User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Holly hell! My jaw dropped, my nose hit the floor! Before losing other parts of my face: I’m screaming: this is freaking fascinating!
This is like eating Wagyu steak accompanied with one bottle of St. Emilion Grand Cru and a thick slice of Sweet Lady Jane’s chocolate cake! This is quite thriller feast for me:
I found all my dreamy thrilling elements such as brutal murder, unreliable narrators, dissociative identity disorder, mental hospital theme, intense slow burn pace. And of course mind shattering writing style which deceives you with new theories and sudden changing directions make you question your own reality!
And that pulling the rug up it from under you kind of extra WTH final: that revelation earned extra star from me! For million years I could never see it coming! The author punched me so fast and I barely gathered myself!
Quick summary of the story :( I’ll do everything not to give spoilers and ruin your reading adventure. Actually I’m really wondering how your face expression will change as you reach the last blowing chapters!!!)
When Grace returns back to her home after busy working day at family Italian restaurant, she realizes something must be wrong because her deceased husband’s car is not parked in front of the house and her daughter Penny is not at home. Penny already deals with psychological issues and she was so close to get arrested after her murder bucket list she has written was gone viral. So she has no permission to leave her without informing her mom and drive her father’s car. But she did them both!
Somebody knocks the door. Grace thinks her daughter came back but no: there is a police officer waiting outside to inform her they arrested her daughter for murder charge. She is found standing in front of her death birth mother, covered in blood. The murder weapon is covered with her fingerprints!
Grace doesn’t want to believe her daughter can commit such a brutal crime and actually her daughter Penny is long gone, her body is invaded by her alter persona Eve who has no idea why she’s at the police station.
Penny/ Eve gets locked at the state hospital till her court date for more detailed observation of her mental situation. Her new doctor Mitch McHugh is expert about DID cases. As other personas like Chloe, Ruby starts to appear, Mitch gets more confused to give a diagnosis. Penny’s one of the personas insist she wasn’t alone during the crime scene. Could she tell the truth? Could somebody who knows her mental state to put the blame on her? Or could she be a psychopath who plays game with them by acting like she’s suffering from DID?
Time to shut my big mouth! This is good! This is smart! This is so far my favorite book of the author! I highly recommend it to the author’s fans and psychological thriller/ crime thriller lovers!
By the way: I mostly enjoyed Jack’s POV ( Penny’s brother who is Emerson College student, plans to make a movie about his sister’s case!) His narration was dark, smart, sarcastic, entertaining! I loved his relationship dynamics with his sister.
Overall: It deserved my five gazillion stars with its ultra smart writing style.
Special thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for sharing this digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.
Rating: really liked it
The Perfect Daughter by D.J. Palmer
Grace's adopted daughter, Penny, has multiple personalities and is finally diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). When Penny is sixteen, she takes the family car to secretly visit a stranger. Later, Penny is found holding a knife and covered with the slaughtered women's blood. It looks like a clear cut case of murder but who really murdered this woman? Was it Penny or one of her other personalities and how can Grace save her daughter from prison?
With the help of psychiatrist, Dr. Mitch McHugh, who works with Penny at the facility where Penny is being treated before she goes to trial, each of Penny's different personalities gives insight to things that have happened in Penny's past. Grace will go to the end of the earth to clear Penny of murder charges or to at least keep her from a life in prison. I wasn't too impressed with some of the things Grace did, hoping to shift the blame off her daughter. Grace takes dangerous risks and is also willing to have another teenager blamed for the death when it was her own daughter holding the knife.
But it's very interesting learning about DID and it is very scary being inside a facility that houses mentally ill people who need guards to keep the peace and to attempt to keep the residence safe from harm. We have other suspects hinted at or openly named and we are even shown that Penny's coddling, because of her diagnosis, has caused problems within her adoptive family. The ending comes with a huge twist that throws everything into a new light.
Pub April 20th 2021
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC.
Rating: really liked it
Holy Cow...Wow... This is a psychological thriller that just had me guessing and totally pulled into the storyline the whole time. I love that this book had me guessing and puzzle the whole book, and the ending of the book just had me totally floored. I have to say I loved trying to really get into Penny's head. This book was so well written. The characters in this book was developed through out this book, and that was really why this book was so very good. This was a slow built up thriller, and this is not a fast pace thriller. I normally love a fast pace thriller, so I am shocked that I love this book so much. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (St. Martin's Press) or author (D.J. Palmer) via NetGalley, so I can give honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that. Note: I also won an arc copy of this book for Goodreads Giveaway.
