My rating: 3.5/5 stars

Picture Perfect tells the story of Cassie Barret, a university anthropologist who is married to one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Alex Rivers. From the outside, their relationship looks ‘picture perfect’ but in reality, their marriage is a terrible cycle of violence and denial.

Trigger Warning: this book deals heavily with the topic of Domestic Abuse. It’s not covered in just a few chapters, it’s almost the entire book – which can make it an uncomfortable and disturbing read at times. If you were to stop this book at 200 pages in, you might even get frustrated at the sometimes sympathizing portrayal of an abusive character. However, if you read it in its entirety, you realize Picoult does an excellent job of portraying, the time, strength, internal turmoil and will power it can take for victims to come to terms with the fact they are in love with an abuser and the realization that they can/need to leave them. 

Picoult’s writing is beautiful, moving and puts you right in the shoes of her characters – because of this and coupled with this particular story, ‘Picture Perfect’ can make for quite the exhaustive read. Definitely not a light-hearted book (do not be deceived by the cover) but a very engaging one to say the least.