Love, Unscripted by Owen Nicholls

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher Headline Review in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy. I can't believe Holly Bourne's name is right there on the cover promoting this book.

Love, Unscripted is the story of Nick, one of the most insufferable protagonists that I've read about for a while. Nick is a projectionist at a local movie theatre and also a self-destructive, unaware moron.

The blurb of this book frames this as a 'boy gets left by girl and re-evaluates his life' kind of story, but this is actually a massive lie. In fact, it is a 'boy dumps his long-suffering girlfriend because he's too much of an ass to realise that he is dumping her, then mopes about and tells everyone she dumped him' kind of story.

I get that the point of this book is Nick is meant to go through personal growth and realise the error of his ways, but Nick is not a teenage boy. He's a grown man who should know better at his age than making his girlfriend do all his emotional work for him. He is so self-focused that it becomes deeply unpleasant reading about every other character trying to patiently accommodate him and his self-made problems. He is so unaware of their feelings that it makes him completely irredeemable as a protagonist.#

I cannot recommend this book even a little bit. I adore romance books of many shapes and sizes, but I have no patience for the lack of awareness this book seems to have about its own main character

Overall Rating:

We Were Restless Things by Cole Nagamatsu

 

I received an ARC of this book thanks to NetGalley and publisher RB Media in exchange for an honest review.

I am going to be relatively kind to this book because I think I realised fairly early on that it wasn't for me. Because it was an audiobook, I didn't DNF but I'm not sure that was the right decision. We Were Restless Things is the story about a group of friends who are dealing with the fact their other friend drowned on dry land. There is some magical realism stuff but mostly it seems to be character-focused stuff, which would be fine if the characters were interesting or compelling. I can honestly only remember details about Noemi and Jonas, and I didn't particularly like either of them.

I really really don't like the romance in this book. Noemi is asexual and some aspects of that are portrayed very well, but I am uncomfortable with the fact she is narrated as being very flat and emotionless. Maybe it reads different in the text but I didn't like the association between asexuality and emotional flatness as, while sometimes the case in real life, this is also the stereotype I see most in the media. That aside, the romance is with her step sibling and that's the part I really hate. Sure, they meet as teenagers but I dislike the fact that two teenagers in fiction can't meet and have a platonic relationship, especially when a romantic one is pretty inappropriate. She even uses the 'stepbrother' label to push him away when she's worried about her asexuality which...gross.

Honestly that's all I have retained about this book sadly so I can't say much more. There seemed to be some good magical realism/ghost type stuff but those moments seemed very infrequent. It's a shame because I think this book could have been great if the characters were a little more distinct and interesting. Having said that, if you enjoy magical realism then you will probably get a lot more out of this than me. I was hoping for a Raven Boys-style conversion for me but alas that wasn't to be.

Overall Rating:

The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me by Olivia Hinebaugh

This book. This book makes me feel conflicted in a way I haven't for a while. The Birds, The Bees, and You and Me is the story of Lacey, a teenage girl who has been raised to be very informed about sexual health. When her school starts running terrible sex ed lessons, she takes matters into her own hands and begins teaching her classmates about sexual matters. However, this is only a small part of the book. Lacey is best friends with Theo and Evita, who used to date but broke up due to Evita's asexuality. Theo has a new girlfriend who neither Lacey nor Evita really like. Lacey has started to develop feelings for Theo, and she is also conflicted about whether to spend her future studying to be a nurse (like her mum) or following her music passion (like her friends want her to).

I'm gonna start with the positives of this book because there are a few. Firstly, the sexual health stuff is all great. It's handled a little obviously but that doesn't bother me in a book like this and there are a few self-aware moments of characters being preachy. I really liked the pregnant teen plotline and all of the nurse stuff, while possibly unrealistic, was very unique and enjoyable to read about. Evita is asexual and honestly such a fantastic character. Aside from being a little mean to Theo, she is a great friend to Lacey throughout and is unrealistically understanding about absolutely everything. At the beginning, I also really liked Lacey and Theo. My fondness for Lacey mostly remained throughout but Theo...

Oh Theo.

This romance was BAD. There was nothing inherently wrong with it on the surface but there were a lot of unfortunate choices made. Firstly, Theo and Lacey had such a good friendship at the start. The second romance came into it, I stopped being interesting in their relationship. Theo set off all kinds of warning bells I don't think he was meant to. He was secretive, he put a wedge between Lacey and her friends, he was instantly controlling and negative about her potentially not going to the same college as him. I kept waiting for the narrative to reveal their relationship was a bad idea and for Lacey to dump him but that never happened. The only part I liked were their sex scenes and that's only because they were written so well. They demonstrated how to have discussions about consent and boundaries without it ruining the mood, and how good sexual communication should work.

I really really wish this hadn't been a romance. It could have worked so much better without that plot and I hated seeing Lacey and Evita's friendship being disturbed by some guy. Even with Evita magically being the most understanding person ever, Lacey never really addressed how rubbish she was to her friend and it felt like Theo was happy for things to stay that way. So many elements of this book are good so it seems a shame to rate it so low, but I just couldn't enjoy it the way it was written.

Overall Rating:

.5

Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Jimmy Patterson in exchange for an honest review.

