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Perfect Boy: A Queer Young Adult Sci-Fi Romance
A perfect boy. A hidden secret. A shattering sacrifice.
Sixteen-year-old Owen has plenty of issues — crippling anxiety, manic depression, reckless behavior. What he doesn’t have is friends. He doesn’t like people very much, and as far as he can tell, the feeling is mutual.
Everything changes when a new family moves into the house next door. Their son Aidan is everything Owen isn’ he’s effortlessly charming, annoyingly optimistic, and he can fix anything from cars to computers to a really nice baked lemon-butter salmon.
Drawn out of his shell, Owen falls for Aidan head over heels, but something is off. Owen knows better than to trust something that seems too good to be true. As he keeps digging, he unearths a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew about Aidan, about love, and about what it means to be human.
As the truth finally unravels, Owen is left with one impossible to do the unthinkable to save the boy he loves.
Perfect Boy is a Young Adult sci-fi romance that will leave you asking existential questions about life, love, and the algorithm inside your head.
This novel contains depictions violence and gore, strong language, death and loss, mental health struggles (including anxiety, depression, and self-harm references), and non-explicit teen intimacy. Reader discretion is advised.
Sixteen-year-old Owen has plenty of issues — crippling anxiety, manic depression, reckless behavior. What he doesn’t have is friends. He doesn’t like people very much, and as far as he can tell, the feeling is mutual.
Everything changes when a new family moves into the house next door. Their son Aidan is everything Owen isn’ he’s effortlessly charming, annoyingly optimistic, and he can fix anything from cars to computers to a really nice baked lemon-butter salmon.
Drawn out of his shell, Owen falls for Aidan head over heels, but something is off. Owen knows better than to trust something that seems too good to be true. As he keeps digging, he unearths a conspiracy that challenges everything he thought he knew about Aidan, about love, and about what it means to be human.
As the truth finally unravels, Owen is left with one impossible to do the unthinkable to save the boy he loves.
Perfect Boy is a Young Adult sci-fi romance that will leave you asking existential questions about life, love, and the algorithm inside your head.
This novel contains depictions violence and gore, strong language, death and loss, mental health struggles (including anxiety, depression, and self-harm references), and non-explicit teen intimacy. Reader discretion is advised.
- GenresQueerYoung Adult
320 pages, Paperback
Published September 29, 2025
About the author
Marcus Herzig
12 books57 followersMarcus Herzig, future bestselling author and professional sarcast, was born in 1970 and studied Law, English, Educational Science, and Physics, albeit none of them with any tenacity or ambition. After dropping out of university he held various positions in banking, utilities, and Big Oil that bore no responsibility or decision-making power whatsoever.
Always destined to be a demiurge, he has been inventing characters and telling stories since the age of five, and it’s what he wants to do for the rest of his life. His favorite genre, both as a reader and a writer, is Young Adult literature, but he also very much enjoys science- and literary fiction.
Always destined to be a demiurge, he has been inventing characters and telling stories since the age of five, and it’s what he wants to do for the rest of his life. His favorite genre, both as a reader and a writer, is Young Adult literature, but he also very much enjoys science- and literary fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 11, 2025
Though this book was written with a YA audience in mind with teenage main characters, pop culture references and minimal sexual references, it will also appeal to those beyond that age group.
This is a well crafted story with interesting characters and witty dialog, though I’m disappointed in the number of typos.
This is a well crafted story with interesting characters and witty dialog, though I’m disappointed in the number of typos.
February 8, 2026
A great read.
What I thought was happening and what actually happened was completely different. Which makes this a great read. Aiden is an interesting character that I can’t spoil and the cliffhanger ending might turn you off. (Hopefully he gets a sequel out. It is needed). But Owen and Aiden are great characters and Riley adds a lot too.
Worth your time.
What I thought was happening and what actually happened was completely different. Which makes this a great read. Aiden is an interesting character that I can’t spoil and the cliffhanger ending might turn you off. (Hopefully he gets a sequel out. It is needed). But Owen and Aiden are great characters and Riley adds a lot too.
Worth your time.
March 10, 2026
DNF - hated the protagonist. I get that he's supposed to be precocious or some kind of intelligent misfit but there's enough mental illness on social media without needing to deal with this type of troubled soul in my fiction.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews