The Perfect Child

“For eager adoptive parents, getting what they always wanted has chilling consequences.” Genre: Psychological Thriller Thriller Suspense Mystery Horror Tropes & Themes: Foster-to-Adopt Buyer’s Remorse Orthopedic Surgeon & ER Nurse 💕 Adoption Paradox Adoption Hero Expectation versus Reality Department of Child Disservices Trigger Warnings: Child Abuse/Neglect; Animal Abuse ⚠ “No one would ever see Janie through my eyes.” Rating: 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 The Perfect Child, a psychological thriller by Author and Trauma Psychologist, Dr. Lucinda Berry, is a novel about Ortho-Surgeon, Dr. Christopher Bauer, and his wife Hannah, an ER Nurse, who seemingly have it all, but are desperate for the one thing they want most: a baby. Just as the Bauers are considering adoption after several failed IVF rounds, a young girl with substantial injuries and a dog collar on her neck is rushed by ambulance with a police escort into the emergency department, after the little girl was found wandering in a parking lot. “… it’s a lost kid or something, and she’s in really bad shape. Ambulance is bringing her in with a police escort.” The timing of the young girl, (Janie’s), arrival at the hospital where the Bauers worked, while they were nearly desperate for a baby, were the makings of a perfect storm (and the perfect psychological thriller!) While Hannah avoids Janie at first to protect her own heart, (injured kids are the most difficult cases, especially for a woman who’s only wish is to raise a child) Christopher and Janie instantly connect and share a special bond, made stronger after he performs Janie’s orthopedic surgery. Christopher, believing it’s fate that Janie be placed with them, enthusiastically convinces Hannah that Janie, a traumatized six year old, could be their “baby”. I felt like Christopher, while likeable, had a bit of a hero complex. His refusal to see the truth was not just because he believed that girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, it was also because it threatened the facade that Janie was a regular young girl and he “fixed” her, in my opinion. He did a lot alongside Hannah to get Janie help, like therapy, but it was more “parenting class” (with a Dr. who diagnosed Janie with reactive-attachment-disorder and wouldn’t budge) than it was “psychotherapy session”. Both Hannah and Christopher made choices that frustrated me, in their attempts to control and alter Janie’s behavior: THE CAT, REALLY? I gritted my teeth and just waited for the worst. Hannah was more of a realist when it came to Janie but unfortunately her husband, Christopher thought Janie could do no wrong. Unaware of Janie’s disturbing past, they foster-to-adopt her and are assigned to DCF caseworker, Piper, who oversteps the boundaries far more than she knows she should. Janie never discusses her mother (who was found deceased in a trailer park) leaving me wondering what on earth happened to Janie and why doesn’t she mention anything from her past? The dog collar, fused and broken bones — all a mystery. The suspense and final reveal is an absolute shocker. I loved the ominous ending. There are three alternating POVs: Christopher’s, Hannah’s, and Piper’s. I loved having the perspective of the DCF social worker too. I appreciate multiple POVs, especially with a complex story like The Perfect Child. Hannah was my favorite character, partly because she saw through Janie’s manipulative tactics, and there were quite a few. I felt terrible for Hannah as I saw her slowly losing herself, her dream became a nightmare. A surprise pregnancy further overwhelms her and Janie’s regression, aggression, and violence reach new levels, while Christopher is off in fairytale land, his head in the clouds. Hannah, the primary caregiver, is at her wit’s end. The Perfect Child is a page-turner. I absolutely loved this dark read. I’ve watched documentaries on feral children and severely abused and neglected children and find the psychology and stories like this that are built from real cases morbidly fascinating as well as horrific and shocking. Janie reminded me of a young German girl who was labeled as a sociopath at an extremely young age. She was downright frightening, much like little Janie, and said terrifying things in the sweetest voice while she batted her big beautiful blue eyes. “She’s just a girl. There’s nothing to be afraid of.” AWELLREADWOMANBLOG dot COM