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't blown away by Girls of Paper and Fire. I did really enjoy the book and I thought it had a lot of potential but there were some little niggles that kept getting in the way of me loving it. I was hoping the sequel would fix these niggles and bring more of what I loved, and it did to some extent.

Girls of Storm and Shadow is a very different book to the first one in the series. The plot focuses mainly on the growing threat of war and our band of heroes travelling round, trying to recruit others to their cause. I must admit, I'm not a huge fan of these kinds of plots which probably tainted my opinion a bit. What I did enjoy was the characterisation present here and the direction the characters were taken in. One of my main niggles with the first book was the relationship between the protagonist and her love interest, which was a little flat and had an unpleasant 'victim blaming' angle to it. Thankfully this is fixed in this book, and while there are other reasons I found it hard to root for the couple, I do at least find it interesting the direction Ngan has chosen to take it.

The writing in general is strong and I think there is enough happening in this book to keep you engaged. As much as I thought the relationship of Wren and Lei took a step in the right direction, there are still some very prominent issues. In this book Lei is waaaay too forgiving of Wren, to the point where it is sort of unbelievable. Lei doesn't tend to react the way one typically would to finding out certain things about her lover, and the plot suffers for it. Lei herself has somewhat questionable morals as well. At one point she refuses to kill a known enemy who is attacking her but a few chapters later, she slaughters a much more innocent person in self-defense and barely bats an eyelid.

Sadly this book did not convince me to continue on with the series, though I am still a little intrigued to see where it's all going. I wish the plot of the first book had tied in more closely to the plot of this one, and it seems the third one will have to jump a fair bit if it is going to be the last in the series. I did think the sexual assault aspects that were handled poorly in the first book are handled well in this one (although still treated as a minor plot thread) which is an improvement. Try as I might, I just can't get sucked into this world though.

Overall Rating:

The Honeymoon by Rona Halsall

I received an ARC of this book thanks to Net Galley and publisher Bookouture in exchange for an honest review.

Oh boy, this was a rough read. If you ever want a textbook definition of 'idiot plot', then sadly this is it. I was pretty excited to read this book because it sounded like a brilliant atmospheric thriller. Having married a man after only two months with him, Chloe goes on her honeymoon and things take a scary dive. I expected from the blurb that this would be a book about a husband holding his new wife hostage and, while that's kind of true, that's not what the focus of the plot is on. Instead of a hostage story you kind of get a back and forth between Chloe being determined to try and make her marriage work and her almost freaking out at her new husband's behaviour.

I say 'almost' because the biggest problem this book has is without a doubt the characters. Not a single character acted how a real person would and it made everything very hard to swallow. So Chloe has just married Dan, a man she doesn't know very well. Immediately after their wedding, he changes their honeymoon destination without telling her. He then takes away her phone, refuses to let her open the windows and behaves very oddly in general. Chloe chronically undereacts to everything. Even when pretty life-altering stuff is happening later on in the plot, she never reacts more than someone would to discovering they were out of milk. This is not, as I first thought, an attempt to accurately portray how some women can act in an abusive situation. This is just poor characterisation.

The same goes for Dan. He repeatedly claims that he needs to 'keep Chloe safe' but refuses to explain anything to her, just so the reader can go on wondering if he's paranoid or if he really is a good guy. There is zero romantically appealing about him and that makes it tough to sympathise with Chloe to any degree. Chloe also has a gran who is possibly one of the most selfish people ever. When Chloe seeks her out having had some pretty awful things happen to her, her gran just waves her off back to her new husband and tells her to leave her alone. Granted her gran isn't meant to be ideal but she's a lot worse than the narrative seems to imply she is.

The real unbelievable nature of it all comes to light with the sheer amount of insanity that happens in the last few chapters. In the space of a few pages HIGHLIGHT FOR SPOILERS Chloe is threatened by a madman, kills him, has a child, gets back together with Dan, Dan murders her gran for the money, Chloe leaves him again and then Dan is hit by a car. You keep expecting the story to end since it feels like it has come to its natural conclusion and then another thing forces the plot to keep on going.

Overall, I would sadly not recommend this thriller. Maybe it could have worked with stronger writing or characterisation but the plot itself is fairly weak and I'm not sure it would be worth salvaging. It's a shame because I love summer-themed thrillers but there are far better examples out there than this one.

Overall Rating:

.5

9 Days and 9 Nights by Katie Cotugno

SPOILERS FOR 99 DAYS AND 9 DAYS & 9 NIGHTS BELOW.

This is really impressive. So my main problem with 99 Days is that I could not understand at all why Molly would be messing around with Patrick when her relationship with Gabe was so great. And in this sequel, I have no idea why Molly would mess around with Gabe when she has a great new partner in Ian.

This book was soooo disappointing. I'm not an idiot, I knew from the start that Molly and Gabe would end up back together. I just wasn't expecting it to be something I really didn't want to happen. The Molly at the start of this book is in her first year of college, she has a new boyfriend and has grown up a lot. And at the end of the book, this is all just thrown away.

Again, all of Molly and Ian's relationship flaws are so non-existent. She gets angry that he isn't seeing the real her when apparently her new college persona is fake and she's just pretending to be someone else. Nevermind that she is no longer upsetting people and has gotten her life together. Apparently that isn't being true to herself and so she should revert back to her teenage self and continuing dating a guy that she has already cheated on once WITH HIS BROTHER.

