This book was okay for me. It was entertaining, but I became a little frustrated with Kate's low self-esteem, her dad's childish behavior and her mother's acceptance of it, risking her family's security.

Surprising to me, one of my favorite character's was will, Kate's love interest. I really liked his personality, better than Kate's.

Overall this book was okay. I didn't mind reading it and it did keep my interest. It was fast reading, though the issues, not so lighthearted.

Another surprise, the grandma, who's made out to be sort of monstrous, was indeed not a great person, but she was right on the money with her thoughts about her daughter's choices and the loser husband she picked and stayed with.

I absolutely fell in love with this book. It was so cute and heart felt and funny.

Okay, the narrator of this story, Kate Brown has been having a sucky year. Her best friend got a new look and dumped her for new friends, popularity, and a hot boyfriend. Her brother is moving back in, and then her dad quits his job to sell Perfect You vitamins and her sassy tongued grandmother comes to live with them indefinitely. And to top it all off, Will Miller, the "King of hook-ups", takes an interest in her and starts to talk to her. Kate acts like she hates the guy but she actually has a crush on him, but is too stubborn to admit it.

Then later in the book, her parents' relationship is strained, her ex-best friend is talking to her again, but is she really trying to be friends again? AND then Will asks her out, and she doesn't know what to believe anymore.

Anyways, this book was about how changes can be a good experience for you and that it won't necessarily ruin your life.

Elizabeth Scott's second novel is just as poignant and addictive to read as her well-reviewed debut, BLOOM --- perhaps even more so. In the year since BLOOM's publication, Scott has clearly honed her skills, crafting a tighter story that fluently captures the anxieties of talking to (let alone trusting) a first crush, the self-deprecation and anguish of losing a best friend, and the bemusement that comes with having to parent...your parents.

But what does all of this have to do with vitamins?

It all started when Kate's father quit his job at a prestigious software company because his desk had broken in half. He figured it was a sign. Not even a month later, he cashed in his retirement fund to purchase boxes full of infomercial vitamins called "Perfect You." His plan? To buy a booth at the mall and sell them to anyone who would take the bait --- with Kate's help, of course.

So instead of going to parties with her friends and cheering for her boyfriend on the basketball team, Kate is stuck trying to hide her mortification when her father wears his B-Buzz vitamin bee costume during her shift, or worse yet, when he gets thrown out of the Sports Shack for pushing vitamins on their customers. But wait. Kate doesn't have a boyfriend. Nor does she have any friends aside from the three Jennifers who are so busy competing to be each other's best friend that they barely notice her.

Granted, Kate's life hadn't always been so terrible. Prior to her sophomore year, she spent every waking second with her best friend, Anna, who never seemed to care what anyone else thought --- at least not until hunky Sam, the boy Anna had been in love with for forever, called her a "wide load."

After that, everything changed. Anna came back from her summer in Maine, determined to be a different person. She was blonde, 70 pounds thinner and suddenly popular, which, of course, meant No More Kate. So for the first few months of 10th grade, Kate spends every day alone --- that is, until Sam's cute friend, Will, kisses her behind the dumpsters at the mall.

In the chapters that follow, Kate bumbles through a series of crushing setbacks (Anna delivers one too many blows to her dwindling self-worth, her parents separate due to her father's seemingly endless mid-life crisis, Will asks her out on a date --- to humiliate her?) before ultimately crumbling in defeat.

But, as those who liked Scott's first novel are aware, Kate's story is far from over despite the trauma she has endured, and readers will breeze through the last few chapters with genuine pleasure.

PERFECT YOU has just the right combination of humor, charm and weight to satisfy old fans and win over new ones. Its rich characters --- especially haughty but wise Grandma --- are brimming with quirky idiosyncrasies meant to both irritate and please. Like in BLOOM, Scott navigates familial dysfunction and teen melodrama with aplomb, and teens will eat up what develops when Kate and Will finally "get real" at the end.

--- Reviewed by Alexis Burling

Perfect You is the story of a high school sophomore whose life slides rapidly downhill when her father quits his 9-5 job to chase his dream of selling vitamins at the mall, she's forced to work for him, her best friend stops talking to her, and her grandmother moves in with the family to help out financially.

The narrator is not just snarky but truly bitter at times, but it's easy to see why she's so and it's balanced by her vulnerability where her former best friend (fat girl gone mean girl) is concerned. The ending felt slightly rushed and the romance tests belief at times, but there were some great lines and I liked how the various storylines were dealt with in a believable and satisfying manner.

