‘Forever is much better with the people who matter.’

Many thanks to Holiday House and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

That kind of hurt, but in the way that feels really good you know? This book was everything I wanted from it. It was heartwarming, heartbreaking, funny, and devastating.

Being with Tegan for her journey was emotional and difficult but I enjoyed the fact that she wasn’t an ‘easy fix’. Her problems were dense and her trauma was something that couldn’t just be fixed with her feelings being erased.
I was borderline sobbing at the end. I think it’s so important for stories like this to exist. To show that people with trauma still have happiness even when they struggle to see it. Tegan’s realisation was heartfelt and meaningful.

I loved Tegan and Zelda’s relationship. Zelda’s character was hilarious and sweet and I adored her.
The ending was satisfying and resolved things in a lovely way.
Overall, an enjoyable, sweet, kind of heartbreaking read but I really loved exploring Tegan’s memories with her.

Okay!!!!!!!!!

Omg I absolutely LOVED this book, this has to be one of my favourite YA reads in recent years. The characters are charming and well developed, the plot and concept is so unique and the writing is sometimes a bit juvenile, but overall very very charming.

We follow Tegan Masters, a sixteen year old who has recently died and found herself in heaven … only, it’s not the heaven you’d imagine, it’s a recreation of a dingy 2 star motel in New Jersey. The angel in charge of her heaven, Zelda, insists this is where her happiest memory was, and is totally 100% her perfect heaven. Tegan is not so sure. After a complaint to the higher-ups, Zelda is given one month to prove to Tegan that this is her perfect heaven… or else they’ll both face the consequences.

The romance between Tegan and Zelda and developed so naturally and was so sweet and they just fit so well together!! I just cannot speak enough about how much I ADORE both of them as characters in their own right either.

Tegan is so sweet. I loved getting to know her family and friends through the flashbacks, I adored her fierce protectiveness for her sister, and I totally related to her struggles with friendship and romance.

Zelda is … omg my daughter. I love her SO much. She is so zany and weird and adorable and witty. I love her fashion sense, and I love her yearning to explore human life. Get this angel to a cat cafe!

Some of the reveals were a little bit predictable and Kelvin was a bit cartoonishly bad guy at times. I do also wish the heaven system was presented with a bit more nuance as well?? Overall I still found it a super entertaining read, and would absolutely recommend it for your next sapphic YA read.

THOUGHTS

This book was delightful and sad and wonderful and melancholy—in other words, a real mix of emotions. Though it isn't perfect, it's a thought-provoking look at mortality and what comes after we die. I adored dropping into this little pocket of memory and distilled human experience.


PROS
Smart Ass Angel: I adored the character of Zelda, who is supposed to be a sort of angel guide to this afterlife but is, really, just a grumpy teenage desk clerk. She adds some attitude, some life and vibrancy, to this melancholic space in the afterlife. This sets a quirky sort of tone, and her banter adds levity to the book that wouldn't otherwise be all that lighthearted. The growing chemistry between Zelda and Tegan, too, is just so much fun to watch unfold.

Melancholic, Bland Afterlife: There are no pearly gates and streets of gold in this afterlife. This afterlife is a rundown motel in the middle of nowhere, and as unfortunate as that is for Tegan, I can appreciate what that adds to the story: a sort of blank canvas, a neutral space for Tegan's life and memories to unfold. I also appreciate that this isn't a book where a character discovers they've died and then has to reckon with that discovery. Tegan knows that she's dead from the start. Does that mean she's okay with that fact? Absolutely not--especially since her afterlife is a rundown motel. But the reckoning here comes with a dive into Tegan's memories--into what life she did manage to live--and not in reconciling the fact that she is, you know, six feet under.

Character Development: Shivaun Plozza absolutely nails the character development in this book. Both Tegan and Zelda make a strong entrance in the first chapter, and they stay true to these characters while also adapting, changing, bonding, and reconciling hopes and dreams with a more down-to-earth reality. The rough edges, desires, and aspirations of both of these girls are both bittersweet and beautiful. I adored getting to know them as well as watching them get to know each other--and reconcile with their individual lots in this (after)life.