Once again, I still enjoyed this book for what it was due to the writing style and various other elements. However, I have never been so utterly baffled by a romance series before. Clearly Cotugno and I have vastly different opinions on what constitutes a good relationship if she can make me do a complete 180 on who I ship Molly with between books. I felt sorry for Ian and disagreed completely with how Molly's character arc was handled. If you read the first one though and liked it, this one isn't really much worse. In all likelihood, you'll enjoy this one too.

Overall Rating:

99 Days by Katie Cotugno

It's been a fairly long time since I read a fluffy YA romantic contemporary. It's not my favourite genre but every once in a while (usually when I'm on holiday) I get the craving for some good old-fashioned fluff. This book however turned out to be a lot more interesting than your typical sweet romance.

The premise of 99 Days is that our main character Molly used to date a guy named Patrick until she cheated on him with his brother, Gabe. Now I don't like cheating stories which made Molly a little difficult to sympathise with, something which didn't get easier the more stupid her decisions became. Having been away from her hometown for a year, Molly must return for 99 days before she goes away to college and face the music. You see, Molly's affair was revealed when her mother wrote a best-selling book about it and as a result, everyone in the town hates her. The only person who is still nice to her is Gabe.

This is one of those books that is only fueled by poor decisions and characters behaving stupidly. Molly is the worst offender and she gets stuck in a love triangle between two brothers. I found Patrick deeply unlikable and could not understand Molly's attraction to him at all, especially when Gabe was so sweet and his 'offences' in their relationship so minor. I thought I was going to hate this book but the strong writing style pulled through and I actually quite enjoyed it.

If you can switch off your brain enough to not be bothered by the insanely poor decisions of the characters, then this is a surprisingly complex and interesting examination of the aftermath of cheating. I liked how it didn't shy away from showing what happens when teenagers make poor decisions and the exploration of Molly's relationship with her mother was also fairly interesting, albeit something which could have had more of a focus. Overall I really enjoyed it and I am interested in reading the sequel.

Overall Rating:

.5

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

SPOILERS AHEAD.

Oh boy. I am not going to win any fans for this one. So this book has been on my TBR list for four years now. One of my closest friends recommended it to me waaaay back in first year of university and I earnestly promised to read it as he said it was one of his favourite books. Flash forward to 2018-the movie is coming out and I am reminded of this book's existence. I excitedly text him to say I'm finally starting to read it and I begin.

Aaaaaaaaah.

This book is bad. Painfully bad. Reading it is like being punched in the stomach by someone you hate only you're not allowed to complain about it because you have only yourself to blame. The only way I can accurately do my hatred of this book justice is to break it down into subtitles so apologies if it seems disjointed. There is just a LOT of ground to cover.

Plot Summary

The setting is 2045 and the world has gone to crap. Our protagonist is a teenage boy named Wade Watts, an orphan who spends all of his time in an online virtual world called the Oasis. That's all everyone does now-that and make endless 80s references. You see, the guy who made the Oasis died and left behind a video saying he would give 240 billion (yes, BILLION) dollars to whoever finds his hidden Easter egg first. In order to have a chance of finding this Easter egg, you have to memorise every piece of pop culture from the 80s ever. No that isn't a joke. Wade is the biggest geek and therefore of course will undertake the quest to find the egg first. By 'quest' I mean spending four years watching and reading stuff, then finally getting off his ass to do something.

Problem #1-SO MUCH EIGHTIES

Many people appear to love this book because of the endless references to everything nerdy. These people are severely misguided. You see, Cline employs the absolute laziness way of referencing stuff which is to just namecheck everything in a massive stream of pop culture vomit. If the reference isn't included as part of an obnoxiously long list, then you can bet it will be inserted into a paragraph of description in the most distracting way possible. Characters, places, even the music in tense scenes is replaced with a reference to a better work of fiction.

'She was so charming. Her geeky demeanor and hyperkinetic speech pattern reminded me of Jordan, my favorite character in Real Genius'

How distracting is that? It fails on two counts because if you don't get the reference, well you suck for not being nerdy enough (more on that later). If you do get the reference however, then you can't possibly think of anything other than the character from that movie from then onward. It ruins any description Cline does bother to write and it jerks you out of the story like a car crash.

Problem #2-Show don't tell

So the finding of the first key is kind of glossed over a bit (I mean, if you can call 10 chapters or so 'glossed over') which I guess is done because finding it is a given. Unfortunately this results in one of the worst narrative mistakes an author can make and that is simply telling the reader about stuff instead of bothering to describe it. It's honestly baffling when Wade finds out the location of the first key, calculates it will take him three days to get there and then just immediately comes up with an alternative plan. Then he teleports there and makes his way through a dungeon in the space of a sentence. Cline literally lists him finding loot until he reaches the big boss of the dungeon and it's such a bizarre decision. I guess it's because if you've played the game he's referencing, that would be rather dull to read about. Alas it is dull anyway and you could have done so much cool stuff with detailing Wade's journey and have him battling things. Even fans of the game could have enjoyed in-depth references.

This is not a one-off either. Too often the author resorts to simply listing things or skimming over certain details. I don't need to read about everything but why bring something up instead of simply using a time skip or a change of scene? This is also linked closely with the next problem...

