The Perfect Child

The Perfect Child is a psychological suspense-thriller novel written by Lucinda Berry and originally published in 2019. Berry draws on her background as a psychologist and childhood trauma researcher to inform her thrillers and has written 10 novels so far, including Saving Noah (2017) and The Best of Friends (2020). The Perfect Child was an Amazon bestseller and a Best Fiction book of 2024; it was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize. The story’s two protagonists, Christopher and Hannah, are a middle-aged couple unable to conceive who choose to adopt a deeply traumatized girl named Janie. Through the experience, the couple learns The Sinister Side of Unconditional Love while fulfilling The Desire to Be a Parent and experiencing How Parenting Changes a Marriage.

This guide is based on the 2019 Thomas & Mercer edition.

Content Warning: The source material and guide feature depictions of suicidal ideation and self-harm, pregnancy loss, child abuse, animal cruelty and death, physical abuse, bullying, addiction, death, sexual content, graphic violence, and mental illness (including reactive attachment disorder, postpartum depression, and postpartum psychosis). The source material also leans heavily into stereotypes surrounding “sociopathy,” a term no longer used in clinical diagnosis, and frames survivors of childhood abuse as potentially dangerous and violent.

Plot Summary

The Perfect Child alternates between two timelines and three points of view. In the narrative present, a social worker named Piper Goldstein is being interviewed by the police about the events that occurred in the Bauer family following couple Christopher and Hannah’s decision to take in a six-year-old girl named Janie.

Christopher and Hannah’s narratives take place two years prior to this interview and recount what led up to it. Their story begins with their inability to conceive a child. Both Christopher and Hannah work at a hospital, and when Janie arrives, her mother having been found dead in a closet, Christopher instantly bonds with her and takes over her surgeries and treatments. Janie was found bruised, covered in blood, and starving near a trailer park, and nobody knows what happened to her mother. Investigators discovered that Janie was living in a closet, tied up and being fed dog food. The blood on Janie’s body belonged to her mother, Becky, who was using Janie to commit fraud for false cancer donations.

Hannah agrees to adopt Janie even though she shows signs of disliking Hannah. Nevertheless, she voices her concerns over Janie’s refusal to bond with her, even as Christopher and Janie bond more and more every day. Despite these and other difficulties—Janie has tantrums that sometimes last hours—Hannah and Christopher decide together that they want to foster Janie until a family is found for her. Hannah’s sister, Allison, hesitates to support the idea knowing that Janie’s trauma may entail further challenges, but Hannah doesn’t budge on the issue. Piper sees them as the perfect parents for Janie and approves the foster adoption.

Janie comes for her first home visit and everything goes fine, but on the second day, she falls into a tantrum that lasts for hours. She screams, breaks things, and bangs her head on the floor until Hannah and Christopher have to restrain her. Becky’s mother, whom Piper met in prison, described witnessing similar behavior in Janie, and neither she nor Becky could find a way to calm the girl. When Janie officially arrives home, Hannah and Christopher are terrified of something going wrong, but the first day is smooth. That night, however, Christopher sleeps beside Janie on the floor and wakes to her hitting him on the head with her toy train. When he tries to take it from her, she throws it at him and screams.

When people come to meet Janie in the hopes of adopting her, Christopher declines the couples and suggests that he and Hannah adopt Janie instead. Hannah always wanted to raise a child from infancy but lets go of that dream knowing that Janie needs a family. Janie meets the extended family, and everyone loves her.

Christopher soon returns to work while Hannah stays home to care for Janie, who stops talking to Hannah completely. Hannah believes that Janie is trying to punish her, and Janie’s new therapist, Dr. Chandler, agrees, feeling Janie resents all mother figures. At her first session with Dr. Chandler, Janie uses dolls to illustrate how she wishes her family only consisted of her and Christopher. The doctor instructs Christopher to refuse to say goodnight to Janie until Janie says it to Hannah, which eventually gets Janie to start talking again but intensifies her resentment of Hannah. Christopher and Hannah try to put Janie in preschool, but she is expelled from three schools for regularly soiling herself and hurting other children.

Two months later, Hannah finds out she’s pregnant. She expects to miscarry but ends up giving birth to a baby boy she names Cole. Janie seems indifferent to her new brother at first, but Hannah and Christopher worry that her worsening behavior is the result of jealousy and get her a cat to ease the transition. Janie stabs the cat with a pin on the first night she has it. Dr. Chandler believes that Janie has reactive attachment disorder, which can cause diminished empathy as well as manipulative behavior.

Cole cries constantly, and Hannah becomes extremely protective of him, worried Janie will hurt him. Nevertheless, when Janie asks to breastfeed, Hannah finds the request strange but decides it couldn’t hurt to try; in response, Janie bites Hannah’s breast so hard that she requires stitches, and both of Hannah’s breasts become infected. She has to stop breastfeeding and grows to resent Janie for it. Hannah therefore starts neglecting Janie and threatens to take her cat when Janie takes Cole’s blanket one day. Janie responds by smothering the cat and killing it, proving to Hannah that she doesn’t care if it’s taken away. Now viewing Janie as a legitimate threat, Hannah starts locking her in her room while Christopher is at work.

Dr. Chandler suggests putting Janie in a residential home for young people with severe behavioral disorders. Christopher hates the idea but gradually realizes there is no other option. Before anything can be done, however, he finds out that Hannah has been locking Janie in her room and hits her. A few days later, Christopher comes home to find Hannah sitting on the bathroom floor holding a barely living Cole. Janie is in the bathtub in her clothes, and Hannah is delirious.

Cole is taken to the hospital, where it is determined he will recover. Hannah and Christopher are investigated for child abuse, and when social services come to take Cole away, Hannah threatens to jump out the window with him. She is taken to a psychiatric hospital and heavily medicated. While Hannah is in the hospital, Christopher finds Hannah’s diary entries, which reveal that she has started to see Janie as a demon and wants to get rid of her. In therapy, Janie reveals that Hannah tried to drown her.

Meanwhile, Janie and Cole stay with Allison; when Allison argues with Janie, Janie pushes her down the stairs, killing her. Hannah and Christopher eventually get Cole back, and Janie is sent to live in the home. Christopher visits her often, but Hannah never wants to see her again.

In Piper’s interview, it emerges that Janie killed her own mother in retaliation for months of being tied up and treated like a dog. The novel ends with the police on the cusp of revealing this to the Bauers.