CONS
Communication Skills: I really don't like a book that revolves around miscommunication, and luckily, that's not at all what happens here. There's no miscommunication; there's just a general lack of communication. And I get that part of this lack of communication is Zelda's character. Part of it is Heaven's whole schtick. And it really is meant to be frustrating. That's part of the plot. But boy was it frustrating at times! Even if it serves a purpose, I still hate being frustrated, you know?

Dialogue: As much as I adored these characters and their individual trajectories, there were times when their edgy/voice-y dialogue just didn't quite stick the landing. Like Tegan's reliance on the insult "dickcheese." I mean, I guess points for creativity, but it felt a little... out of place, to be honest.

Dwindling Impact: As much as I enjoyed the funky bureaucratic system of this heavenly afterlife, I did feel that the unusual setup diminished the impact a little. If we're really going to dive into a consideration of the morality of, well, morality--of who gets into heaven, what heaven looks like, and eternal systems of punishment and reward--I find the impact is always stronger when the initial concept of "heaven" is one that is, well, familiar. Plozza's afterlife is something new--and something really not that great. So it makes sense that Tegan would push back against being stuck in a mediocre motel for all of eternity, but this sort of fight against Heaven lacks a bit of punch when it isn't a fight against, well, an established sort of heavenly rule system. It's a good fight and a just one. But it isn't a fight against anybody's actual conception of heaven.


Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
9/10
Fans of Akemi Dawn Bowman's The Infinity Courts will like this dive into an unsettlingly new sort of afterlife, full of unexpected rules and unfortunate realities. Those who enjoyed battling with the questions of eternity raised by NBC's The Good Place will like this new dive into a not-quite-right afterlife.

I really loved the concept and set up of this novel. It's such a unique premise, and it grabbed my attention right away. The voice felt younger YA/upper middle grade, which is wonderful because that's a range to find. Even though I found the characters a little abrasive, I was still rooting for them, and I enjoyed this format as a way to look back on Tegan's life.

*I didn't factor this into the rating, but the ARC formatting was very distracting and made the file difficult to read.

When you die at 16, the last thing you expect is that your "heaven" is a ratty motel and now you have complaints with the angel management to deal with and memory lane to stroll down with with an annoyingly cute angel. Tegan Masters is 16 and she's dead. She wakes up to find herself at the Marybelle Motor Lodge, the most depressing hotel ever and when an angel appears and tells her its the "happiest memory" she has, Tegan has some complaints. Now she has to stroll down memory lane because this isn't her happiest memory and she wants to find her one happy memory... but when she does, will she get her happily ever after? This one was definitely for younger YA readers and unfortunately it just wasn't for me. I was lured in by a cute cover and a potential sapphic romance but this one just felt really dull and boring to read. I felt myself checking out and skimming parts to just make it to the end. It really just wasn't for me and it kind of missed the mark on all my expectations. While this was a miss for me, if you enjoy afterlife stories, give this a go!

*Thanks Netgalley and Holiday House / Peachtree / Pixel+Ink | Holiday House for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

The Worst Perfect Moment was an absolute charm.

The humour was spot on from page one. It's rare for me to read a young adult book where the protagonist's voice is authentically that of... well, a young adult! But Shivaun Plozza pulled through with a consistently accurate depiction of the modern teenage mind: nihilistic and damn hilarious with it. Every comedic moment was timed perfectly, and it was a perfect contrast with the grief-stricken narrative.

Speaking of which, this book had a unique depiction of the afterlife, and dealing with being dead. The main character, Tegan, has been given a heaven in what is apparently her greatest memory, but was actually the location where she spent all her time as her life fell apart around her. Reading about her coming to terms with the complexity of her heaven, and picking apart the entangled feelings associated with the beloathed memory was enthralling.

