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Cover of Dias Perfeitos

Dias Perfeitos

Raphael Montes

274 pages

A sun-drenched, suffocating descent into the mind of a relentless obsessive.

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What it feels like

Reading this book feels like being trapped in a speeding car with a charming but utterly terrifying driver. The narrative moves at a propulsive, feverish clip, dragging you through a sun-drenched Brazilian landscape that stands in stark, horrifying contrast to the suffocating darkness of the protagonist's mind. The prose is chillingly clinical and detached, forcing the reader into an uncomfortable intimacy with pure, unadulterated obsession. It is a dread-soaked experience, brimming with a tension that tightens like a vice with every turned page. There is no relief here, only the morbid, gripping fascination of watching a delusion spiral completely out of control. It will thoroughly delight readers who crave the dark, twisted psychology of a deeply unreliable, sociopathic narrator.

Mood
  • dread-soaked
  • claustrophobic
  • suffocating
  • feverish
Tone
  • clinical
  • detached
  • chilling
  • obsessive
  • macabre
Pace
propulsive
Themes
delusions of romance · toxic entitlement · the anatomy of obsession · loss of autonomy · psychological captivity
The writing
Sharp, unadorned, and chillingly pragmatic, perfectly mirroring the protagonist's sociopathic detachment.
The arc
Begins with a creeping sense of unease that rapidly accelerates into a suffocating, inescapable nightmare of delusion and control.
Who it's for
Readers who love the morbid fascination of being trapped inside the head of a charismatic but deeply disturbed antihero.
Content notes
  • stalking
  • kidnapping and confinement
  • psychological abuse
  • medical gore
  • violence against women

About the book

A twisted young medical student kidnaps the girl of his dreams and embarks on a dark and delirious road trip across Brazil in the English-language debut of one of Brazil's most celebrated young crime writers. Teo Avelar is a loner. He lives with his paraplegic mother and her dog in Rio de Janeiro, he doesn't have many friends, and the only time he feels honest human emotion is in the presence of his medical school cadaver--that is, until he meets Clarice. She's almost his exact opposite: exotic, spontaneous, unafraid to speak her mind. An aspiring screenwriter, she's working on a screenplay called Perfect Days about three friends who go on a road trip across Brazil in search of romance. Teo is obsessed. He begins to stalk her, first following to her university, then to her home, and when she ultimately rejects him, Teo kidnaps her and they embark upon their very own twisted odyssey across Brazil, tracing the same route outlined in her screenplay. Through it all, Teo is certain that time is all he needs to prove to Clarice that they are made for each other, that time is all he needs to make her fall in love with him. But as the journey progresses, he keeps digging himself deeper and deeper into a pit that he can't get out of, stopping at nothing to ensure that no one gets in the way of their life together. Both tense and lurid, and brimming with suspense from the very first page, Perfect Days is a psychological thriller in the vein of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley--a chilling journey in the passenger seat with a psychopath. It marks the English language debut of one of Brazil's most deliciously dark young writers.

Description from Open Library.

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