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A review by mbenzz
This Perfect Day by Ira Levin
3.0
I was all over the place with this book. In the beginning, I was completely into it, then I became bored, then I was annoyed, and almost DNF'd it, but I really wanted to see how it ended, so I kept at it. Then it got exciting again! Then it felt all over the place and left me with no closure.
What happened to the world? What happened to the Family? How did people cope? What happened to Chip and Lilac and Jan and Julia? To Kyle? We never find out.
I didn't hate the book, but I didn't love it. Chip is not the most likable guy out there, and reading almost 400 pages of his thoughts became tiresome.
I will say, what I thought was most inappropriate about this story was NOT the infamous rape scene. That I actually understood. Mr. Levin had just spent more than half of the book telling us how members of the Family have a completely different attitude toward sex than we do. To them, it's no big deal. They're all so drugged that it really doesn't register as more than a way to pass the time, so I understood why Lilac forgave him so easily after the fact (as she was still under the influence of her meds) and why Chip felt so bad about it afterward (because he was not and understood the what he had done). It really just wasn't that big a deal to her. Now, in OUR lives and OUR society, yes, it's a VERY big deal. But most of us don't have different sexual partners every single week and have sex only on Saturdays because we're told to.
We also don't encourage our children of 12 and 13 years old to have as much sex as they want with as many different partners whenever they want. THAT, I had a problem with. There was no reason for it. Why make them so young? Why not introduce them to sex at 15 or 16 at the earliest?
Anyway, that was my only gripe.
I'm glad I finally read this, as it's been on my TBR list for years, but I didn't love it nearly as much as I thought I would. 'The Stepford Wives' is one of my favorite books, but I think this one just went on a little longer than my interest could stand.
What happened to the world? What happened to the Family? How did people cope? What happened to Chip and Lilac and Jan and Julia? To Kyle? We never find out.
I didn't hate the book, but I didn't love it. Chip is not the most likable guy out there, and reading almost 400 pages of his thoughts became tiresome.
I will say, what I thought was most inappropriate about this story was NOT the infamous rape scene. That I actually understood. Mr. Levin had just spent more than half of the book telling us how members of the Family have a completely different attitude toward sex than we do. To them, it's no big deal. They're all so drugged that it really doesn't register as more than a way to pass the time, so I understood why Lilac forgave him so easily after the fact (as she was still under the influence of her meds) and why Chip felt so bad about it afterward (because he was not and understood the what he had done). It really just wasn't that big a deal to her. Now, in OUR lives and OUR society, yes, it's a VERY big deal. But most of us don't have different sexual partners every single week and have sex only on Saturdays because we're told to.
We also don't encourage our children of 12 and 13 years old to have as much sex as they want with as many different partners whenever they want. THAT, I had a problem with. There was no reason for it. Why make them so young? Why not introduce them to sex at 15 or 16 at the earliest?
Anyway, that was my only gripe.
I'm glad I finally read this, as it's been on my TBR list for years, but I didn't love it nearly as much as I thought I would. 'The Stepford Wives' is one of my favorite books, but I think this one just went on a little longer than my interest could stand.