You know those age-old sayings, "Be careful what you wish for," or "Things are not always what they seem?" Boy, have I got a story for you. In this book, you have Chris and Hannah Bauer, an early 40's couple that have been married for about a decade. They are both medical professionals, Chris an orthopedic surgeon, and Hannah, an RN. They have a healthy marriage, nice home, friends, and high paying careers. There's just one thing missing: they want a child. Hannah has had numerous miscarriages to the point where whenever she manages to get pregnant, she doesn't even get excited anymore and expects to lose the baby anyway. She and Chris consider adopting a child. One day, while Chris is at work, a child is found wandering the parking lot of the hospital. She's malnourished, visibly injured and disoriented. When people at the hospital examine her, the outrage builds. She has a host of injuries ranging from bruises to bones that have been broken and not healed properly. Everyone thinks she's three years old due to her size, but it turns out that she's actually a six-year old girl. Her name is Janie. Everyone feels compassion for Janie and wonder what sort of monster would do such a thing to an innocent little girl. Janie makes the news due to the nature of her case and because her mother was killed. No one knows who did it or why. What they found at the scene was evidence of Janie being restrained in a closet like an animal. Again, who would do such a thing to a little girl? Chris becomes Janie's doctor and fixes her improperly healed bones. He immediately bonds with her despite her severe issues; Janie is a very disturbed child. She throws fits and is obsessed with being fed; people attribute this to her abuse and accept that her behavior, while not desired is normal for a child who has gone through what she has. Hannah eventually meets Janie and she too falls for her and since Janie has no family to take her(her grandmother is in jail and wants nothing to do with her and no one knows who the father is), they become initially temporary foster parents. They get her home and that's when the trouble starts. She throws fits when she does not get her way(or sometimes just out of the blue), she breaks things, she urinates and defecates(she's not potty trained), she doesn't sleep, and she does this creepy thing where she just stands over them while they sleep. They learn how to deal with her due to going to child psychologists, but things get worse and worse. When it's time to start school, she deliberately does things to get kicked out; she went through several schools(hurting kids and smearing feces will do that). They get her a kitten, and well. .. you know the rest. She even says, "I like hurting people." It becomes apparent that she may be more than just some kid damaged due to abuse. Hannah(who Janie never truly warms up to) eventually begins to face the chilling reality that perhaps Janie isn't bad due to abuse, perhaps Janie was just. . .born bad. Someone that came out of the womb fundamentally broken. By this time, the Bauers have officially adopted Janie and Chris unfortunately no matter what, is pro-Janie and absolutely refuses to entertain the notion that his little Janie is a bad person no matter how many times Hannah presents him with evidence indicating otherwise; this causes a massive rift in their marriage; Chris always takes Janie's side and makes his wife out to be the bad guy. This is a well written book that is written in the first person and told from three points of view: Chris's view, Hannah's view, and Piper's(their social worker) view. My only complaint was that he ending was kind of unsatisfying. I can appreciate endings that leave you speculating about what may have happened later, but this one just kind of ended. I could keep writing, but I won't. There is a lot of material here and I don't want to fill this with spoilers. Just know that this one stays with you for a while and it's a chilling and disturbing read.

This book was great!!!! Slightly slow to start for me but once I got hooked, I was HOOKED!!! Like having to force myself to put my phone down to do the things hooked!!! However, that ending? That ending????? That. Ending. How does it just end like that?! What happens to Christopher and Hannah? What happens to Janie? What happens with the lawsuit? I need so many answers!!! Why do you do this to me Lucinda……whyyyyyy?