Problem #3-No suspense allowed

For the first half of this book (and even a bit beyond that) the author seems petrified to let the reader experience any kind of suspense. Finding the first key is told with the knowledge that Wade will succeed but that does not excuse things like this happening:

'I breathed a sigh of relief. (I wouldn’t learn until later that the keys were nontransferable. You couldn’t drop one of them, or give them to another avatar. And if you were killed while holding one, it vanished right along with your body.)'

So throughout this scene we're not sure if he's going to be attacked and lose the key he just gained. Then Art3mis tries to attack him and the above sentence happens, immediately removing any kind of suspense. By telling us so early on that keys can't be stolen, it removes so much potential tension from later scenes. Again, stuff like this happens repeatedly.

Problem #4-Wade is too good

The other major reason the story lacks any suspense is that Wade basically never struggles with anything. It is astonishing how many skills this guy supposedly has. He is one of the first people to work out the location of the first key and gets it immediately, even though Art3mis has been trying for five weeks. Granted he struggles with working out the second key but only with working it out. The actual nerd skills needed to complete any challenge, he has in spades. None of these skills are foreshadowed either (beyond us being told repeatedly how awesome and nerdy he is) so every time it's like 'I approached the place, waiting to see what the next challenge would be. It was this thing. Sweet, I'm awesome at this thing.'. I was just waiting for him to encounter something he wasn't amazing at and it never really happened.

At one point when Wade is in hiding and is all depressed, he becomes incredibly obese. He then installs a fitness program onto his virtual system and within months (literally months) he gains abs and becomes very muscular. I can understand having a computer program help you lose weight making it much easier but it's still ridiculous. It doesn't explain how he loses that weight healthily when it's so much in such a short space of time. It's just another thing that he does effortlessly.

Problem #5-No one has that much time

This book is all over the place when it comes to logic and time. So Wade is poor and we're told right at the start of the book that he has to scavenge and sell computers for food since his aunt steals all of his government-issued food. This is then never mentioned again. He also attends school which presumably follows the usual full-time school structure. Four years have passed since the start of the egg hunt and yet somehow Wade has had the time to consume thousands of hours of films, TV shows, books and videogames. How? For example, just one thing Wade claims to have done is watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail 157 times. That is almost ten days worth of watching just one film.

This continues much later on when we're suddenly told that he has had to take on a full-time 40 hour a week job (with 10 hour shifts) and yet he still has time to go into the Oasis all the time and still hunt for the egg. What??? It doesn't make any sense.

Problem #6-Is this even a romance?

Not gonna lie, I have quite a few issues with how Art3mis and Wade's relationship goes down in this book. He has a crush on her before he meets her and when he does meet her, we get some truly cringe-worthy flirting between them.

'“You’re evil, you know that?” I said.

She grinned and shook her head. “Chaotic Neutral, sugar.”'

That line was so bad that it almost ruined the magical idea of romance a lifetime of watching Disney movies has instilled in me.

It does get marginally better but it still really bothers me. Art3mis makes a lot of good points about how Wade only gets to see what she wants him to see since they've only interacted online. And she repeatedly says she looks nothing like her avatar which he repeatedly ignores. Good thing she was lying right? This discussion also leads to one of the most godawful please-can-I-stop-reading moments in the whole damn book:

'Art3mis: How well do you know Aech?

Parzival: He’s been my best friend for five years. Now, spill it. Are you a woman? And by that I mean are you a human female who has never had a sex-change operation?

Art3mis: That’s pretty specific.

Parzival: Answer the question, Claire'

If some guy spoke like that to me, I would never ever speak to him again. This was written in 2011 for god's sake, there's no excuse for transphobia.

Just after the halfway point, we get the obligatory break-up due to Art3mis wanting to focus on the contest (though she is adamant they were never dating, something Wade repeatedly ignores). Wade then bombards her with messages etc to try and get her back. I honestly don't know how the author meant us to interpret this because he does get her in the end but it's not as a result of his behaviour. However, it's still another point against our hero.

I also dislike the faint 'not like other girls' vibe going on in the narration. Wade takes time to point out how Art3mis has a curvy but normal build, unlike EVERY OTHER GIRL who apparently are all either stick-thin or have porn star bodies. Because of course most girls would choose to look like a male fantasy.

Finally, there's a scene where Art3mis and Wade discuss what they would do with the money. Wade says he'd buy a mansion and cool stuff and Art3mis says she would feed all the starving people in the world. You know, because dystopia. Wade MOCKS her for this. This is never really resolved apart from a glib joke by Wade later.

Problem #7-All the other crap

1. There is so much racism in regards to the Japanese characters.

2. Aech is apparently one of the most famous players in the Oasis at the start of the book, has a really cool hangout and yet has no friends apart from Wade.

3. Why do they hang out with I-r0k? Seriously, no one likes him and he exists only to mess stuff up later. Oh, and also so Wade can prove his knowledge in one of the hardest scenes to swallow (I've dealt with a lot of sucky gatekeeper nerd guys in my time).

'I nodded. “The prizes were all mentioned in the Swordquest comic books that came with the games. Comic books which happen to be visible in the treasure room in the final scene of Anorak’s Invitation, by the way.”

The crowd burst into applause. I-r0k lowered his head in shame.'