When i first started reading this book i wasn't sure if i would like it. It just looked like a book of a girl who hated her life and maybe that would change toward the end. But as i got further into the book i realized that i couldn't bring myself to put it down and ended up reading it in one night.
This is a good, slightly frustrating book with a somewhat predictable ending but good overall.

Kate Brown is having a rough year. Her dad decided to quit his job to sell Prefect You infomercial vitamins in the mall, her best friend is too popular to talk to her and Will won't leave her alone. Put all of that together and you have a lethal combination. Kate is struggling with having to work in the mall, for free, with her dad who loves to embarass her. Then, there's also the fact that she can't stop thinking about Will, even though he's out of her league. She also has a college graduate brother that still lives at home and can't get a real job. Can Kate handle what's happening to her family? Can she handle not having a best friend anymore? Or better yet, can she forget about Will?

With Kate's vivid, swanky attitude and Will's charming wit, this book is defintaly a hit. With each turning page, you will see style and grace in Elizabeth Scott's writing. You feel for Kate as she goes through the trials and tribulations of teen years. You will cry with her as her family starts to fall apart, as well as the relationship with her best friend, Anna. You will root for her to overcome and wish she could have her best friend at her side. And eventually you will figure out Will's intentions. This book is well written and a must read.

[...]

What a great read! This was my first time reading Elizabeth Scott and she will definitely be an author I will continue to read! Perfect You was an insightful look into a teenage girls life, Kate's confusion over her lost friendship is beyond believable. You see that happen all the time in high school. I guess I was lucky I moved in the fifth grade and didn't have to experience losing my childhood friends, although at the time I didn't see it that way. The supporting characters and the back ground story, was something that I think I actually enjoyed the most. I love when a story goes beyond focusing on the main character, sometimes the background characters are what make a story seem real. I was happy to see that in the end Kate learned to give people a chance and not always assume the worst.

Kate's sophomore year hasn't been the best so far. Her only close friend has stopped speaking her after she lost 90 pounds and made friends with the popular crowd. Her father quits his job to sell cheesy, overpriced vitamins, and money is so tight that her wealthy nightmare of a grandmother moves in, causing even more tension at home.

Her whole life seems to be falling apart around her, but strangely enough, obnoxious Will Miller seems to be paying quite a lot of attention to Kate. But is he looking for an actual relationship or just another meaningless hook-up for which he is notorious for?

Here is a novel full of loyalty, laughter, anger, and tears. Every sort of insecure feeling that you've ever felt is artfully channeled through Perfect You in such a way that each and every reader can make an instant connection with Kate. Her fears, hopes, and expectations are tangible and are those that you can easily empathize with, making her triumphs over each insecurity all the more satisfying. Scott's portrayal of first love is confusing, exhilarating, and refreshing, and readers will delight in the verbal sparring between Kate and Will as they try to find a happy medium. This is the type of novel that will cause you to smile just as quickly as it will make you sad. Wholesome and substantial, Perfect You is as real as it gets.

PERFECT YOU by Elizabeth Scott is the perfect book. When I started reading I wondered how I could ever relate to Kate, whose life was spinning out of control when her Dad quit his job to try and sell vitamins in a mall. As her life crumbles and evaporates- her best friend no longer speaks to her, her family is dysfunctional at best, her home is slipping away- she is beset with doubts and pursued by a guy who might just be a player. During this collapse of all she held near and dear - we begin to see her strength. She is afraid of living her life as it has become and she longs for normalcy- and instead gains such an insight into herself and her friends that we have to rejoice. The ending is clever and a gifted concept. I truly loved this book. It is well written and funny and quirky. I feel we, the reader, should learn something about ourselves, our relationships and the realities of life from every book we read. This book delivers. Yes I cried, my friends know I do that a lot, I laughed, and I thought of how I can be a better friend and eventually a better girlfriend. There is not a word of this book I would have changed and I highly recommend it.

This book was very hard for me to get into and while the two other Elizabeth Scott books I've read (Bloom and Stealing Heaven) were hard for me to put down, I felt that with Perfect You the only way I was ever going to finish was by sitting and reading the entire thing from start to finish. It wasn't until I was 3/4s of the way into the book that I was really invested into the plot and the characters. A good book shouldn't be that way.

The dialogue in all of Scott's books are well written and true to how teens would speak, Perfect You was spot on on this one as well.

I loved the realistic ending to this book and I wish there was just a little more for us.