This was my Amazon Prime free book pick. I picked it because it sounded more interesting than the other ones offered. It was kind of an odd story, and the ending seems quite abrupt and was unsatisfying to me. The book is told both via an interview of social worker, Piper, with the police and from the viewpoints of Christoper, a doctor, and his wife, Hannah, a nurse. Christopher and Hannah want children but haven't been able to have any of their own. They're talking about adopting. Then, Christopher meets Janie, a presumed abused and abandoned child, at the hospital. For some reason, Janie takes to him right away. Christopher convinces Hannah to foster Janie and eventually, they adopt her. Then, in a predictable plot twist, Hannah ends up pregnant. Cue major drama! I was surprised that Christopher, a well-educated medical professional, doesn't want to believe that a child could be manipulative. He wants to believe the best of Janie--and that's a good trait for a parent, but it needs to be tempered with reality too. Janie's behavior occurs too many times for it to be simply a child learning boundaries. Killing a pet should have been a major red flag to everyone--isn't that one of the signs of a possible future sociopath/serial killer? Yet, all they do is try to get Janie into a residential treatment facility? And not even right away--they wait for an opening at a "really good facility". I agree that Christopher does seem to choose Janie's side more often than he does Hannah's, and I can see how that would bother any wife over time. I'm still not sure what caused Hannah's break: postpartum stuff, lack of sleep, genetic mental illness? I guess the postpartum stuff is what's assumed in the book, but whether that's really true or not . . . in the end, Hannah's contentions are proven true. But...we don't know if Christopher kept his job or if he was dismissed due to the publicity connected with his family; we don't know if Hannah gets to keep her nursing license or if she'll improve; we don't know how the lawsuit Greg filed turns out; we don't know how Greg's family does or if they ever mend fences with Christopher and Hannah; we don't know what happens to Janie or who prevails in the Christopher/Hannah tug-of-war about her--something that could easily split up their marriage if Christopher still wants to side with Janie. Does she end up in a residential treatment facility for the rest of her childhood? the rest of her life? Is she charged with anything even though she's a child? Does Christopher bankrupt his family trying to give Janie the care that they promised they'd give her until she turned 18 when they adopted her? Do they get the adoption reversed due to the severe circumstances? So many unanswered questions that it was hard to feel it was a satisfying read.

The first thing I can say is that from the very start you have a pretty general idea of how it will end, but that does nothing to diminish the intensity of the journey. To my surprise, there was a bit of a twist at the end that brought the story full circle. The second thing: this story isn’t for everyone. It can be graphic in detailing abuses and sociopathic behaviors. If you are someone who “relaxes” with true crime documentaries and Law and Order SVU type shows, movies and books, then you will find the thrill in this book. All said, I can say this was one of the few times I missed having an epilogue to reflect on how these characters fared in the near future. This part will contain SPOILERS from the book, for those that have read it (or that don’t care about spoilers): this book is told in first person point of view, from the viewpoints of 3 different individuals ( Hannah, Chris, and Piper). I found myself pulling for Hannah throughout the book, and genuinely started wishing she would leave Chris (and by extension, Janie). I found myself very frustrated with Chris always taking Janie’s side and assuming his wife, from the getgo, was the one exaggerating or lying. There were a few major “red flag” moments to make me question Chris’ (and sometimes Hannah’s) intelligence. First being when Janie fully ignored Hannah after Chris went back to work, and Chris didn’t believe his wife (a reasonable adult) over Janie (a virtual stranger, child, and mentally ill individual). I was also surprised that Hannah would still be so eagerly in favor of the adoption (at the final “are you sure, no going back” phase) after many of Janie’s clearly questionable behavior toward her. The next major red flag was after Janie admitted she hurt a little girl repeatedly for the joy of seeing her cry, they decided to GET HER A PET! WTF!? So, clearly that wouldn’t end well (to be fair to Chris here, he had suggested a goldfish, it was Hannah who went full stupid and decided on a kitten). Of course, day one with the new kitty, and psycho Janie had stuck him with a safety pin (cause......fun 🤷‍♀️). While C & H were horrified, they KEPT THE CAT (oh, but no worries, Chris told Janie that wasn’t nice and not to do it again - problem solved 🙄). Never have I rooted so hard for a six year to get killed - specifically by Hannah!! Moving along, Hannah has a baby and