Never has a scene made me root for a protagonist less.

4. If Halliday intended the true message to be 'don't waste your life in the Oasis', why did he create an impossibly hard contest designed to make everyone spend their time in the Oasis consuming the exact same pop culture he did?

5. Wade says this stupid insult '“Your mom bought them for me,” I retorted without breaking my stride. “Tell her I said thanks, the next time you stop at home to breast-feed and pick up your allowance.”' followed by 'At this school, the only real weapons were words, so I’d become skilled at wielding them'. Skilled. With dialogue like that. Sure.

6. Halliday sounds like an awful awful person. Wade takes the time to point out he fired people for not understanding his references and yeah, that makes him awful.

7. Name-dropping Revenge of the Nerds as a good movie. Gross.

8. Oh look, more problematic stuff:

'“Stop hitting yourself like Rain Man, OK?”'

9. Stop. Making. Wade. So. Unlikeable.

'When I reached the bar, I ordered a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster from the female Klingon bartender and downed half of it. Then I grinned as R2 cued up another classic ’80s tune. “ ‘Union of the Snake,’ ” I recited, mostly out of habit. “Duran Duran. Nineteen eighty-three.”'

10. The weird blob dancing scene.

Final Thoughts

So after all that, how come this book gets two stars and not one? Well to my utter surprise, after about the halfway point this book improves a lot. Almost all of the references vanish (sadly not quite all) and the actual plot becomes the main focus. It's not a bad plot either, and I even found myself enjoying it at times. Sadly this is not enough for me to recommend this book. It wasn't even enough to cancel out the sheer anger it made me feel.

Mild other positives so this doesn't seem so negative-Art3mis is a pretty cool character. I like how she held her own and she was by far the most sensible and relatable person. Aech isn't bad either really. The plot goes in a weird but not unwelcome direction nearish the end and it was certainly different than what I was expecting.

Overall, I am kind of baffled how this book gets any 5 star reviews. From reading them, they all seem to be written by people who are happy with shallow references and enjoy the gatekeeper aspects. As someone who normally loves a clever reference, I am deeply disappointed by the quality on show here.

It's such a shame because the second half of the book shows how good Ready Player One could have been if it wasn't trying so hard. I would have loved to see more creativity and uniqueness within the world of the Oasis. It also desperately needed a less douchey protagonist.

Overall Rating:

Three Sides of a Heart: A Short Story Anthology

From one fantastic cute anthology about love to...well, this. This isn't the worst anthology I've ever read but it's one of the dullest. Most of the stories don't even follow the basic premise and the whole thing is super disappointing. I'm going to do what I've done in the past and go through each short story in turn, only expect a lot less detail for most because I don't actually a) remember what happens or b) like most of them.

Riddles in Mathematics, 2.5/5-One of the better ones, not that that's saying much. It's written in a very dull and kind of hard to follow way. It's also one of the ones that follows the love triangle premise the closest, although yeah, it still doesn't really count as a love triangle. Basically there is a girl, her brother and a girl who is their best friend. Girl fancies best friend girl but thinks she is dating her brother. You can probably guess what happens.

Dread South, 3.5/5-Not. A. Love. Triangle. This was such a weird story to follow the first one but also it was pretty great so I can't fault it too much. It takes place in an alternate timeline where zombies exist after the American Civil War. Black women are trained as warrior servants to protect rich white people, and the main girl gets bought one by her rich fiance. She then falls in love with her servant protector. Bit of a weird context but enjoyable on the whole.

Omega Ship, 2.5/5-Kind of a cool idea? So it's the end of the world and humans are evacuating the earth. However, the ship breaks and only three people manage to escape-one girl and two boys. The girl is overcome by the idea of having to have babies forever and has to choose which boy to have a baby with first. The problem with this is that it could have used more time to explore the emotions of the characters and the themes it was trying to consider. I could totally see this working as a full-length novel or YA series. As it stands, it's a bit weak.

La Revancha del Tango, 1.5/5-I have pretty much no memory of this apart from skim-reading it. A girl dances? Someone gets jealous? Somehow the person she is dancing with symbolises who she is going to be with for the rest of her life. One of the weaker ones.

Cass, An and Dra, 1.5/5-Told sooooo badly. Again, this could have been a cool idea. I'm not entirely sure what the point of the whole 'Cassandra' thing is beyond a reference to Cassandra the fortune teller. Basically Cass (none of the characters have gender in this) is dating An but then is tempted by Dra-or at least, I think that's what this was trying to convey. Cass can see the future and see how each decision they make will result in different options, so each time they have to actively choose An. Obviously the names spell out 'Cassandra' so I was expecting some kind of split personality thing but nope. I don't care enough to try and sort out what this clumsy mess was trying to say I'm afraid.

Lessons for Beginners, 3.5/5-A actual love triangle! The main girl gives kissing lessons to people at school. She gets employed by an old childhood friend and her new boyfriend to try and improve his kissing. The two girls have insane chemistry but aren't sure where it's going to lead. I don't remember just how good this was but it was cute and far more interesting than most of the other stories.

Triangle Solo, 1.5/5-Erm, so this was needlessly sci-fi. It just kind of dropped the sci-fi in there as well, like shoving ham into a vegetarian sandwich. Effectively this is two guys fighting over a girl they used to know who went away for ages and came back hot. I barely skim-read this one.