After finding his office destroyed (though there is never any explanation as to why it had been destroyed), Kate's father quits his job to follow his dream. And that dream is to sell Perfect You vitamins. At a stand in the middle of the mall. Could life get any worse?

For Kate, it can, and it does. Her best friend, Anna, will no longer speak to her. After spending the summer in Maine, Anna has come back gorgeous and is welcomed into the popular crowd. Anna snubs Kate in school, but in private strings her along, telling her that she knows Kate will always be there for her.

To add insult to injury, Kate learns that her mother has invited her grandmother to move in with them. Kate's grandmother has money, and Kate's family is now hurting financially due to her father's crazy dream.

And then there's Will. If everything else didn't already have Kate wound up, Will alone could've done that. Kate keeps pushing Will away before Will has the chance to mess with Kate's head.

During her sophomore year of high school, Kate has more than any 16-year-old should have to handle. PERFECT YOU is a story of one girl's struggle to fit in to a world that keeps changing. All Kate wants is the staid life she has come to know and expect. But no one else seems to realize that's the way it should be.

I have to admit that I was going to give this a 4 star rating. Kate was a bit annoying and constantly pushing people away. But the last fifty pages of the story changed my mind. Kate finally learned to stand up for herself and fight for what she wanted. Her grandmother and her brother finally made Kate realize that she was the one holding herself back.

If you are looking for a feel-good, easy teen novel, this is not the book for you. Ms. Scott writes a shockingly realistic look at how brutal life in high school can be. The story flows quickly and you do get caught up in the characters in the book. There are happy moments in the story, which I don't want to spoil, and you do want the best for Kate in the end. It takes Kate a while to come to terms with the changes in her life, but she does come out okay on the other side.

Reviewed by: Jaglvr

Kate's life has never been perfect, but it used to be fairly okay: She grew up with a best friend, Anna, who knew everything about her, and vice-versa. She had a roof over her head, two parents with stable jobs, and no big conflicts with her older brother. She got decent grades in school and had a decent freshman year.

But now she's a sophomore, and Kate's life is so far from perfect that it's in another state. When Anna came back from her summer vacation, she looked like a different person. Newly thin and blonde, Anna starts hanging out with the popular crowd at school and stops speaking to Kate. Kate's father abruptly quit his job to sell Perfect You infomercial vitamins in a booth at the local mall. Kate is expected to work there after school, and she doesn't get paid for it. In fact, sometimes, she's the only person manning the booth, as her father is prone to wander off to play video games or solicit customers from other stores. Due to her less-than-stellar driving tests, Kate isn't allowed to get a car yet, so she has to rely on her family members to cart her around. Her brother obtained a college degree, then moved back home. Instead of actually getting a job, he sits on the couch and decides he wants to be an actor. Of course, he changes his dream job as often as he changes his socks, so Kate doubts he's serious. To top it all off, a guy at school named Will with a reputation for flirting and leading girls on keeps bugging her.

Kate is conflicted, to say the least. Her first-person narration relates her ups-and-downs with Will, Anna, and her family members. She doesn't want to admit that she likes Will and she certainly doesn't want to get hurt, but she starts to see him anyway. She restricts their time together to mall breaks, not wanting people at school to know about them, and she refuses to let things become serious. She doesn't even know if Will honestly likes her or is just using her like he's used all of the other girls, and she pretends as though she doesn't care either way. She desperately wants to repair her friendship with Anna but isn't sure what it will take to do that. Kate is mortified by her father's antics at the mall, but she suffers these little indignities quietly, not wanting to stir up trouble. She can sense that her parents' relationship, once fun-loving, is starting to get strained. Kate's maternal grandmother comes to visit and ends up staying indefinitely. After taking a second job to make ends meet, Kate's mother is stressed enough, and the addition of her own mother to the household only causes more problems.

Sometimes, all it takes is a good or bad conversation, even one that's ten seconds long, to change your mind and your feelings. Elizabeth Scott (Bloom) writes dialogue that sounds very true to life and very true to teens - remarkably, with minimal swearing and slang. A quick exchange of words with Anna and Kate thinks they are friends again, then a blatant snub in the hallway makes her heart sink. It's hard to have a friend "outgrow" you or otherwise leave you behind. I like that they drifted apart due to their own changes (well, Anna wanting something more and changing herself) rather than being torn apart by some devastating, earth-shattering event. Nevertheless, it still felt devastating to Kate.

By the end of the book, things in Kate's home have changed yet again, and her relationships with Anna and Will are totally different than they were at the beginning of the school year. Kate has to decide whether to hang on or move on.