Review by Booklist Review
Teo, a medical student in Rio de Janeiro, lacks affect. His best friend is Gertrude, the cadaver he is dissecting. He dismisses everyone he comes into contact with: fellow students, even his mother, who is a paraplegic. Then, at a party, he talks briefly to Clarice and immediately becomes completely obsessed. He stalks her. He knows that she is writing a screenplay and that she is planning to go to a resort in Teresópolis to continue her writing. Clarice is a free spirit, very bright and far more worldly than Teo. She rebuffs his attempt to go with her to the resort, so he knocks her out with the book he has brought as a gift. Then he sedates her and visits a porn shop to buy restraints and gags. Teo just knows that she will see the light and fall in love with him, but the path is far darker and crazier than he or the reader expects. Montes is one of Brazil's rising crime novelists, and he has filled Perfect Days with suspense and jolting plot twists.--Gaughan, Thomas Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Brazilian author Montes (Suicides) makes his English-language debut with a nifty, albeit nasty little thriller. Teo Avelar, the wonderfully immoral hero at its pitch-black center, is studying to be a pathologist in Rio de Janeiro. His best friend is a corpse. Then he meets Clarice Lispector, a would-be screenwriter, and falls in love. Teo soon starts stalking Clarice, and in a bid to win her over and make her fall in love with him, he drugs and kidnaps her. Expected developments include Clarice's efforts to escape and the murder of someone who threatens Teo's plan to keep her captive. More unusual are a tense encounter Teo has with the police and his bouts of paranoia. When the tables finally turn, Montes pulls out the stops with a series of twists-one of which is not for the squeamish. Teo's criminal mischief may put off some readers, but others will enjoy the wild ride. Agent: Luciana Villas-Boas, Villas-Boas & Moss Literary Agency & Consultancy (Brazil). (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
No one understands Teo Avelar. He is a medical student in Brazil with few friends. Well, he has one close friend named Gertrude, but she doesn't talk much, as readers will quickly find out. Teo takes care of his crippled mother and leads a lonely life until he meets the lovely Clarice. After a simple kiss on the cheek at a party, Teo falls in love. He begins by stalking and eventually kidnapping Clarice. He just can't understand why she will not give him a chance to prove his love, so he takes her on an adventure similar to the screenplay she is writing. Moving from location to location, packing Clarice away in a suitcase and calling her mother to let her know they are safe and having fun, Teo becomes crueler to Clarice. Montes's (Suicides) first novel to be translated into English will make readers grip the pages and hang on for a very disturbing ride. VERDICT Recommended for fans of serial killer and stalker stories, Thomas Harris characters, and those who seeking a look inside the mind of a psychopath.-Jason L. Steagall, Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Psychopathology, Carioca style: well-paced but troubling thriller by Brazilian novelist/lawyer Montes. "He didn't want to come across as sick or a psycho": Hannibal Lecter he's not, not yet, but when we learn that the only person medical student Teo Avelar likes is his dissecting corpse, Gertrude, who, "in the pale lighttook on a very peculiar brownish hue, like leather," well, we're sure that bad things are about to ensue. Teo lives with his crippled mother and her dog in a Rio walkup, scarred by unhappy memories. A vegetarian, nondrinker, and otherwise abstemious chap, Teo nonetheless finds himself at a party, where he is smitten by the tiny but overflowingly confident Clariceher name not just that of a Brazilian novelist ("For God's sake," our Clarice yells, "don't talk to me about Clarice Lispector, because I've never read anything by her!"), but also that of Hannibal Lecter's bte noire, Clarice Starling. Accident? It wouldn't seem so, any more than the poor dog's passing is, and certainly not when Teo kidnaps Clarice, trusting that one day she'll love him as much as he loves her. Their interaction is ugly and violent, and it's not entirely believable that Clarice is able to turn the tablesand then Teo, and then Clarice, until the game of cat and mouse seems more like cat and cat. The suggestion that Clarice is complicit in her own captivity is both daring and controversial; John Fowles did it neatly in The Collector, but half a century on, Montes handles the question somewhat less deftly, and in any event, the characters seem incomplete, their motivations not quite clear save that Teo has a Norman Bates-ian sensitivity to matters maternal. The ending in particular lies on the very border of good and bad taste, but Montes gets points for neatlyand appallinglyconnecting it to the opening of his narrative, ironic title and all, in a most unpleasant full circle. Readers of Thomas Harris and Henning Mankell may feel that they've been here before, but a fast and fluent read all the same. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
