The Perfect Ones by Nicole Hackett
The Perfect Ones: A Thriller
Mystery
Crooked Lane Books
May 2, 2023
eBook, Hardcover, Audio
256
A picture-perfect trip goes horribly wrong in this fast-paced exploration of friendship and the dark side of social media, perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Andrea Bartz.
Everyone wants to be them, but internet fame comes at a price…
Two days after arriving in Iceland for a promotional trip, Instagram influencer Alabama Wood goes missing. With no leads, the Icelandic police start their investigation by focusing on the two influencers seemingly closest to Alabama on the trip: Celeste Reed, Alabama’s best friend of ten years, and Hollie Goodwin, fitness guru and Alabama's unwilling idol.
Celeste and Alabama have grown apart recently because Celeste has been too distracted by her five-year-old’s behavioral issues and her husband’s refusal to admit that there’s a problem. What Celeste doesn’t tell them is how she has been coping with these worries and how it involves Alabama in ways no one would guess.
On the outside, Hollie appears to have everything—the husband, the body, and over one million Instagram followers. In reality, however, Hollie came to Iceland to escape the implosion of her life behind the screen. The only person who suspected something amiss behind Hollie’s precisely filtered pictures is Alabama.
As secrets are revealed and loyalties are tested, debut author Nicole Hackett asks: do we control our online image, or does it control us?
In the last few months I have discovered that there is room in my heart for more than just romance novels and have been diving head first into mystery/thrillers. I was ecstatic that Queen Bee delivered The Perfect Ones by Nicole Hackett while I found myself in one of the biggest book slumps of my life. As it turns out an audiobook filled with girl drama was just what I needed.
The heart of this story is about women who have found themselves in the public eye through social media influencing, and the pressure that falls on them to maintain the image that their followers have come to expect. I know this may be shocking to hear, but not everything you see on the internet is real, this was a hard reality I had to learn at an early age thanks to AOL chat rooms. When we peek behind the Instagram filters it turns out that there are real people with real problems behind the glamorous posts. First, we have Hollie, a fitness influencer with millions of followers who is struggling to maintain not only the routines she is known for but the appearance of someone with a well-maintained diet and fitness plan. Celeste is a lifestyle influencer who is trying to maintain the well-groomed appearance of the do-it-all mom, while dealing with the new realization that her daughter may be on the spectrum and require additional help. And then we have Alabama, the influencer friend that wants so bad to find her big break that she is willing to jump on any trend, or piggy-back off anyone’s career to get there.
The three women have been invited on a brand trip to Iceland with other influencers to get some well-manicured shots of products on glaciers and of course content for their own personal IG stories.
We are shown different timelines so that we are able to see the women’s lives prior to the trip. While it’s always hard to relate to people who are given money, products and “Fame” for posting online, Nicole Hackett really dives into what the pressure that trying to maintain that life can do to someone. For some it can lead to disordered eating, others it can lead to being in denial about a child’s diagnosis because it strays from the “perfect” appearance, and for some, it can even lead to death.
While on the trip we see the women finally confront their demons, which leads to some heated exchanges. Alabama is the
influencer who most wants a platform and is struggling to find her “thing” that will make her stand-out and finally get the number of followers she thinks she deserves. Her best bet is to hitch her wagon to Hollie and her millions of followers, but in an attempt to become her new BFFL she instead forces Hollie to her breaking point that causes her perfect façade to come crumbling down. The next morning, one of the influencers has gone missing and no one knows who or what to believe.
When we shift to the “after” timelines we are shown broken women dealing with a traumatic experience, who have to decide how they will move forward not only in real life, but online as well. Will they go back to their picture-perfect online lives or will they allow reality to become a higher priority?
As a new audiobook convert I am very picky about narrators and I was so happy with the performances from Patricia Santomasso, Jess Nahikian, Elise Arsenault. They were able to capture the personalities of each character so well, and I was able to distinguish whose POV we were in with little effort.
As far as the story goes, I will say that this didn’t read as a mystery/thriller as much as a drama, there was less emphasis put on the disappearance and following events than there was on the women’s lives prior to the trip. While I was able to guess the ending, which doesn’t normally bother me, the reasoning behind what happened felt very disconnected to what we know of the characters. But even with those points, I still enjoyed the flow of the story and felt invested in each of their lives. As a mom and semi-regular bookstagrammer I was able to relate to some of their frustrations which made them seem more realistic.
Nicole Hackett’s debut “The Perfect Ones” has definitely put her on my list of authors to watch for. Congratulations on a successful first release!
Amanda is a proud Alaskan who now resides in District 10 with her husband and 2 kids. As a full-time working mom, her time to read is precious and she uses it to devour as many books as possible. While romance in all it’s forms is her go-to, she has recently developed a love of thriller/mysteries and is so excited to explore a whole new genre!