Janie acts out, leading to a super awkward breast feeding situation, and a dark turning point for Hannah. Janie (who again, is 6 going on 7 - though developmentally much younger) decides she want to breastfeed, like the new baby. Typical bratty kid with new baby bro stuff, right? Hannah tells her no and explains it’s just for babies. Janie has a meltdown. Later after Chris is home, Hannah explains what happened and says she thinks she’s going to give in and breastfeed Janie. Chris is mortified but backs her play. This is a strange decision by Hannah, who already isn’t liking Janie much anymore. The next morning Chris goes to work (@ the hospital) and H goes through with breastfeeding Janie, who proceeds to intentionally bite her, resulting in an ER visit, stitches, no longer able to breastfeed, horrible pain, and eventually a terrible infection. This event changes everything for Hannah. I like to think she finally saw the light. Long story short, at one point Janie kills the cat (big shock there), she’s told again by Chris that it wasn’t nice. From here Hannah pretty much never puts her son down again for fear of the girl. She tells Chris that Janie’s got to go. He argues they adopted her, she’s theirs, they love her, she’s a sweet little girl, etc. Hannah’s not having it. By this point Hannah locks Janie into her room each day while Chris works, and never lets out, she’s figured out that the girl was likely not abused and she was tied up by her (now dead) birth mother for being evil (surprise - she’s right). Hannah has a full meltdown and tries to kill Janie and near fatally injures her son in the process. She goes into a mental facility for having a post partum psychotic break. Meanwhile, her and Chris are investigated for child abuse and their kids stay with Hannah’s sister and family rather than foster care. Things go bad. Hannah’s sister ends up dead, nanny cam catches that it was Janie, but not whether deliberate. Janie goes into a special home for RAD patients. Chris still visits her and loves her. Hannah isn’t having it. Then they find out the truth about Janie and that she killed her real mom. This is the end of the story. I really wanted the epilogue here to explore a little bit of how this new info changes Chris’ opinion of Janie and whether Hannah stays with him or leaves with the baby. In any event, a cat was killed, and C&H were responsible! Those should’ve been the real charges levied at them. Again, while a lot of the book was predictable, generally or specifically, the tension never wavered in the journey to a known end. I rather enjoyed it, and would give other books by this author a chance.

My husband & I adopted 2 young children from Russia. Both had institutional trauma. Both thrived on schedules. Our daughter, age 25 months, was the size of a 4 month baby, but she was running, skipping, babbling, humming songs, climbing, etc. She has full fetal alcohol syndrome along with the trauma (x-rays have shown more), ADHD, Autoimmune disorders, very messed up central nervous system (CNS), failure to thrive, childhood apraxia of speech, etc. We call it Alzheimer’s for life. She isn’t violent, she is sweet, for the most part. She had a good orphanage and a good life here in the USA with bonding such as sling carrying for a few years. She was so tiny, the sling was easy. In the book, they assume Janie is very young because of her size but she could speak. Our daughter couldn’t speak clearly even at 6. I felt sorry for the parents getting thrown right into the middle of, what I know to be, a hellish life. Thankfully, our daughter never acted out at school. She saved it all for home, her safe place. Our son (adopted at the same time but not related to our daughter & 16 months younger) DID act out in school. He also triangulated his social worker, his teacher consultant and us, his parents. Our son did not realize we were all in communication multiple times each day to sort things out. When confronted, our son didn’t know what to do, so he told the truth, we assume. There were consequences. The thing is, these kids do not learn from cause & effect. They will do the same thing 100 times and be surprised every time they are caught. It has nothing to do with intelligence. It has to do with the way the prenatal alcohol wired theirs brains. If Janie’s birthmother did drugs, she drank alcohol too. The interview with Janie’s grandma made it sound like alcohol was a multi-generational problem. A child like Janie would have had trouble even in the absolute best placement, where the parents were up to speed on FAS, RAD, PTSD, and had a firm support system of respite care, family help, a support group to attend for additional ideas of ways to help. Having lived in a similar, but much less violent situation, this book is written well. Sadly, too many foster parents expect the perfect baby. It isn’t out there. Forster/adopt parents need to learn about the problems the children may have and really expect to get children who need lots of help & therapy from the start. Sadly, our current system has no support system for most of these parents or kids. It’s a great read. Scary, but very true.