Rating: really liked it
4.5 Stars Rounded Down!
Grace has returned from a run to find her sixteen year old daughter, Penny gone. She has no idea where she could be. She then sees a police car with its lights on. The two men walked up her walkway. Grace opens the door and Detective Jay Allio from the Lynn Police Station introduces himself along with Sergeant Brent Adams. They asked her if Penny Francone was her daughter and then told her that she was arrested and was at the Lynn Police Station. They told her that they believe that she killed a woman and its a homicide. They also told her that Penny was found covered in blood and that she is calling herself Eve and that was not the name found on her driver's license. She also does not remember anything that happened. They said that she killed a woman named Rachel Boyd, which is Penny's birth mother.
Penny then ends up in a psychiatric hospital. The day Penny came into Grace's and Arthur's life it seemed like a miracle. She was found abandoned with a mysterious past. But as Penny grew up her actions were disturbing and personalities emerged. They find out that she has DID, which is Dissociative Identity Disorder. But as Grace and Dr. Mitch McHugh dig deeper they uncover dark and shocking secrets which puts their lives in more danger.
This book was like a roller coaster ride! It is an awesome psychological thriller. It deals with mental illness. It had me guessing till the end. It also has a courtroom drama in it and thats when it gets so Crazy! OMG! It was so shocking. I could not put it down. I loved the twist near the end that I did not see coming! It was a great jaw dropping moment! This is the best book that I have read by this author and it won't be my last. He hit this one out of the ball park.
I want to thank Netgalley, St. Martin's Press and the author for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Available 4/20/21
Rating: really liked it
“When we arrested her, she was covered in blood—it was all over her body, in her hair—so when you come to the station, you should bring a change of clothes.…there are no visible wounds on Penny. But the victim was found deceased at the scene, and we believe it’s the victim’s blood on your daughter’s body.”
Grace got the impression the detective was holding something back.
“She’s calling herself Eve, but that’s not the name on her license.”
Again, a chill ran through Grace. Eve.
“She said she doesn’t remember anything that happened before we showed up. We think maybe she’s in shock, but we’re not sure,” Allio went on. “Is Eve a nickname?”
Grace paused, deciding how to answer. “It’s more complicated than that,” she offered.
It certainly is.
A bucket of ammonia, boats and water, a book with a blue cover. What do they all mean? The clues keep popping up, from different voices throughout the novel. Of course, the voices, however diverse they may be, all reside inside one body. Penny Francone is afflicted (or is it protected?) by a mental health condition now known as DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, what we used to call Multiple Personality Disorder. People with this are seen today as a single, splintered personality, rather than separate
entire personalities vying for literal face time.
DJ Palmer, or Daniel Palmer or son of Michael Palmer - From Judith D. Collins Consulting
We are presented straight away with a particularly tough scenario. It was sixteen-year-old Penny’s birth mother, Rachel, a woman with a checkered past, who was brutally murdered. Penny had been found, unaccompanied, in a city park when she was four years old. Birth mother and daughter had recently reestablished contact, and Penny had gone to b-mom’s place to meet. Penny was found next to the body, covered in blood, holding the murder weapon. Did Penny kill her mother? Looks pretty open and shut. But perhaps it was one of her alters, Eve, maybe, or Ruby, or Chloe, or even some other, as yet undiscovered, alter. But the question remains. Is Penny a supremely gifted liar, fooling everyone, and truly guilty of slaughtering the woman who had cruelly abandoned her, or is there something else going on?
Grace Francone is terrified for her child. DID is not a fully recognized condition, and there is a strong likelihood that her teenager will spend the rest of her life in prison, for a crime she apparently cannot recall committing. She is currently being held in a less than cushy state institution, largely a grim custodial service for the criminally insane. Penny’s eighteen-year-old brother, Jack, serving the needs of exposition, is planning to make a documentary about his sister. We get his intermittent second-person commentary, as if he is telling Penny about his plans.
Your shrink at Edgewater was a guy named Dr. Dennis Palumbo, who we all despised. Well, maybe all but Ryan, because Palumbo thought the same thing he did: that you didn’t have DID. According to Palumbo, DID wasn’t even a real condition, and didn’t belong in the DSM…It’s thought that DID is just a variant of a borderline personality disorder, or in your case an antisocial personality disorder, and that the appearance of your alters is akin to fantasy play rather than a verifiable neurological state. In short, Palumbo thought you were an expert liar.