It felt like reading an episode of The Good Place, but even better because gay people were in it! This book had the perfect combination of normalised LGBTQIA+ identity and explorations of our struggle. Tegan's lesbianism was simply there, inarguable and tasteful, and even more so was her romance with Zelda, the angel who created her imperfect heaven. But that didn't stop Plozza from using Tegan and Zelda's trips through memories and time to retrospectively navigate Tegan's journey through her first lesbian crush and date and heartbreak.

If you love grief narratives, complicated sapphic romances, and unique portrayals of the afterlife, heaven, angels, time travel, and God herself... pick up Plozza's The Worst Perfect Moment!

Thank you author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book!!

I read the book in one sitting…. There’s just something so compelling in this story. I love Zelda being obsessed with earth stuff including cat cafés (same). I love the side characters like Kelvin and Carol and Ms.Chiu. I LOVE Tegan and Zelda bickering. This book is about grief and abandonment and inspiration and loneliness and love. Tegan’s new reality and her memories fit together seamlessly throughout the whole story. I can’t get over it and I’ll probably go in and read it again. Ugh! I cried 4 times. And then we’re gonna go ahead and add in a supernatural reference!!

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

If a book nearly makes me cry, you know it's a good book.

Tegan's tumulus adventure into the afterlife, with the unhelpful help of angel Zelda, is a raw look at the complications of being a teenager and dealing with grief in its many forms and for its many reasons. The book starts with the main character's appearance in the afterlife, heaven, after her untimely death at 16. She's stranded in what her angel tells her is her happiest memory, a depressing gross motel, and Tegan wants nothing than to prove the angel wrong and get her real heaven. Zelda takes her through her memories to relive moments of emotional conflict in an effort to teach her what true happiness is, including disloyal friend groups and a parent leaving.

This book was an emotional reminder to find happiness in the places that happiness truly exists, not where we tell ourselves we should feel happy. Tegan's battle with needing to feel wanted is heartbreaking, but it's an integral part of the story. I think often YA stories can either brush over hard topics or go inappropriately into detail -- this book does neither. It discusses an important part of adolescence and young adulthood in a nurturing and comforting way.

The sapphic representation is endearing in a 16 year old falling in love kind of way -- a little awkward to read as an adult because it's embarrassingly accurate, down to the teasing name-calling and memorizing how many freckles are on a face.

It's so rare for me to find a book where I can't tell if the prose or the plot is better, and The Worst Perfect Moment is definitely one of those books. I was blown away by the opening words and was only more impressed with the story as I went on. Tegan's story packs so much heart and nostalgia into every scene, even for moments and memories I haven't experience myself. This is such a wonderfully heartbreaking book, in the best way possible.

I liked the idea of the book but couldn't get into the book. Altought I can understand the appeal of this book and why people like it I just got kinda annoyied from the prickering between the two main characters. One part I did enjoy were the many details the author included.

DNF at 18%

The Worst Perfect Moment is a YA Paranormal Coming Of Age Romance that has me in all my feels.

“Forever is much better with the people who matter.”

This is a slower paced, introspective kind of novel that’s focused on character growth. It asks the question of what it means to be truly happy with a central theme that reminds me of the movie Inside Out. And I loved it. The ending made me cry and smile all cheesy at my phone.

Tegan Masters is dead. She wakes up in heaven which happens to be the Marybelle Motor Lodge—the crappiest hotel where she experienced the worst weekend of her life. Zelda, a cute and sarcastic angel, insists heaven is an exact replica of a persons happiest moment and this is Tegan’s.

I loved Zelda. She was such a fun character. And the exact perfect angel for the job. Her silly and teasing nature could be so unpredictable and fun at times. She brought a levity to a difficult journey that she had to take Tegan on. And oh my gosh poor Tegan. I wanted to give her a hug while reading. It was a slow unveiling of her most vulnerable layers and I hurt for her.

