adequately developed.

However, as I read on and realized the body switch was due to witchcraft, I started to lose enjoyment in the read. I am not a big fantasy, sci-fi, mythical beings fan and I don’t often read stories surrounding these genres, but I felt the urge to read on. While I enjoyed the story, I felt when the story shifted into focusing on witchcraft and the town’s history the shift was awkward. I enjoyed the introduction of additional characters (the girls’ parents), as such was necessary to provide the depth needed to stretch the storyline into a series format, but I was hoping the author would have been more creative than to solely place the cause of body switching on witching spells. I wouldn’t go as far as to say I will become a quick addict of this series, I remain intrigued enough to maybe pick up book #2 in the near future.

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*A review copy of this book was provided to me by LibraryThing, in exchange for an honest review. ( )

For transparency, I was given a free copy of this novel a giveaway (Thank you Ms. Martin) in exchange for an honest review.

I found that I had a lot of trouble getting into this book. It definitely has an interesting idea: write a coming of age story where you dissect insecurities through a body swap. I would say this book is good for a pre-teen or young adult because it has a mystery and a teachable moment. ( )

I received a mobi.file copy of this book from the author through a giveaway she had on LibraryThing.com, and the following is my honest opinion.

Do you remember the days when you’d been in high school? Of course, you do; and there’s probably a lot of stuff you wish you could sooner forget. One of the most prevalent conditions all high school students had to face and still do, is the omnipresent presence of cliques; who know those groups of jocks and the most beautiful and popular girls. And in Rachel Lord’s school, Ridgeview High, this group is known as The Perfects, and they ruled this school.

Since I hadn’t been one of the most popular individuals at my high school, I found it quite easy fantasizing about my stepping into Rachel Lord’s shoes; and why not? Like Rachel I’d probably would have been envious and obsessed with “The Perfects;” and all the apparently perfect things each one of them possesses: friends of both sexes, hair, complexion, teeth, body, and everything else which could and would make them perfectly perfect. EGADS !!! what a fantasy.

As fate would have it, while looking a missing friend with my other friends, we got involved in a car accident, and the next thing I knew I woke up in Dani’s body, The Perfect, I’ve had admired the most; instead of my being the plain-looking, somewhat clumsy Rachel everyone knows.

As Rachel learned how to be Dani, the rose-colored glasses she’d always worn when looking at her disappeared, as did the façade Dani had projected to everyone at school disappeared, revealing at least to Rachel, the truth lurking behind this façade.

With this clear in Rachel’s mind, she now had a mystery to resolved. How and why did she wind up in Dani’s body? What happened to her own body? Will Rachel uncover the truth to all the questions which have continuously popped up in her mind, since first waking up in Dani; Is there some unknown power she possesses, a power she has to find out about and about its limits? An unknown power which might have been passed down from mother to daughter for generations? I’m not saying, you’ll have to read this book to find out.

For having given her readers, an interesting, page-turning, coming of age story involving Rachel and the self-discovery of the power she’s always had. I’m happy to give Ms. Martin 5 STARS for her writing endeavor here. ( )

The overall idea of the story was great, but it wasn't well-written and there was too much details.
The story is about Rachel, a typical high school student, who is waiting to turn 18 and graduate. Then her friend goes missing and Rachel finds her self trapped in someone else's body.

The story has too much details that are not needed, which can annoy some people and resulted in me skipping quite a few pages. For example, in one of the early scenes, Rachel is driving home from school and the author writes about almost every turn they make, everything they talk about, and even what the tires of the car is doing.

Example from the story:
"Ellie narrows her eyes at me as I pull the car forward, look both ways, and accelerate out onto Tilletson
Street as quickly as I can under the conditions. My car fishtails a bit, and Ellie grabs the dashboard as a
worthless measure of added protection as I straighten my back tires and move us forward at about five
miles an hour..."

I learned, I think in grade nine, that when you write a story, what you write about should either take the story forward or backwards. Also, you should put in information that the reader would like to read about and that have some significance in the story.
The reader would not want to know if the driver "looked both ways" as she pulled the car forward, or if the driver was driving 5 miles per hour. If you want to indicate that the driver is driving slowly, just say that, you don't need to state how fast or how slow she's driving. The readers aren't interested and they'll just get bored.

Well, that's my opinion of this book. I don't think i'll be reading any of her other books, unless they go thru a publisher, and I certainly don't recommend it to anyone. ( )