Thankfully, Palumbo (The name of this character, BTW, was sold at auction to raise money for The Evelyn Swierczynski Foundation. There
is a real-world writer/psychologist named Dr. Dennis Palumbo out there.) is replaced with a different shrink, someone with a more open mind, Dr. Mitchell Hughes, a guy with issues of his own, (does there exist a shrink with none?) but an eagerness to learn the truth about his patient.
In order for Penny to avoid becoming a permanent resident of a penal institution, she will need support for her not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity plea with an official DID diagnosis. Doc Mitch is skeptical, but willing to look at the facts. He and Grace form a team trying to ferret out the truth, and give Penny at least a fighting chance. Most mysteries entail sleuthing in the concrete world, and there is plenty of that here, for sure, but this Doctor Holmes and Ms. Watson must do a lot of their work inside the world of Penny’s personalities. It is far from elementary.
This was a bit of a change for DJ Palmer.
This was the hardest book I’ve ever attempted. There were so many moving parts and for my first ever mystery (mostly I do crawl out from a hole thrillers, not murder mysteries with clues peppered throughout). - from the Judith D. Collins interview
And nicely done too. It is the author’s third novel under this name.
Saving Meghan came out in 2019 and
The New Husband was published in 2020. But DJ Palmer is an alter, of a sort, for Daniel Palmer. He is the son of physician and noted author of medical thrillers, Michael Palmer. Daniel even wrote some books that were published under Michael’s name (“with Daniel Palmer”) after his father died. His books as Daniel tended toward the technological thriller sort, building on his years working in the tech industry, while those written as DJ tend more towards the familial and medical.
Saving Meghan, for example, is about Munchausen’s by Proxy.
When I switched from writing as Daniel Palmer to writing as DJ Palmer, my themes changed along with my name. The DJ books delve more into family drama and psychological suspense. - from The Nerd Daily interview
As such,
DJ can step back from the ready-set-flee that permeates so many thrillers and look at the family dynamics at play. Loyalty, for example, comes in for some attention. Grace is fiercely loyal to and protective of Penny, and her brother, Jack, is on her side as well, but big brother Ryan is more hostile than helpful. A question is raised as to where Penny’s loyalties lie regarding her birth mother.
The story is presented through several non-DID points of view. We see most through Grace, as she girds for battle, and enters the fray. Jack offers some exposition in his once-removed take, as he addresses Penny, as if writing letters to her. Finally, there is Doctor Mitch, who offers us medical expertise, and the step-by-step of exploring a very strange terrain.
Palmer offers not just a medical take on DID, but shows how it impacts in personal, family, legal, and medical ways, and how easily it can be misdiagnosed. He does a great job of showing how DID affects not only how her family relates to Penny, but how the world does. There are serious legal implications for her if the people in a position to decide her future deny the existence of the DID diagnosis entirely. In that case, it is off to jail forever. Life over. In addition, Grace having to take on the out-of-pocket legal costs and spend her time working on the case instead of at the family business (a pizzeria based on Palmer’s experience with owning a small restaurant) has serious implications for the family’s financial welfare, and stress level. It certainly turns on its head the supposed legal presupposition of innocent until proven guilty and shows how families of the accused are punished along with those charged with a crime. A dismissive diagnosis can destroy a life, but also cause collateral damage to all those connected to it. One of Palmer’s aims in the book was to dispel myths about the DID condition. He certainly changed
my perception.
The action continues apace, as clues are found, investigated and incorporated or dismissed. This is a very readable, engaging thriller-mystery. But every now and then there are passages that made me break out into smiles.
On that bleak afternoon, Lucky Dog looked anything but. The dark interior had the ambience of a power outage… Four of the nine stools at the dark varnished wood bar were occupied by beefy men, who put the dive in dive bar… Behind the bar stood stacks of bottles that looked sticky even from a distance. The air reeked of booze and cleaners, overlaid by a whiff of desperation.
Just gotta love that.
DJ Palmer has integrated multiple elements, of medical mystery, suspense, family drama, and high-tension-watch-your-back thriller, into an engaging, white-knuckle read. Polly-Eve-Chloe-Ruby Francone may not be the ideal progeny, but
The Perfect Daughter is a perfectly fabulous read. Set aside as many hours as it takes. You owe it to your self.
“Dr. Cross, who gave us the DID diagnosis, said that we all start out with multiple personalities when we’re young. Is that something you believe?”
“I do,” said McHugh, nodding. “It’s like learning about life through committee. Those disparate voices in our young minds help us figure out the world and how different environments and stimuli affect us. Do we like things sweet or sour; what’s funny to us; what scares us? By age nine, our experiences tend to mold us into the person we become, and all those likes and dislikes, our moods and disposition, solidify into a single identity—this concept of self.”
