Perfect Days

Perfect Days: A Novel by Raphael Montes
Published by Penguin Press on February 16th 2016
Pages: 272
Format: eBook, Kindle Book
Source: NetGalley & Penguin Press

A twisted young medical student kidnaps the girl of his dreams and embarks on a dark and delirious road trip across Brazil in the English-language debut of Brazil's most celebrated young crime writer.   Teo Avelar is a loner. He lives with his paraplegic mother and her dog in Rio de Janeiro, he doesn't have many friends, and the only time he feels honest human emotion is in the presence of his medical school cadaver—that is, until he meets Clarice. She's almost his exact opposite: exotic, spontaneous, unafraid to speak her mind. An aspiring screenwriter, she's working on a screenplay called Perfect Days about three friends who go on a road trip across Brazil in search of romance. Teo is obsessed. He begins to stalk her, first following her to her university, then to her home, and when she ultimately rejects him, he kidnaps her and they embark upon their very own twisted odyssey across Brazil, tracing the same route outlined in her screenplay. Through it all, Teo is certain that time is all he needs to prove to Clarice that they are made for each other, that time is all he needs to make her fall in love with him. But as the journey progresses, he digs himself deeper and deeper into a pit that he can't get out of, stopping at nothing to ensure that no one gets in the way of their life together. Both tense and lurid, and brimming with suspense from the very first page, Perfect Days is a psychological thriller in the vein of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley—a chilling journey in the passenger seat with a psychopath, and the English language debut of one of Brazil's most deliciously dark young writers.

**Special thanks to NetGalley & Penguin Press for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**

Perfect Days is one of the books I find hard to review. The reason for this is that I have contradicting feelings about it. To start with, this is a dark psychological thriller. It’s the English language debut of the Brazilian author Raphael Montes. It reminded me at first of the thriller “You” by Caroline Kepnes. Actually I loved “You” so I was very intrigued to read Perfect Days.

The thriller is about Teo Avelar, a twisted medical student. The thriller has a very powerful start. It starts with Teo attending his class as a very normal medical student. The reader would surely find nothing weird about Teo at this moment. Few lines later we get to know Teo’s best friend. To our horror, she’s the corpse of a sixty something lady. Teo is kind of loner who feels relaxed away from people. However, he attends a party where he meets Clarice. Clarice is exactly his opposite. She’s an aspiring young writer. He’s tall, she’s short. He is a loner. She is a very daring and outgoing person who just speaks her mind out. She is scared of nothing and stopped by nothing. As they say, opposites attract, so Teo is attracted to Clarice. As Clarice hurries to leave the party, she lays a hasty kiss on Teo’s cheek. Teo considers this an invitation from Clarice and a key to what she feels towards him. For the following days, he can think of nothing other than Clarice. He manages to get her mobile number in the party and needs to make sure the party is not the last opportunity for them to meet. He stalks her and goes everywhere she goes. To his luck he manages to save her when she leaves a nightclub at 3:00 am in a miserable state. He takes her to her home and meets her mother who inquires who Teo was. Clarice feeling dizzy and desperate to close any discussions with her mother tells her that Teo is her boyfriend. From here, a new stage starts in their relation. Teo won’t go back, and when the following day Clarice rejects him, he abducts her. The thriller starts from this point as Teo takes Clarice on a very dark psychological journey.

I love psychological thrillers in general. Perfect Days is one of them. It’s well written as Raphael has a very interesting style. The pace is perfect also. It starts steady and speeds up right when you need it to speed. However I was very confused how to rate it. It can be rated from two perspectives.

The first perspective is to rate it as a psychological thriller. From this perspective I find it good but with some drawbacks. It’s very dark and I was annoyed by some details that didn’t convince me. For example, Teo always had with him any amounts of needed medications at any time. He can suddenly use some medications even if the author had mentioned earlier that only one shot remained – not convincing to me. Teo also manages to go unnoticed with some actions though you know quite well there is no way such things can go unnoticed – not convincing to me. I just don’t want to spoil the thriller for you so I can’t give more examples.

From a metaphoric perspective, I find this book wonderful. It kept me thinking about what “truth” meant. When people believe Teo’s lies, the lies become the truth. And I don’t really know whether they believe him because he is good at lying or because it’s much easier to believe him. The truth is sometimes too ugly to believe. It’s like believing the lies is the only way to have “Perfect Days”. From a metaphoric point of view, this is what happens in our daily lives. Don’t we believe what the media want us to believe? No matter how smart we are, the truth concept is very difficult. After all, who knows the complete truth? Just like some people in the thriller believed what Teo wanted them to believe. Don’t we sometimes have different versions and perspectives of the truth? Actually the book has very mind provoking thoughts regarding the truth concept.

Well, finally I had to rate the book. I chose to rate it from the thriller perspective as it’s after all classified as a thriller. In general, it’s a good thriller. If you are into psychological thrillers you will enjoy it. Just take care: A dark thriller ahead.