Vim and Vigor, 4/5-By far the best story in this. There is a love triangle in this but it's not actually part of the story really, just the set-up. These girls were best friends and massively into a fandom when one of them died in an accident. They then stopped speaking to each other and drifted apart, but this story is about them learning to cope with their grief and re-establishing their friendship. A sweet story and a breath of fresh air to the anthology.

Work in Progress, ?/5-I don't even remember this one.

Hurdles, 3.5/5-Another solid one rooted in reality. A girl is set to become a star athlete and has a lovely boyfriend. Her ex boyfriend has just come out of prison for drug use/other bad things. She is trying to decide whether or not to run away with her ex or stay with her new boyfriend and go for an athletic scholarship (or something similar). The only thing holding this story back is you never find out what she chooses. Very disappointing considering one option would be extremely bad for her.

The Historian, The Garrison, and the Cantakerous Catwoman, 3/5-Apart from giving me serious Buffy ripoff vibes, this story was pretty cool. The main character is a girl who helps a superhero-type figure fight demons by basically being his researcher. He then meets another superhero-type girl who he falls in love with. This story is all about the main character's jealousy and feelings of betrayal at this.

Waiting, 1.5/5-I only vaguely remember this story but I definitely know I was not happy with the love triangle resolution. I'm pretty sure the main character ended up picking the worst possible option and treating a perfectly nice guy like crap in the process. This story was clearly going for 'pick passion over companionship' and while I understand that to an extent, they shouldn't have made the other option so appealing. Instead it just seems like she had learned nothing and was making the same bad mistakes all over again.

Vega, ?/5-Erm...this was probably a story in this anthology?

A Hundred Thousand Threads, ?/5-I skipped it sorry.

Before She Was Bloody, ?/5-I also skipped this one. I tried, I really did.

Unus, Duo, Tres, 3.5/5-This was really well-written and quite a cool concept of a story buuuut...polyamory is a thing guys. I don't want to say too much but this is about undead vampire lovers and what happens when they both fall for another human and yeah, polyamory should have been the resolution.

Okay, so as you can probably tell this was a very long anthology and my memory of many of the stories is pretty hazy. I read it only a month ago and even from reading the story descriptions from other reviews, there are some I just can't remember anything about. Overall though I would say it's not worth picking up this anthology. Even the good stories didn't really blow my mind massively, and there are so many that it really drags near the end. It's such a shame because this could be a great premise for a bunch of interesting short stories but that just doesn't happen.

Overall Score:

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapters 10-15

Brief Recap: Ana meets Grey's mother, Grey gives her a computer and they start emailing. Ana reads the contract properly, they meet to discuss it and eventually she agrees to be Grey's sub. Also Ana graduates.

Thoughts: Ah, now here's the dickish Christian Grey I was waiting for. Not that he hasn't shown signs of being a dick before this point but this is the part of the book where he really becomes intolerable. There are red flags all over this relationship.

"But I'm worried you'll hurt me."

~

"I could make you stay," he threatens

~

"You scare me when you're angry,"

NONE OF THESE ARE SIGNS YOU SHOULD BE ENTERING A RELATIONSHIP WITH THIS MAN ANA. Especially not when he literally says he doesn't want you to think about what's right because he'll do it for you.

 “All those decisions – all the wearying thought processes behind them. The – is this the right thing to do? Should this happen here? Can it happen now? You wouldn't have to worry about any of that detail.”

Christian is sooooo creepy. As a joke, Ana sends him an email saying 'it was nice knowing you'. He takes it seriously and shows up at her house to persuade her through sex to change her mind. Sure, he concedes on minor points and to be fair, Ana has a lot more of a backbone than I expected. But she completely ignores the fact she doesn't want a sub/dom relationship. She basically says 'I don't want to be whipped' and he's like 'No, you'll like it, trust me'. And she agrees to it! This is some deeply unhealthy relationship stuff here.

I expected to hate the emails but honestly, they're probably one of the best parts. At least Ana sticks up for herself more via email. Also there's no weird asparagus flirting.

Chapter 15 ends with them having sex for the first time since she agreed to be his sub and what does he do? Tell her she can do anything she wants, she's in charge! He basically taunts her with what she won't ever experience with him again.

This is definitely the worst set of chapters so far. I have a horrible feeling this is the start of a very slippery slope

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapters 6-10

Brief Recap: Ana wakes up in Grey's bed and he tells her they slept together but didn't have sex (still creepy). Also she isn't wearing pants. He tells her he likes her but there are some things she should know about him before they go any further. He then kisses her dramatically in the elevator because mixed messages are perfectly acceptable. Later on they go to his house and he introduces her to his Room of Eternal Kinkiness and shows her the Sub/Dom contract. She informs him she's a virgin and he's so outraged that he generously takes her virginity right there and then. Sexy times happen, morning times happen and the chapter ends with the arrival of Grey's mother.

Thoughts: Well, we have our first sex scene! And it didn't disappoint. A lot of these chapters is just setting up the whole BDSM concept which unfortunately is kinda problematic. You see, Grey's 'contract' isn't really what BDSM is all about. I mean, it can be but it's a much more mutual thing than this book makes out. Just because Grey is the Dom doesn't mean he gets to decide everything about their relationship without any discussion whatsoever. Also, his reaction to Ana's virgin status is definitely not okay. Despite claiming he doesn't do 'vanilla', he has regular sex with her so she can see what it's like. He is the true king of mixed messages, doing things whilst claiming the whole time that he 'never does them'.