Review posted – April 30, 2021
Publication dates
----------Hardcover - April 20, 2021
----------Trade paperback - April 5, 2022
This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi.
=============================
EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal, other personal, Twitter, Instagram and FB pages
Interviews-----The Nerd Daily - Q&A: D.J. Palmer, Author of ‘The New Husband’
-----Three Good Things - D.J. Palmer and Lisa Unger - chatty, offers a feel for the author, but is not particularly informative
-----The Poisoned Pen Bookstore - DJ Palmer in Conversation with Lee Child - This is a really good one
-----Judith D. Collins Consulting - Q & A with D. J. Palmer - there is a fair bit here
Items of Interest-----The Perfect Daughter Discussion Guide
-----American Psychiatric Association - What Are Dissociative Disorders?
----- American Documentary - Busy Inside - the film is a documentary about people with Dissociative Identity Disorder – this link takes you to the film’s site, but not to the film itself
The following emerged from some inner rhymester
CLUESBoats and water figure large,
a book with a blue cover,
A bucket of ammonia,
And meanings to discover
Ruby, Chloe, Eve, and Penny,
We’re not sure, in truth, how many,
Did an alter kill her mother
Or could it be it’s someone other?
Tough to question any one
So quickly are they here and gone.
But answers lie behind those screens
All is rarely what it seems.
Rating: really liked it
DJ Palmer's latest psychological thriller proves to be a brilliant and addictive read, the highlight of which for me was his impressive research into the mental health condition of Disassociative Identity Disorder, which might be more familiar to readers as Multiple Personality Disorder, that he illustrates with his character of Penny. Fragile teenager Penny Francone has been arrested for brutal and horrifying murder, covered in blood and with the murder weapon, in what appears to be a slam dunk of a case and placed in a locked ward at the Edgewater State Psychiatric Hospital. Penny is the adoptive daughter of Grace and Arthur, who have two sons, Jack and Ryan, a much wanted child after being found in mysterious circumstances, growing up in a loving and caring household.
Grace is doing what mothers so often do, feeling guilty, but she is the ultimate protective and determined mother, she believes her daughter is innocent, and nothing is going to stop her getting to the truth, aided by Dr Mitch McHugh, a man with issues of his own. However, this is going to bring danger, not to mention the fact that she faces a hostile public and threats to their livelihood. Are one of Penny's alters, such as Eve, Ruby or Chloe, responsible for the killing? Is Penny lying about her condition? Penny's unknown background includes a traumatic childhood with her drug addict mother as the reader is left reeling with twist after twist in this tale of deception, secrets, betrayal and lies.
This is complex, edgy, and multilayered storytelling, with stellar characterisations, particularly that of a Penny with her complicated and stressful mental health issues, and which explores with skill the legal processes and medical issues within the form of a tense and suspenseful psychological thriller. Highly recommended! Many thanks to St Martin's Press for an ARC.
Rating: really liked it
The Perfect Daughter is Daniel Palmer’s third domestic thriller using his D.J. Palmer pseudonym, and my (unpopular) opinion is that the third is a bit of a turd.
Harsh, I know, but I found it so hard to engage with the book that I didn’t want to pick it back up between sittings. I think I finished three others in the meantime! It could be that I started it on the heels of the 5-star psychotherapy memoir, Good Morning, Monster, which expertly dealt with a Dissociative Identity Disorder patient and her tragic childhood. So a thriller using a young girl with D.I.D. as the center of a murder investigation felt like changing the channel from PBS to Lifetime.
A cat is also tortured and killed. Not just referenced in passing, but several pages are dedicated to the end of the poor animal. I skimmed this part with one eye barely open and can’t fully attest to how graphic the description of the event is, but if animal abuse is a trigger for you: WARNING!!!
Clearly based on other early reviews I’m in the minority here, and another reason could simply be domestic thriller fatigue. I keep picking them up due to FOMO, but I need to listen to my gut that the MO isn't any worse than the FO. I'm finding the genre tired and increasingly unoriginal with each passing read, and The Perfect Daughter certainly didn't do anything to change my mind.
So with that, I’m officially putting myself on a one-year hiatus for any books formulaically-titled "The Adjective Family Member."
I received an advance copy to read and review from St. Martin’s Press via NetGalley. The Perfect Daughter is now available, and there’s a good chance you’ll enjoy it more than I did.
