Perfect by Rachel Joyce

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In 1972 two seconds were added to time. In 1972 Byron Hemmings is an imaginative eleven year old and the thought that someone, somewhere, can interfere with time, just like that, is both frightening and intriguing to him. From the minute his best friend James Lowe tells him this fact, the addition of two seconds worries Byron. It is these two seconds that are to blame for a sequence of events that change Byron’s life. If these two seconds had never happened, would Byron’s life have stayed on the track it should have?
From the opening chapter I was hooked. The thought of two seconds added to time was as intriguing to me as it was to Byron and I could put myself in his shoes and really imagine the thoughts and fears he had about it and probably made me an empathetic observer of his story.
The story is told in two parts, mainly in 1972 but also in the present day when we learn about Jim, a solitary man who has mental health problems and OCD, a life ruled by rituals and numbers triggered by something in his past but when Jim is almost run over, bizarrely his life starts to change.
There is the amazing writing which gives clues that in the wonderful world of the Hemmings’, all is not quite as perfect as it should be. Byron is a wonderful character, sensitive and thoughtful and full of the anxieties that most normal children have and then a few besides. He and pal James have no idea what they set in action, with the help of those two seconds, in that summer of 1972 but their friendship and the differences in their home lives speak volumes and plays a big part in the story. Their mother’s Diana and Andrea are two very different people in their world that does not allow for imperfection and both are drawn so beautifully that readers will recognise traits that are ever present in school mothers, probably since time began!
As the story of 1972 progresses there is a sense of deterioration and impending doom, an inevitability to all that happens but in the present day story, although quite sad in its way there is a sense that something good is going to happen, of hope.
The characterizations are fabulous and the descriptions of people, events and places speak volumes about the story and the times in which it is told as the various characters struggle with their relationships and their place in the world. It is as story of greed, need, jealousy and fear but also a story of hope and love which will take you through an array of emotions and will keep you spellbound from the first page.
I loved it. I loved and felt so much for Diana, Byron and Jim. Rachel Joyce has made them very realistic and truly sympathetic characters, caught up in events that turn their world upside down and you can empathise with their decisions and actions even whilst you are crying out to them to be careful. Rachel really has written a book that is quite Perfect.