When Emma Jean Peace, a mother of six boys, gives birth to another boy in 1940 she decides to tell everyone the child is a boy which she names Perfect. For the first eight years of his life Perfect is raised as a girl but after his eighth birthday Emma Jean tells him the truth. Emma Jean's husband Gus rechristens Perfect, Paul and he must now learn how to be a boy. Emma Jean's decisions affects more than just Paul but the entire Peace family and the residents of their black community in the rural south of the 1940s and 1950s. Daniel Black crafts a tale of the ways in which people are shaped by their families for better or for worse. Every decision has unintended consequences even those done out of love. Black explores gender, religion, sexual orientation among other issues but ultimately Perfect Peace is about family. Black does a successful job at crafting an entire town full of interesting characters. Readers may not like the decisions the characters make but they at least come to understand why those decisions are made. Black knows exactly how to tell a story and he knows how to immerse his readers into the world of the Jim Crow rural south of the 1940s and 1950s. This book was very well written and i loved the story line, it was different from any book that i have read. The story is about a woman who wanted a little girl so bad that when she became pregnant with her 7th child she told every one it was a girl whom she named "Perfect", So basically the story follows "perfect" as she grows up, until her mom tells her that she really was a boy, and "Perfect's" world is turned upside down. Her new name was Paul and she must now learn how to live as a boy... I would definitely nominate this book to everyone and to all book clubs. It was a good read.
What do You think about Perfect Peace: A Novel (2010)?
This book was a good read for me funny good book
—airheads101