Blog: www.confettibookshelf.com
IG: @confettibookshelf
Rating: really liked it
***HAPPY PUBLICATION DAY TO THIS GREAT THRILLER***
This book checked all of the boxes for me!!!! Here we find the ultimate unreliable narrator in Penny, a young woman with DID (dissociative identity disorder). I was a little worried about how the author would incorporate a troubling, severe mental disorder into a mystery/thriller. I needn’t have worried. The author, having done exhaustive research, presented the disease in an empathetic and genuine way, showing how it is often mistreated, misunderstood and even ignored.
The blurb for this book is extensive and worth reading. The book opens with Penny’s mother, Grace, coming home to an empty house. Her husband Arthur, has passed away, her two sons are away at work and school and the family car is missing. She doesn’t know where Penny has gone and is just beginning to worry when the police arrive at her house. Penny has been arrested for a brutal murder.
Grace and Arthur adopted Penny when she was found abandoned in a park at a young age, her mother was a drug addict and her father not in the picture. They brought her into their family home and she was accepted by her brothers and things went well for a long time. It wasn’t until around ninth grade when other personalities began to emerge, Eve, Ruby and Chloe, those are the ones that are known.
The book is written at a fast pace as Grace races to find an attorney to represent Penny. She reaches out to an attorney whose card she recently received after a fender bender with her own car. Penny has been admitted to the state psychiatric hospital which is almost as bad as prison. The doors are locked, the patients all suffering from numerous illnesses can be heard crying, sometimes screaming, Penny’s room is gloomy and dark, guards are everywhere. There is a new doctor on staff, Dr. Mitch McHugh, who tries to understand whether Penny (here presenting as Eve) truly has DID or is a psychotic patient who is hiding behind this defense. He has his work cut out for him since Eve isn’t a very accommodating patient.
Grace is the consistent nurturing and loving mother who is as strong as steel inside. She will not let her daughter be locked away for a crime that she knows she didn’t commit. It’s how she goes about doing this that propels the story forward.
There is the mystery of who really murdered Penny’s birth mother, is she innocent or guilty? We aren’t sure really how it was done and whether there are others behind the scenes manipulating the way Penny is being treated and how her defense should be handled.
There are many secrets that will come out, from some of the least likely characters and the ending is a combination of WHAT??? DOES THIS REALLY MAKE SENSE???? THEN THE SOUND OF PUZZLE PIECES CLICKING INTO PLACE!!!
I highly recommend this mystery thriller and hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did.
I received an ARC of this novel from the publisher through Edelweiss.
Rating: really liked it
After Grace discovers a four-year old girl abandoned in a local park, she knows the little one is destined to be her daughter. Grace fights hard to foster the child and is ultimately able to adopt her.
Grace and her husband, Arthur, have two boys, Ryan and Jack, but Grace has always wanted a daughter. The mother-daughter relationship is just so special.
As it turns out, mothering this particular little girl, named Penny by her older brother, Jack, is more challenging than Grace initially anticipated.
Due to early childhood trauma, Penny has suffered a schism within her psyche, outwardly displayed as a case of Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID.
Once known as Multiple Personality Disorder, Grace and the rest of the family are slowly introduced to Penny's alters, Ruby, Chloe and Eve.
When Penny is accused of killing her birth mother, caught red-handed at the dead woman's apartment, Grace knows there has to be another explanation. Her sweet Penny would never be capable of such violence.
But would one of her alters be capable? Would Eve, the most aggressive and openly hostile, have committed such an atrocious act?
Penny gets arrested and is subsequently committed to Edgewater Psychiatric Hospital prior to her trial. It is there that she comes under the direct care of the perceptive, Dr. Mitch McHugh.
The Perfect Daughter is a fast-paced and intriguing Psychological Suspense novel. Palmer did a great job of keeping the tension high throughout the story.
I was constantly questioning who, or what to believe. I know that mental health can be a complicated topic to write about, but I never felt icky about this narrative. It felt like Palmer handled the topic with care, never demonizing Penny simply because she suffered from DID.
In signature Palmer style, this did get pretty wild towards the end, but it was a heck of a lot of fun to read.
He definitely has a brand and style he keeps returning to, and you know what, it works for me. It may be a little far-fetched, but it keeps me coming back every time!!!
The audiobook is fantastic, I highly recommend that medium, as the narrators truly sweep you up into the story!
Thank you so much to the publisher, St. Martin's Press and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies of this to read and review.
In my opinion, this is Palmer's best work yet, and I can't wait to see what he comes up with next!
Rating: really liked it
3.5 โญ A decent thriller/suspense that takes place in one of my fav book locations - an ominous mental institution.