I’m not going into Spoilers! but I am so happy with the way this book ended and it’s overall themes. I highly recommend it for fans of more character focused, slower paced stories.

Thank you to NetGalley and Holiday House for a copy of this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sweet realistic fiction story about facing the hardest parts of life in order to grow and realize all of the goodness in our world. The description of Purgatory and what happened there was terrifying.

The Worst Perfect Moment is a journey through one (dead) girl's saddest memories and the angel leading the way. We follow Tegan who is 16, dead, and stuck at the worst motel in Jersey. Her angel Zelda says that the Marybelle motel is her happiest memory, which means Tegan will be there for eternity. One complaint to upper management later, they have 1 month for Zelda to prove that she chose the right memory and for Tegan to prove that she is emotionally strong enough to not be sent to purgatory. The next month is full of trips to sad memories, confusion, strong emotions, and a bit of falling in love. The feelings of not being chosen, not being the right one, of wanting a parent who doesn't want you back, all hit close to home and I was in tears by the end. I loved the ending, I loved the characters, I loved the story. The writing is a bit on the younger end of YA and insults like "buttface and d*ckcheese" are thrown around a lot, but to me the story and ending overcame that.

I received an eARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I have conflicting thoughts about this book. We follow a main character who has died at age 16 and when she arrives to heaven, it is a ratty motel where she spent a long weekend with her dad and sister while her dad kind of falls apart. There is an angel, Zelda, in heaven who is excited and pleased that she made such a perfect replica of the hotel, and quickly becomes devastated when our main character files a complaint that her heaven is wrong. Heaven is supposed to be a replica of your happiest moment while alive. Zelda and the MC have 30 days for an investigation to occur to see if either Zelda's calculations were wrong or if the MC needs to go to purgatory instead of the fast track to heaven.

This was a unique story for sure. But the writing was inconsistent. Sometimes I felt it was snappy, but other times it felt very repetitive and overly young. So many "maybe breaths" and so much calling each other "butt face" and "dickcheese". There's also some teenage "trauma" with friends using each other to get closer to other people, and the MCs mom abandons them (which is definitely rough). I think this overall fell flat for me. Maybe I wasn't in the mood for it? Maybe I'm too old of a reader for it? The MC and Zelda felt more like 13 to me than 16, and maybe it would have worked better as a middle grade book than a YA book? I dunno. I could see teen readers enjoying it but the themes might not resonate with them. Interesting idea, mediocre execution.

The Worst Perfect Moment is a book about a dead girl, Tegan Masters, who does *not* like her version of heaven, and the angel girl who created it, Zelda, who must convince her to like the place. Otherwise, things won't end well for both of them.

Characters: I liked the characters, esp the two main ones. Tegan is a very relatable main character, and I related so hard with her friendship struggles, and how she determines the way people are impacted by her through the pain it gives them.

Plot: The plot feels like a mix of A Christmas Carol and The Secret Garden, which I liked.
My only complaint is that the angels feel very one-note and bland asf, except for Ms. Chiu. I need a Ms.Chiu in my life.

Overall, I'd say it's a four stars.

4.5 ✨️✨️

Oh my god, I loved this so much.

Both Tegan and Zelda we're beautifully written. There were moments when I was dully immersed in the story, and I felt 14 years old again, going through the motions with Tegan.

I could relate so much with her and her experiences in love, friendship, and family.

The Mrs. Chiu character is a real sweetheart, too. Every quote she said was a real eye opener. Also, her plot twist had me laughing so much because I never saw that coming.

I devoured this book in a day, I cried so much, laughed so much at the sparky remarks Zelda mades, at the jokes they share...

And as if I wasn't already ugly crying, you throw there Robbie and Mary's story, and I'm sobbing uncontrollably. That got to my heart, and I'm going to be thinking about them for days.

Overall, I think this book has all, but also, I think you have to go into it thinking it's middle grade. YA, it's a bit far-fetched.

