Amaterasu Reads: Review: Perfectly Invisible by Kristen Billerbeck

Perfectly Invisible is the 2nd book in the Universally Misunderstood series. I have not read the first book, but I have to say that for a second book, it is still pretty easy to understand even without reading the first one.

Title: Perfectly Invisible by Kristen Billerbeck
Pages: 266
Release Date: July 1st 2011
Published by: Baker Publishing Group
Source: Publisher (thanks Donna!)
Buy: Amazon | Book Depository

Summary (from Goodreads):

Life after high school is so close . . . and yet so very far away.

It's Daisy Crispin's final semester of high school, and she plans to make it count. Her long-awaited freedom is mere months away, and her big plans for college loom in the future. Everything is under control.

Or is it?

Her boyfriend is treating her like she's invisible, and her best friend is making her sell bad costume jewelry in the school quad—and hanging out with her boyfriend. To top it off, Daisy's major humiliation of the year will be remembered in the yearbook for all eternity. It's enough to make her wonder if maybe being invisible isn't so bad after all.

Can Daisy get her life back on track? Or is she stuck in this town forever?

Kristen Billerbeck has created a very entertaining female lead in Daisy, with her sharp wit and smarts as she navigates high school in a school filled with rich people, with Daisy wearing homemade clothes and is, well, on a league of her own for being the poor kid who hangs out with the beautiful, the popular and the wealthy.

I might be missing a few details because of the previous book, but Perfectly Invisible is a good read on itself. Daisy is a character with a life that teens today can relate to. Navigating through adolescence can be a tough, confusing time and Daisy feels just that. She's a perfectionist who is bent on getting what she wants, and she had to learn the hard way that sometimes The One up there has plans for us, sometimes we might not understand it, but if we want something to happen, we got to take hold of our lives and do what we can to fulfill our dreams.

Bullying is also a topic discussed in this book. Again, you can see how harshly people treat other people based on what they have and what they don't. Daisy has first hand experience on bullying and for her to be able to get through that horrible part of her high school life and think of the good things that happened instead, she earns my respect. One other part that I enjoyed in this book is how amused I was to see Daisy rationalizing her love life, writing her thoughts in her trusted diary. She agonized through a lot of moments trying to decode Max and his actions. Members of the opposite sex, why can't you just say when you like a girl or not? But to give Max the benefit of the doubt, he does not want to commit to anything to Daisy because he was pursuing his dream of being a pastor, but in his home country, Argentina.

Perfectly Invisible is a lot to take in on one sitting. It tackles issues within a family, friendships, relationships, love and its many forms, humility, of being contented of what we have and be grateful for it, of being brave enough to want something and do all you can to get it, and for standing up, head held high, despite all the bad things you are going through.

Over-all, Perfectly Invisible is a good novel. Once in a while we need to be reminded of things we should be grateful for by The One up there, and it humbles me to read books like this.

I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

My rating

Content (plot, story flow, character):