And to my delight there were power-tripping guards, a doctor battling his own personal demons, and murderous patients wreaking havoc.
๐๐๐ญ๐ฉ๐๐๐ฃ ๐ฎ๐๐๐ง ๐ค๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐ฌ๐๐จ ๐๐ค๐ช๐ฃ๐ ๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ฃ๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ค๐ซ๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ค๐๐ฎ ๐ค๐ ๐จ๐ค๐ข๐๐ค๐ฃ๐ ๐๐ง๐ค๐ข ๐๐๐ง ๐ฅ๐๐จ๐ฉ, ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ฃ ๐๐ก๐ค๐ค๐ ๐ผ๐๐ฟ ๐๐ค๐ก๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ข๐ช๐ง๐๐๐ง ๐ฌ๐๐๐ฅ๐ค๐ฃ.
๐ฝ๐ช๐ฉ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฃ๐ฎ ๐จ๐ช๐๐๐๐ง๐จ ๐๐ง๐ค๐ข ๐๐ช๐ก๐ฉ๐๐ฅ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ง๐จ๐ค๐ฃ๐๐ก๐๐ฉ๐ฎ ๐ฟ๐๐จ๐ค๐ง๐๐๐ง ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐จ ๐จ๐๐ฃ๐ฉ ๐ฉ๐ค ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐ฎ๐๐๐๐๐ฉ๐ง๐๐ ๐๐ค๐จ๐ฅ๐๐ฉ๐๐ก ๐ฌ๐๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ฌ๐๐๐ฉ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐ง๐๐๐ก.
๐๐๐ง ๐ข๐ค๐ฉ๐๐๐ง ๐๐ง๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ก๐๐๐ซ๐๐จ ๐๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐ค ๐๐ ๐๐ฃ๐ฃ๐ค๐๐๐ฃ๐ฉ (๐ค๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐๐ฉ ๐ค๐ฃ๐ ๐ค๐ ๐๐๐ง '๐๐ก๐ฉ๐๐ง๐จ' ๐๐จ ๐ง๐๐จ๐ฅ๐ค๐ฃ๐จ๐๐๐ก๐ ๐๐ค๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ข๐ช๐ง๐๐๐ง) ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ฉ๐๐๐ข๐จ ๐ช๐ฅ ๐ฌ๐๐ฉ๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ฃ๐ฎ'๐จ ๐๐ค๐๐ฉ๐ค๐ง ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ก๐๐ฌ๐ฎ๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐ค ๐ช๐ฃ๐๐ค๐ซ๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ฉ๐ง๐ช๐ฉ๐.
What's stopping me from rounding up is that the characters aren't much more than cliches. (Penny's 'alter' Eve is constantly making not-funny, MEAN GIRL snarky one-liners and it was annoying enough that I was hoping she ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ be found guilty.)
Also, warning, a kitty cat is killed!
The Perfect Daughter is very twisty though and all loose ends are satisfyingly tied up by the end.
๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐๐ฆ๐ต๐๐ข๐ญ๐ญ๐ฆ๐บ ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฑ๐ถ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ณ ๐ง๐ฐ๐ณ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ฆ๐ข๐ณ๐ญ๐บ ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฑ๐บ.
๐๐ฆ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ข๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ต๐ฆ ๐๐ฑ๐ณ๐ช๐ญ 20
Rating: really liked it
I'm writing this review over hear in Outliers Land...*Waves* ๐
It appears that I am not nearly as enamored by this one as much as all of my other Goodreads friends. The Goodreads average rating for this is 4.45 stars and I'm over here like..."What you talkin' 'bout Willis, I mean, Goodreads?" ๐คฆโ๏ธ In fact from 50% on I really, really struggled.
* Unlikeable AND uninteresting characters - I don't mind unlikeable but you had better be interesting.๐
* Suspension of disbelief - the outrageous actions of some of the characters was too much. ๐คจ
* Repetitive, repetitive, repetitive. (See what I did there? ๐)
* Unnecessary side plots - who are you again and why do I care? ๐ค
* Ridiculous plot twist - Instead of the jaw drop I was hoping for ๐ฎ I got a case of the eye roll ๐.
* A useless epilogue that I had no interest in due to the said unnecessary side plot. ๐คทโ๏ธ
I did manage to finish this because I kept hoping at some point I was going to get my AHA moment but it never happened. At nearly 400 pages I feel like an editor should have really gone to town on this to tighten it up and even then I'm not so sure I would have enjoyed it. Oh well, can't win them all. 2 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for my digital ARC.
