It's meltdown time thanks to You Asked for Perfect!

The topic of You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman, that I read recently, is highly convenient for me and my writing, given how casual I write. I write the way I think, in these loose sentences. Either way, this post is about You Asked for Perfect.

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So, the blurb on the back of the book said that this book follows Ariel Stone (who points out in the first chapter it’s Ah-riel, not Air-riel), who has spent his life cultivating the perfect college resume, gets thrown off of his education track when he starts spending more time with his tutor, Amir, and his, “crushing academic pressure fades away, and a fuller and brighter world comes into focus”, so that told me what I assumed the book was going to be about. And that was that Ariel and Amir were going to get into a relationship, and this relationship was going to force Ariel to consider what’s actually going on in his life and figure out what it really was that he wanted, and as a non-spoiler spoiler, I was right.

On the very first page, we’re greeted with Ariel saying to himself, “I ran a minute faster than average. Nice.” Now that told me so much about Ariel from the get-go. This, conjoined with the blurb told me that he has this need to be the best, and as we go on, we find out he’s applying to Harvard, is gunning for valedictorian and is first chair violin in his orchestra. So he’s got a lot going on, it’s fair to say.

He then ends up getting a C on a test, and because he’s meant to be this perfect student, he begins to spiral. And because the test he got a C on was peer graded, he gets paranoid that Amir, the one who graded his test is going to tell people, and everyone is going to think he’s this flop. Also, we conveniently are introduced to Amir by having it said that he only dates guys older than him, and that he and Ariel never really clicked, even though their little sisters were best friends.

Side note, I have no idea how the American college system works… On page 45 Ariel mentions that if he gets into Harvard, he won’t know what he’ll actually study. And that’s what gets me. Here in the UK, you apply for a specific course and do that, and classes based around it. So, I ended up Googling, “the American education system” and, Mary… the bitch looks wildly open ended, and, apparently, you don’t have to declare your major until sophomore year – and that major ends up being what your degree ends up being. I realise that doesn’t really have anything to do with the book, I just don’t know how the American college system works.

To bring this tangent back to the book, Ariel mentions that he has an interview coming up for Harvard throughout the book, and that sits as another stress point looming over him.

Either way (smooth transition lol), Ariel ends up getting Amir to tutor him in the subject he got a C on, and he (Ariel) spends the whole session crushing on Amir until he has to get up and tell Amir that it’s not going to work out, and then he leaves. To jump ahead as well, about halfway through the book, Ariel and Amir sort of get together, but not officially, and they end up at this gallery together. And I noticed that when Ariel and Amir were together, Ariel became, for lack of better phrasing, nicer. He wasn’t thinking about school and Harvard with Amir, he was just enjoying himself. But once they are no longer physically together, Ariel mentions that even just being with Amir feels too indulgent, because of all his school pressures, and I just kind of wanted to scream at Ariel to tell him that it’s okay to enjoy things. Enjoy your life – Marina Love + Fear tease.

And I liked Ariel better when he was with Amir. Maybe it’s because I, as a person, have the mindset where I know I don’t need to be the best, I just need to be my best, whereas Ariel needed to be the best. There was a quote I picked out from page 91, “If I don’t have perfect grades, then who am I?” I say this because, and this is shocking, I like, and enjoy, seeing characters happy – which is ironic, given that Adam Silvera is my favourite author.

Then as Ariel’s stress build up, the inevitable happens. Although, it happens in a way I wasn’t totally expecting. The climax of this book, I’d say, was predictable, I knew what was going to happen – and what I thought would happen did happen – but there was an extra bit added to it which I thought let it rise above the ocean of the same stories.

Now I’m going to put a spoiler warning here – skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read them. So, the stress ends up becoming too much for Ariel, balancing everything he thinks he needs to do, and he ends up blowing up at his friends and almost shutting down. Then towards the end of the book, we see Ariel making up for his failings, whether they be educational or social. The spoiler warning ends here.

One thing I will say I liked about the ending was that, even though we got to see Ariel’s interview for Harvard, we don’t see the outcome of it. And I think this was a good choice for the book since, yes, Ariel does spend the book going on about how important Harvard is, the whole gist of the book was that Ariel needed to deal with the way he was living his life and figure out what really is important in his life. And I think by not letting us find out whether he made it into Harvard was a solid choice, because if we found out whether he got in or not, I feel like it would have undone all of the learning and growing he did. If he got in it would be the case of all his suffering was worth it, and if he didn’t, it would be like saying, “well what was the point of him doing everything he did?”

Anyway, they were my loose, messy thoughts on You Asked for Perfect by Laura Silverman. I read this after reading Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera, so it was nice to read something that wasn’t as intense lmao. Either way, I liked You Asked for Perfect, I feel like it could have been a bit longer in some places – even if it had just been little sentences where Ariel referenced old hobbies and interests that he used to have. Outside of school, I didn’t think there was all that much to Ariel. But I think that was the point, he was killing himself with school, and that quote I referenced, “If I don’t have perfect grades, then who am I?” that summed Ariel up as a character perfectly… and I wish it didn’t.

    Okay, bye!