Also, I take 0.5 stars out of this because:
1. The Kindle Edition was awful, with no chapters separations, chapters ending, and beginning on the same pages...
2. Sometimes, I felt this was a supernatural/Destiel fanfiction, which confirmed it with the Tumblr Destiel comment. Don't get me wrong, I love supernatural with my body and soul (i have it tattooed, there's no denying), but it threw me off so much that it blew the atmosphere when reading.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARCs✨️

This was a great little read! A book that will have you laughing and grieving all at once.
When Tegan is killed in a car accident, she winds up in her own personal heaven created and overseen by Zelda, an angel. The problem is, Tegan’s heaven isn’t so heavenly at all. In fact, it’s reminiscent of one of her very worst memories. Tegan and Zelda clash through an investigation into how Tegan ended up in her worst memory. Together, they have to reach a conclusion on whether Zelda got her heaven wrong, or whether Tegan isn’t ready to accept heaven at all.
This book was a lot of fun to read. I was rooting for both Tegan and Zelda the whole time. There was several incredibly touching moments throughout the book, and a lot of lessons learned by Tegan that I learned too. If I read this when I was 15/16/17 it would’ve probably been among my favourite books and I think a lot of teens and young adults will fall in love with it.
The only reason this wasn’t a five star read is because the overuse of some cringy insults/pet names.

thank you to netgalley for the arc in exchange for a review!!

wow for a book that i thought would be lighthearted this was surprisingly sad. i loved both zelda and tegan---although they both read as younger than sixteen, which almost made it even sadder---and even ms chiu and 'ms chiu'. as much as this is a book about tegan and zelda, it's also a book about "what if heaven had bureaucracy and it sucked." the afterlife this book comes up with is genuinely terrifying, if you think too hard about it, which i tried not to.

i did end up liking this a lot, although i liked it more as a speculative fiction than as a romance, especially because the characters felt more thirteen or fourteen than around my age. and boy is the fiction speculative! the worldbuilding is great and somehow still terrifying :)

Tegan Masters is sixteen and she's just died. Stepping into her afterlife, she expects to be greeted with an eternity in her most cherished and happiest moment from her life. The only problem, however, is that the run down and dirty motel that greets her is not her happiest moment. In fact, it's one of her most painful. Her assigned angel, Zelda, insists that Tegan is wrong so, naturally, Tegan complains to upper management. She and Zelda are then thrust into a race against time;Tegan to prove why Heaven isn't right, and Zela to prove why it is. They have one month and if they fail, both will suffer dire consequences.

This was honestly such a fun read. Tegan was super relatable as a character. Her struggles with the anger she hangs onto felt so real and her deeply rooted desire to feel important to people is such an honest struggle for a lot of teens. She was so sassy and so grumpy and I loved her, even if sometimes she was so relatable that I got mad at MYSELF! Zelda was also a great character, though it took me till about half way through the book for her to grow on me. She's such a chaotic menace and I loved her.

This is such a wonderful story about life and about how people are messy, emotions are messy, and how sometimes our most painful memories also have some good ones tied into it. I loved the idea of Heaven being operated like an almost souless business focused more on results than the heart of what they do. It sort of reminded me of the show The Good Place, which is also Something I adore.

It is, of course, a little painfully YA at times. The amount of times the insults "butt face" and "dickcheese" were used were pretty numerous but it wasn't terrible. All in all, this was fun and it was heavy with heart and emotions that feel so real and easy to relate to. Absolutely loved it!

i'm kinda torn about this book.
while the premise is fantastic, the writing falls short. the pacing is all over the place, with a very polished, almost perfect beginning, and the rest of the book feeling like it's going at a snail pace.
i really wanted to love the book cause i thought the characters were great and relatable, and the experiences brought up in tegan's story resonate. and even though their dynamic wasn't to my liking, i wanted to enjoy their interactions. but in the end i was left wishing everything was done a little bit differently.