This was a really good book that held my interest-I finished it in a weekend! The Main Characters-Hannah, Chris, Allison, Piper, Janie and Baby Cole Settings-The Hospital, Chris and Hannah’s Home, Allison’s Home and Janie’s bedroom Husband and wife, Chris and Hannah, want a baby more than anything. They are considering adoption, while grieving not being able to have their own biological child. He is a Doctor and she is a Nurse, they work hectic, opposite schedules, but they know they love each other and know they would be incredible parents! When Chris is on duty one night, a young child is brought into the ER. She is malnourished, very small, and covered in blood. She is alone, and was found in a Parking Lot. Where did she come from? What are these marks on her neck and body? Who is she and where are her parents? What has happened to her? Chris seems to be the only Doctor that is able to connect with this small, young, neglected child. Chris seems to get closer and closer to Janie and he wants his wife, Hannah to meet this child that he adores. Hannah comes to the hospital to meet her, along with Chris. When she gets there, Janie is not happy. She doesn’t like the nurses and only wants to be with Chris. Hannah quickly takes the hint and leaves Chris with her, while she goes to start her shift at work. Chris cannot believe how well Janie is recovering, but worries as she has no home to go to, no parents have come for her, and the Police have discovered gruesome details about her being found in the Parking Lot covered in blood. The Police now worry about her safety. Chris wants to take Janie to he and Hannah’s home, on a temporary bases until a family is found to care for her. He knew it would be an adjustment for all of them, but the he and Hannah could provide a perfect home and a lot of love for Janie. They do take her into their home as a foster child, then adopt her, even though Hannah has concerns. Can a 6 year old be manipulative? Does a child of this age have the ability to control what they are doing? Hannah is the at home parent with Janie. she sees and experiences many things that worry her. Hannah begins to go through experiences with Janie that she cannot believe and doesn’t know how to handle, and then Hannah can’t believe it when she finds out that she is pregnant! I don’t want to give away any more of the book, but this book is really, really good! Some of the things that happen, I never would have predicted. How can a family move forward after the tragedy that has happened? A few teasers- Does Chris believe Hannah about the things she tells him Janie does? How does Chris feel about the pregnancy? How will Janie do in school? How will Janie respond to a new baby? Will Hannah and Chris make it through this when he seems to side with Janie? Can a 6 year old be manipulative? It was hard to put down. 5 stars!!

The Perfect Child is a disturbing piece of psychological fiction by Lucinda Berry. The story is told in multiple perspectives from Chris and Hannah Bauer, a married couple trying to cope with infertility, and Piper, the social worker for the horrifically abused child Janie. Janie is discovered in a gravely battered state, severely malnourished, in a closet of a trailer next to her dead mother. Janie takes treatment in stride with help of the orthopedic doctor Chris Bauer. From the moment Chris lays eyes on Janie he becomes enamored. Hannah, although more hesitant, wants to help Janie as well, but something isn't quite right about the way Janie treats her. This book is a frightening representation of what it's like to live with infertility, the cost of adoption, dealing with the mental aftermath of childhood trauma, and the toll these have on marriages. Janie's extreme form of Reactive Attachment Disorder is the only part that seems too exaggerated to be realistic, but I'm not an expert and have never heard of this disorder before. I related the most with Hannah, but I found myself hating Chris's misguided and naive character with a burning passion of a thousand suns. Piper tried to help the Bauers, but was unprofessional and unforthcoming. By the end of the story, I had a hard time deciding who the antagonist was. The writing made my heart race because I felt angry, appalled, disturbed, and heartbroken by the vivid imagery and grim outcomes. I was hooked by Janie's hidden wickedness, Hannah and Chris's unwavering kindness, and the tumultuous journey of Janie's adoption. Unfortunately, the end was a disappointment. It left me completely unsatisfied with way too many unanswered questions. Someone informed me that I could find the original ending on Lucinda Berry's Facebook page. I found that video of her reading the original ending, and it tied up all loose ends. This would be a great read for someone who loves an addictive and possibly traumatizing late-night suspense that is sure to leave a book hangover.