Perfect Happiness by You-Jeong Jeong

Jiyoo's mother takes her and her father on a family vacation to the cabin in the woods at Half Moon Marsh. Jiyoo is excited to see her father but she knows if she gets too excited she'll upset Mother. So while Jiyoo would love to run up to him and hug him she doesn't, but even so Father promises that they will go back to the marsh tomorrow. But the next morning Father is gone, Mother tells her that he had to leave and he won't be coming back. 

Wife has been gone for five days now, which isn't new but what is new is that Eun-Ho has unplugged his landline and shut off his cell phone so he doesn't call Wife and plead for her to come back. Unfortunately, as Wife, his Mother, and Noah his son have made plans for the weekend and even though he's made it this long without calling her he knows he has too as she is very late. Deciding to put it off a little bit longer Eun-Ho leaves the house to catch up on some grading at school when he is surprised to find his sister in law Jane pulling up. Giving a brief introduction Jane informs Eun-Ho that he needs to tell Wife that Jiyoo can not stay at Grandma's that weekend because she has left the country and Jane is not watching her. She leaves after relaying her message leaving Eun-Ho very confused, Wife is at Grandma's he thought. 

Jane cut ties from her sister Yuna years ago, she knows what Yuna is like and as an adult she has determined she does not need to out up with her erratic behavior. While Jane does love her niece she refuses to get taken in my any of Yuna's problems, she knows for a fact if she agrees to take Jiyoo Yuna will keep taking advantage of her. By this simple act of refusing to watch her niece Jane will set off a chain reaction that will destroy many lives. Jane will have to decide if she is willing to face hell in order to save what she can. 

Omg what a freaking ride! This is only my second book by Jeong and I can't wait to read more!

We start off knowing who the killer is from the get-go, to be honest, who it is isn't the point of this thriller, it is to demonstrate just how many lives a narcissist can destroy. Jeong does an excellent job of this. Wife, Mother, Yuna. They are all the same person; a person who should have protected, cherished, and loved these characters unconditionally. Instead, she belittled, betrayed, abused, manipulated, and ultimately destroyed them. I found that not giving Yuna a voice in this was brilliantly done. Especially to drive home the point that she knew exactly what she was doing was wrong. As the daughter of a narcissist I find that narcissists are often portrayed as being so self-absorbed they aren't aware that what they are doing is wrong and that's simply not the case. They *know* it's wrong it's just not their fault. A narcissist can justify all of their actions as their victim's fault "If you had not done this then I wouldn't have had to do that." By not allowing Yuna's voice to enter the conversation we can truly see that mentality. It also gives us no choice but to accept that Yuna is not just a horrible person she is a psychopath. Because everyone around her has been trained (for lack of a better word) by Yuna, for most of the book her victims are in complete denial. They spend chapters trying to find a way to prove that she had not done what she clearly had. Without Yuna's voice we aren't pulled into her web so we can see her for what she truly is from the get-go; a monster willing to remove anyone she sees as an obstacle to her happiness. 

I also found it interesting that Jane, Eun-Ho, and Joon-young (Jiyoo's bio dad) had a narcissist somewhere in their lives that wasn't Yuna. You surprisingly don't see this reference often in books, but whether people like it or not the possibility of marrying a narcissist after being raised by one is pretty high. Jane had their mom, Eun-Ho had his mother, and Joon-young had his younger sister. None of them were as bad as Yuna, but each of them manipulated these characters using very similar tactics. Eun-Ho actually points this out twice once regarding his mom and once regarding Joon-young's little sister. 

I think my only very tiny complaint here is Jinu's character. No matter what he said I don't understand why he never said anything. Not when he originally started having suspicions nor later on when it was fairly freaking obvious he needed to open his mouth instead of dropping cryptic messages. Like c'mon dude the bodies are piling up.

Highly recommend this one. It kept me on the absolute edge of my seat. I will say though that this is definitely going to trigger people who have been in any sort of relationship with a narcissist. 

As always thanks to NetGalley and Creature Publishing for the eArc!