Rating: really liked it
3.5*Finding a Penny is supposed to be good luck…right!?๐๐ปโ
Grace and her husband were very content raising their two sons. Though Grace always longed for a daughter. When Grace and her son are out for a walk they come across a sad lost girl all alone in the park. No parents to claim her. Grace swoops in and suddenly has the daughter she always wanted. Renaming her Penny.
Only Grace may have gotten more than she bargained for.Grace’s new extended family are all settling in, until there are some behaviors that can’t explained . Out of character for Penny. In fact, so different than the sweet Penny they have all grown to love, that she is diagnosed with a multiple personality disorder.
When the police come knocking on Graces door to inform her of a murder.
Who is involved? Penny? Or one of her other personalities?I was immediately drawn into this book. Fabulous premise! And I loved the writing. But about mid book it became a bit repetitive and stalled somewhat.
Don’t give up! (And I’m glad I didn’t) because there are some amazing twists at the end!
This is the third book I’ve read and enjoyed from this author and am looking forward to more.
Posted to: https://books-are-a-girls-best-friend...
Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an ARC to read and review.
Rating: really liked it
My reviews can also be seen at: https://deesradreadsandreviews.wordpr...
4.5 Stars!!
A fascinating and wild read!! I’ve enjoyed D.J. Palmer’s previous novels. After reading the description for The Perfect Daughter, I was excited to get started.
When Grace Francone returns from her evening run and realizes that her sixteen-year-old daughter, Penny is gone, she isn’t all that concerned. However, she’s a bit annoyed that Penny didn’t leave a note and that she’d taken the car without asking for permission. Grace sends Penny a text but doesn’t receive a reply.
A little while later, Grace looks out her window and sees two police cars in her driveway, their red and blue lights flashing. Immediately she wonders if Penny has been in a car accident. She opens the door to two men who introduce themselves as Detective Jay Allio and Sergeant Brent Adams. They ask Grace if Penny Francone is her daughter.
“We came here to tell you that we’ve arrested her”. But what they say next shocks Grace even more…
“We believe she killed a woman.” Grace can’t believe what she is hearing. How could Penny be involved in something like this?
Grace is shaking as they tell her that Penny has told them that she can’t remember anything that happened. Then they tell her that Penny is calling herself by a different name from the one on her driver’s license. She says her name is Eve. They ask if it’s a nickname and Grace tells them it’s more complicated than that.
When Penny was very young she’d been found abandoned in a local park. Grace and her husband, Arthur brought her home, eventually adopting her. They were thrilled to have her as a part of their family. Penny had a few strange behaviours along with mood swings and gaps in her memory. But as she got older, her behaviour became more disturbing and she ended up in some trouble after an incident in the ninth grade. When the different “personalities” started to appear, they tried to get help for Penny with little results. Some psychiatrists even thought Penny was faking or putting on a show. But Grace believed in her daughter. There was no way that Penny could consistently fake such realistic personas…Right?
Now Penny is in serious trouble. Grace knows she needs to call someone who can help them.
Could Penny have really committed such a heinous act? Grace works with Penny’s doctor and lawyer to try and learn more about Penny’s past in hopes that they may find something that will help her case. But they may uncover much more than they expect when those secrets come to life.
Will Grace be able to save her daughter from life in prison? A thrilling medical and courtroom drama!! This was a clever and gripping novel that also has some fantastic twists.
We learn a lot about Penny’s mental health and her possible diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I’ve always found the subject of DID interesting. Back when I took psychology it was referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder and was commonly confused with Schizophrenia. Over the years, more has been made known about the disorder and I find it fascinating.
The plot was intriguing and I liked hearing the different perspectives from many of the characters throughout the novel.
The Perfect Daughter has some mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed it. It has suspense, medical drama, courtroom drama, family drama as well as some excellent twists! It was an exciting read for me and I flew through it in just a couple of sittings.
A gripping story about murder, mental illness, secrets, lies, and more!
I'd like to thank the publisher for providing me with a copy of this novel. All opinions are my own.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 starsThe Perfect Daughter tells the story of Grace, the mother of Penny who has 3 alters and has Dissociative Identity Disorder, DID. She has been framed for the murder of her mother since she was found covered in blood with the murder weapon in her hand. What follows is Grace and her family trying to prove that Penny has DID and if possible, her innocence. The story is told from 3 perspectives. Grace, Jack (her son), and Mitch (the psychologist at the hospital where Penny is kept till the trial).
