The Perfect Couple by Jacke Kabler was recommended to me by my partner after she finished the last 50 pages of it in under an hour one sunny weekend a couple of weeks ago. She said it was filled with twists and kept her gripped throughout. But do I feel the same way?
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The Perfect Couple focuses on Gemma and the disappearance of her husband. One night he doesn’t come home when she thinks he will, he then doesn’t come home the following day either and soon she starts to worry. When she reports this to the police certain evidence comes out that starts to make it look like Gemma isn’t telling them everything they need to know.
Plot – 3.5/5
The plot for The Perfect Couple is as above. It’s a story where Gemma has reported her husband missing and essentially the police keep finding evidence that suggests she may well be the reason he’s missing. Also, in tandem, men have been killed who look a heck of a lot like her husband, making it even more suss.
Each chapter is essentially 90% of generic plot with not a lot happening (people making drinks, having conversations about what’s already happened etc) and then 10% was a sudden twist that speeds up the plot all of a sudden, shoving us closer to a possible conclusion.
At times, as I mentioned above, the pages are unfortunately filled with well.. filler. There were far too many times where either the police or Gemma herself kept running over what had happened either as an internal monologue or as a way of seeing if they’d missed any evidence.
Now, don’t get me wrong – it had me fairly hooked. It kept me guessing right until the end and only because I was theorising all possible conclusions did I actually manage to guess the finale, however, if I hadn’t, it is done quite well – it’s not obvious from early on what the result is going to be.
Characters – 3/5
I often say that characters can make or break a book. In The Perfect Couple, I simply didn’t really notice them. Gemma was fine as the main character – she spent nearly the whole book upset (understandably as her husband is missing) and so we didn’t really get to see any other aspects of her personality.
Kabler tried to add some background to the characters, especially the police officers involved in the case – some of them have recently come out of a relationship and others have a solid home life. But this doesn’t really help us build a better understanding of them as people.
The Perfect Couple by Jackie Kabler overall staus – 3/5
The Perfect Couple spent a lot of its time reciting the facts and events we’d already found out and then dropping a quick twist on us at the end of each chapter. I’ll admit the twist at the end was good but dragged out and the rest of the book just felt very formulaic. The Perfect Couple is an easy read but not one that’ll blow you away.