The sex scenes themselves aren't the worst I've ever read but they're hardly realistic. Ana's first time and she feels no pain and has three orgasms. Also, there's even more of unrealistically innocent Ana here. Apparently she has never masturbated/orgasmed either because she's had no sexual feelings whatsoever until Christian shows up with his magical penis.

Christian. Oh dear lord. He has sex like a robot, I swear.

'I am going to take you from behind, Anastasia'.
'Anastasia, I am going to come in your mouth '.
'Error 404-orgasm file not found'.

Ana's subconscious is starting to get on my wick as well. It honestly reads like Ana has some deep psychological problem with the way she's either berating herself or urging herself to be more daring. This kind of inner conflict isn't healthy guys! Ana's repressing so hard that there's no way it can end well.

I'm interested to see how much of the book becomes sex after this. Since the last 5 chapters featured no one but Ana and Christian, it doesn't bode well for the rest of it.

Current Opinion: Getting worse but still palatable

Fifty Shades of Grey: Chapters 1-5

So I've finally decided to do it. Yes, I am going to read 50 Shades of Grey. In order to be able to stomach it though (and to give it a more detailed review) I'm going to split it up into sets of 5 chapters. Hopefully this will make it easier to swallow.

I don't think this really needs much background explanation. If you don't know this book, Google it. Done? Okay, good. So this was a Twilight fanfiction turned goldmine BDSM book. The basic story is vulnerable virgin meets experienced sexy millionaire and they have lots of kinky sexy sex together. I probably won't be too graphic in my reviews of this but I might quote particularly funny parts so be warned if that sort of thing offends you.

Brief recap of chapter contents: Anastasia Steele (henceforth known as 'Ana') meets Christian Grey when she has to interview him for her college newspaper. They then meet again at her place of work where he buys rope and cable ties (subtle book) and finally yet again for a photo shoot. This leads to a coffee date. Ana goes out after her final exams and gets super drunk, hit on by her friend Jose and rescued by Grey.

Thoughts: Okay, so far this isn't as bad as I feared. Christian is a douche from the get go but Ana is not as weak as I expected, nor as one-dimensional. She's still not great but she has a pretty substantial
life of her own at the moment. Of course, I fully expect this to vanish when they actually start having a romance.

Kate is a plot device really, nothing more. She's someone for Ana to muse about occasionally and to talk to about Christian. Again, she's alright but suffers from a bad case of 'show don't tell'. Instead of describing Kate through actions, we know everything we know about her because Ana tells us it.

Things that annoy me so far-Ana is far too innocent, weirdly so. Apparently she has never drunk before she gets super drunk in Chapter 5 which I find it very hard to believe given that she's 21 and has just finished college. Of course, it would be different if it was a personal choice but it seems more like she's just never gotten round to it. Christian is also awful in this chapter-after rescuing Ana from sexual assault and watching her throw up, he then takes her to the dance floor and they dance until she literally passes out. Because clearly the perfect time to tango is right after you've vomited up two litres of margaritas.

Unfortunately, far too many elements of this remind me of Twilight. Jose is very similar to Jacob in physical description and the role he plays as the best friend/third love triangle part. Their dads are best friends too (something I'm sure will never be mentioned again and so serves only to highlight its Twilight roots) and he does the forceful kiss thing Jacob does. That aside, Grey saves Ana's life from a vehicle like Edward does and Ana has a crappy car like Bella. Coupled with the fact Kate falls for Christian's brother, there are too many similarities here for me to be comfortable with it. Hopefully this will change later on.

Current opinion: Not as bad as I feared

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

To give this book some credit, it was not as bad as I expected. That is to say, it's not as bad as Beautiful Disaster which is the standard I now compare all these sorts of romance books to. Having said that, boy is this book one steaming pile of clichés.

Brittany is your typical blonde girl perfectionist, Alex is your typical bad boy Mexican gang member. They get the hots for each other, they fight, they finally get together, some ridiculous conflict gets in the way...there's nothing new here is what I'm saying. But on the whole, it was marginally better than the worst I've seen of these bad boy books. So what didn't I like?

1) The romance-Okay, this might seem a bit obvious at first. But what I mean is, unlike some examples the courting of these two star-crossed teens is actually okay. There's no stalking (just mild kidnapping), boundaries are respected and they don't even kiss for like a 100 pages. But the second these two get together it all falls apart. Literally, for the two or three chapters they're 'happy' before the standard conflict kicks in, all they do is fight and prove how different they are. How I'm supposed to think they have a happy future is beyond me but thank god for the epilogue to prove me wrong!

2) The epilogue-Alright, the kid thing was cute if not entirely clichéd. I'm talking more about the fact they went to the same college and both decided to take Chemistry and then developed a not-quite-cure for Alzheimer's, presumably together. Because you know, the book went to such lengths to show us how much they love and are dedicated to that subject. Also GET IT THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY LOL

3) ALL THE GRATUITOUS SPANISH.