A very interesting mystery kept me on the edge of my seat. I couldn’t put the book down at some parts. Discovering Penny’s hidden past was very fascinating to read about. The book started fast page, with the police arresting Penny from chapter 1 and didn’t slow down. Although I wish the second part was shorter, since some things got repetitive, I didn’t mind because I was invested in the story.
I am unfamiliar with DID so it was interesting to read about a character with this mental health problem. The amount of research that went into this book must have been great! But I wonder how much was used to fit the story because ultimately, it’s nothing that would happen in real life. Nevertheless, it was informative if anything to learn about DID (even if the author mentioned that some things were altered).
The characters were likable. I admired Grace’s fight to help her daughter and her devotion to her. She was a well-developed character and, in my opinion, the one that is best written: realistic, compassionate, flawed, but also full of love for all of her children fore and foremost.
I had a minor problem with Mitch. I didn’t think his backstory was important to the plot at all. His part was essential to the story, but I didn’t care much about his personal life. Maybe on its own, it would’ve been better, since I am interested in reading about parents of drug addicts as a part of a book. But maybe if it was Grace’s son (not that it would’ve worked here). The other thing is he was too much invested in helping Grace?? I found this unprofessional as I don’t believe psychologists working in public forensic hospitals, like another reviewer pointed out, work with the parents. It was obvious that the author was trying to keep Dr. Mitch “skeptical” all while believing in Penny’s DID. And he worked with Grace like they’re one team?? (Don’t worry no romance here, platonic relationship.) It was necessary for the plot yet not believable.
I was satisfied with the ending if a bit farfetched. At least the events were given a logical explanation, not that they would happen in the real world, but I was content with how was the story wrapped up.
Thanks to NetGalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: really liked it
Tbh I want to get away from one-star books because it's like, why do I torture myself? But I finished this because I was interested to see how DID was presented and I plan on reading another book that tackles the same topic, so I wanted something to compare it to.
SYNOPSIS 17-year-old Penny is about to go on trial for the brutal murder of her mother, Rachel Boyd—but is Penny truly responsible, or is it one of her DID alters? Racing against the clock, her adopted mother Grace and her brother Jack, try to figure out if Penny is the greatest actress alive, or her DID is to blame.
MY OPINION L M F A O. Right away I knew the writing was ass so my only hope was a bomb ass plot. Unfortunately there was no plot to be located. Here's some examples of the asstastic/strange writing:
After her bath, Penny came downstairs damp, still wearing her bathrobe, nose in a Harry Potter book. She was entering adolescence and all that came with it—new places for hair, menstruation, buds for breasts. She was reading book four in the series, The Goblet of Fire." HOLD TF UP LMAOOO did the editor accidentally paste that sentence about adolescence in there... what is the correlation between breast buds and Harry Potter? And why was this told from the mom's POV.
As she layered pizza sauce on dough, she layered the guilt on herself. BOOOOOOO ๐
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It was Penny's that occupied an outsized portion of his gray matter. lmaoo writing gray matter instead of brain is giving me "must reach page minimum on this essay" vibes
Grace didn't have a purse with her, so she had to resort to using stiff cafeteria napkins to dab her eyes dry. I mean....??? why
...Grace had handwritten important details. Clues, Annie called them. Apparently good ole Gracey has never heard of clues. Amazing.
Beyond the bad closed caption ass writing, here are my other complaints:
1. Worst psychiatrist known to mankind (filming a patient with his personal iPhone... pls). I also did not care about his backstory because it had nothing to do with the plot. This story was supposed to explore the controversy around DID but instead we had Mitch complaining about how he wished his son tried harder to not be addicted to heroin.
2. The Francone family possessed a collective IQ of a wet fart. Sooo apparently they've been preparing 1.5 yrs for this trial but two weeks before it all pops off, Jack is like PAUSE what if we look into the victim's background and see why Penny would want to kill her? I rolled my eyes so hard they almost popped out of my head. According to Jack, Rachel "had never been a priority until this moment." So what in susmaryosep have you been doing for the past 1.5 yrs??? How is establishing a motive not the #1 priority on your list??
3. I'm also just mad confused as to why this story was told from the POV of Jack? I guess he was there to provide background or whatever but the author could've done that with a series of flashbacks told by a third-person omniscient narrator.
4. The dialogue was extremely stiff and awkward. Tons of spoon feeding passed off as conversations between characters.
Just a weird ass, illogical story with dumb characters. This is a cool premise but the execution was like Michael Scott's school for tots.
PROS AND CONS Pros: I finished my first book featuring a character with DID
Cons: writing, characters, plot execution, ending, existence
