Perfect Little Lives By Danielle Brown

March 2024 Dear Ms. O'Brien, For my independent reading book, I chose the book Perfect Little Lives by Amber and Danielle Brown. This book is a mystery revolving around the murder of the main character, Simone's mother. The story begins by detailing the demographic of the main character's former neighborhood, in which her family had been depicted as the outliers as they were the only black family living on the street known as Asher Lane. Because of this, when Simone’s mother had been murdered, not many in the neighborhood had been close to her and suspicions had risen against her father. The police officer working to solve the case had not dug deep into it due to his racial bias and because of this, Simone had not only lost her mother, but also her

“She always looked so elegant, so well put together, kept herself in pristine shape. Routine facials and highlights and Botox.” and on that very same page, “I’d often see her at the supermarket dressed in her head–to–toe black spandex, straight from whatever trendy workout class she was into at the moment. Her smile always seemed genuine, wide and symmetrical”(Brown 255). The Book Perfect Little Lives expresses the theme of prejudice and how it can morph your perspective of others when morals come into question. This is shown mainly through the beginning when Simone, the main character, openly expresses her revolt for Scott Bishop, the man she believes to have killed her mother. However, her belief was only based off of his past affair with her mother and his power as a judge when she was a child, so she had no personal experience with him to conclude evidence or standard belief from, and as a result, she kept the same perspective of him and used it as evidence during the reopening of her father’s case years