Yes, Alex is Mexican. We get it, Mexicans are hot. But literally, every scene with them has so much Spanish sprinkled around that it feels like burritos are being jammed down my throat as I read it

4) The 'mystery' of Alex's father's death-Because it was so obvious.

All in all, this book has some nice elements. I liked Brittany's sister and I think she added an element not usually explored in YA fiction. Also unlike some romances, there were actually quite a lot of prominent side characters and the main characters definitely had a life outside their relationship. If you like this genre then you could do far worse than this book. If not, well you're probably not going to read it anyway

Overall Score:

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

After reading heaps and heaps of reviews about how people loved this book, I can't help but feel like I'm missing something here.

Did we read the same book? Honestly, I don't see how I'm supposed to feel anything reading about this relationship (if you can call it that). From the start it was painfully clear that these two weren't meant to be together. Min is a pretentious film-lover, Ed is a typical jock. ON THE FIRST DATE he isn't getting her. I never believed they were in love for one second, let alone 300-odd pages.

This leads me to another problem. This entire book is Min writing her ex a letter about their relationship. Except their relationship didn't even last two months. This coupled with the way she narrates it just implies to me that she became waaaaaay too obsessed and for no real reason. Ed isn't attractive, he isn't charming or witty or charismatic in any way. Am I supposed to see this as Min being a silly teenager? If so, then the execution is very poor because it felt accidental. Also, why write a book about it and make the prose so very literary?

The writing style is maybe the only thing that made this book tolerable and that's not saying much. It's pretentious, the sentences go on far too long and Min spends way too much time getting to the point. I can't say I felt particularly attached to any of the characters. The illustrations are nice I guess? All in all, a flimsy book held together by pretty artwork and presentation. Not worth spending time or money on.

Overall Score:

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Dear Lord I hated this book. What's more, I hate it in a way which makes me angry that other people have given it good reviews.

First things first-this book is terribly written. As in, so bad it's painful. Sentences are phrased so badly that I genuinely started to think the author was just screwing with her readers.

'The thing is, Susannah was right. It was a summer I'd never, ever forget. It was the summer everything began. It was the summer I turned pretty. Because for the first time, I felt it. Pretty, I mean. Every summer up to this one, I believed it'd be different. Life would be different. And that summer, it finally was. I was.'

'It was also ironic, Steven teasing me about being flat-chested, because two summers later I had to wear a bra, but, like, for real.'

'Compared to you, everyone else is saltines, even Cam. And I hate saltines. You know that. You know everything about me, even this, which is that I really love you.'

The main character is supposed to be 15 but she reads more like a 12 year old. She has the super irritating problem of not being able to decide what guy she actually likes. Apparently she falls for Conrad when she's 10 and yet she also kinda likes his brother Jeremy when her friend flirts with him and she also likes a guy who hits on her at a party. Really, she just comes across as someone who craves male attention of any kind and will instantly 'fall in love' with whoever gives her that attention. She's also incredibly vain and self-centred.

'Had he caught me looking at myself in the mirror, checking myself out, admiring myself? Did everyone think I was vain and shallow now?'

'Was this because of me? All summer, Conrad's moodiness, locking himself up in his room-- had it really been because of me? Was it more than just his parents divorcing? Had he been that upset over seeing me with someone else?'

NO YOU IDIOT HIS MUM HAS CANCER.

The boys weren't much better but at least they were likeable. This is the kind of book which drains brain cells when you read it. I don't know what else I can say except for stay far, far away.

Overall Score:

Easy by Tammara Webber

Huuurgh.

Oh book, I wanted to like you so badly. For the most part I did. But honestly, the parts I enjoyed most were the parts not focusing on the romance which is generally bad news for a romance book.

Don't get me wrong, this is no Beautiful Disaster. Lucas is a nice enough love interest and the conflicts they have aren't entirely stupid. But I still couldn't shake the feeling there was something unsettling about their relationship. Maybe it's best if I sum it up for you...

1) Lucas notices Jacqueline while she's still with her boyfriend, falls for her from afar
2) Lucas notices they've broken up and semi-stalks her in a way which isn't full-blown stalking but is still uncomfortably close to it
3) Lucas saves Jacqueline from getting sexually assaulted
4) Lucas gets assigned as her tutor, doesn't admit it's him and starts flirting with her via email
5) Lucas also starts flirting with her in their real-life interactions
6) They predictably get together, blah blah blah

Okay, let's start with the emails. Before we learn they're from Lucas, I found them creepy as shit. I mean this guy has been assigned as her tutor, knows she's just had a bad breakup and proceeds to just flirt with her shamelessly despite the fact they've never met? Afterwards...well, it's still a little weird but more understandable I guess. Kinda.

Look, I totally get the 'falling for someone who's taken' thing. But the fact he seeks her out the second she doesn't have a boyfriend anymore coupled with him rescuing her from a sexual assault and then romancing her is...not okay. I like him as a character and I think they could have worked as a couple but the timing and psychology behind it is all wrong.

Moving on from that though, I did enjoy this book. It handles sexual assault reasonably well (certainly better than a lot of other romance books) and while Jacqueline is a bit dim about her attacker, she doesn't fall into the complete idiot territory. I found the other characters likeable (especially Erin) and on the whole, this is a good book. It's just a shame I couldn't get behind the main romance in it 100%.

Overall Score:

.5