(And the book just might make you cry there’s no shame in that.) Essentially, Ms.

She must unpeel the onion one layer at a time. Birch must let you know all about Ella’s world: that she essentially has the legal rights of a dog, that she was not taught to speak to children, that she was not taught to read or swim, but she can’t tell you everything all at once. We get over the shock of the disturbing nature of the story because our empathy meters are turned to eleven as the prospective buyers investigate Ella’s skills and beauty.įurther, Perfected (and the two films I mentioned) release exposition about the world in a fun manner that answers our questions before we ask them. None of us will ever be cloned human pets trained in an awful finishing school, but just about everyone is protective of young women. (The film was remade in the United States as Point of No Return, starring the always excellent Bridget Fonda.)Īll three of these works are excellent because the storytellers immediately immerse the reader (or viewer) in the protagonist’s very strange world. Nikita must, of course, understand her new life and how her own desires relate to her obligations. Perfected is also spiritually related to the 1990 Luc Besson film Nikita, in which a young woman is sent to a finishing school for spies instead of prison. This film, obviously, is not for the young ones! In the first few minutes, the film plops you into a creepy, strange situation and hooks you. Perfected is in the same wonderful vein as the 2011 film Sleeping Beauty. Kate Jarvik Birch plays with very powerful themes and evokes such a cool tone-disturbing but fun-that the reader simply must read on to figure out what happens next. (I don’t want to reveal more of the plot than I have to it’s a fun ride that is surprising in spite of the appropriate parallels that Ms.

Though cloned and genetically manipulated, Ella is, of course, a human being with hopes and desires that she discovers and explores through the course of the novel. The conceit of the book is that the protagonist, later named Ella, is a cloned 16-year-old girl who has been sold as a pet after recent legislation has made such things legal. Perfected begins with a delightfully disturbing scene that demonstrates the reader is in the hands of a capable storyteller who has a rip-roaring yarn to share.

Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch