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

No One Else Can Have You by Kathleen Hale

I didn't realise until I finished this book just how odd it was. I mean, it's a murder mystery where a teenage girl is killed horribly on the first page and yet it doesn't take itself all that seriously. You know the events the words are describing are awful and yet they don't seem that bad.

Probably one of the first things I should say is I loved this book right up until a certain point. For those of you who have read it, that point is when Kippy goes to the mental asylum. After that, everything just went sort of downhill.

Let's start with the positives. Kippy-I adored Kippy as a character (even if I did think she was a boy for the first five pages which was somewhat jarring when I discovered she wasn't). She's so weird it should be off-putting and yet she remains delightfully likeable and somehow down to earth throughout the whole book. Yes she has issues (everyone has issues basically) but they're just a part of her. She's definitely one of the less annoying YA narrators.

Unfortunately, this strength is also the book's main downfall. I just didn't feel the emotional side at all which is downright weird in a murder mystery. When the actual murderer is revealed, it's almost done with no fanfare at all. There was no emotional impact because the character didn't seem to feel an emotional impact. In fact, everyone reacted just a bit too normally to the brutal murder at the start. Kippy is sad for her friend obviously but the author doesn't focus on what anyone thinks about the actual method of murder. Even at the end in the big reveal, it's just presented as another fact.

Now this alone wasn't enough to make me dislike the book since the first three-quarters are so strong and hey, it almost feels like it could be a stylistic choice done on purpose. But it is a shame when a murder mystery book decides not to make a song and dance about the murder. I would still greatly recommend this book and I'm so glad I read it but if you're hoping for a dark read, you're going to be disappointed.

(Also, final spoilery rant: Does the murderer really have to be the loner kid who was sad after his parents died and collects a bunch of nerdy/weird stuff? Because that stereotype hasn't been done enough)

Overall Score:

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:

They All Fall Down by Roxanne St. Claire

Not gonna lie, I fully expected this book to be terrible.

Oh come on, the description was so blatantly riding on the coattails of Pretty Little Liars. So why did I read it? Well, I'm a sucker for a good mystery and I was secretly hoping this book would do what PLL failed to-create a good mystery with interesting characters.

This book sucked me in instantly. For the first half I couldn't put it down. Instead of having the main girl be your typical popular girl like in PLL, the author opted to have a more average nerdy girl voted onto the list. This certainly helped with making the character likeable and the narration more bearable. The other characters were less interesting but the only one I hated was Kenzie's friend. She was your typical jealous friend type who only seemed to exist solely to create drama and screw up the plot.

The second half of this book though...oh god, it was hard to swallow. I'm going to keep this review spoiler free so all I'll say is that the resolution to the mystery was not what I wanted at all. It was very original I'll give it that but still, it wasn't the kind of genre I normally read. Thankfully the writing was good enough to save it...just.

One thing I did like is that the main character's stupidly reckless behaviour was somewhat excused by her paranoid and scared-of-life mother. It might not have worked 100% but it was a nice touch and much better than just having the main character act like an idiot for no reason.

On the whole, They All Fall Down is a curious one. It isn't the horror I wanted nor the kind of murder mystery I like but it was enjoyable enough and much, much better than I thought it would be. Pretty Little Liars it isn't and it's almost a shame it's been marketed this way. It's a good book but I feel a lot of people will be disappointed with how it plays out based on the blurb.

Overall Score:

.5

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:

Falls the Shadow by Stefanie Gaither

Argh, this book was so frustrating!

Don't get me wrong, it's a decent read. I just feel cheated somewhat in that the story promised was not the story delivered in my eyes. There are so many books about cloning and I've never had much of a desire to read them but the blurb of this book was so inviting that I had to give it a look. And like I said, it's not a bad book. But oh, the author just had to go for the bigger picture.

Here's what I wanted from the book-an intriguing, philosophical look at the implications of cloning using the family unit as the basis for the story. Here's what happens-it starts off well and then soon descends into the usual 'rebellion' plot line that The Hunger Games has made so popular.

Listen to me YA authors, you don't always have to threaten all of society to make an interesting story. I picked up this book on the basis that I wanted to hear about what one girl thought about her sister being replaced with an identical clone (and a potentially dangerous one at that). I wanted to see the problems the clone had with fitting in, the kind of prejudices she would encounter. I did not want a story about taking down society and deadly assassins and stuff like that.

On the whole, Falls the Shadow is a perfectly acceptable book. I'd go so far as to say I even enjoyed it. I'm just disappointed by the fact that I feel like it could have been something so much better, something different. Instead we get the same-old rebellion story, albeit told well. It might not be better but hey, it could be a whole lot worse.

Overall Score:

Ghost House by Alexandra Adornetto

This book left me so torn. On the one hand, it was a total pile of clichés. On the other hand...damn it, it worked somehow.

Ghost House tells the story of Chloe, a girl with the power to see ghosts. After the death of her mother, Chloe's father is unable to cope and so sends her and her brother off to England to stay with their grandmother. Whilst there, Chloe becomes entangled with a vicious ghost called Isobel and falls in love with another ghost, Alex.

I had the strangest sense of deja-vu whilst reading this. Maybe it's just the fact it is a cliché storm but I swear I've encountered this exact story before. That aside, I couldn't help but really enjoy this book. It's predictable but the writing style and the characters manage to save it somehow. The only part I had trouble swallowing was the end. That was one cliché too far for me.

Am I glad I read this book? Despite that I feel like I shouldn't like it, yes I am. It's an absorbing little tale and better than your average YA book. It's just a shame that it couldn't be a bit more original in its plot.

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:

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

The first time I read this book was two years ago and I raved about it. I couldn't wait to read the sequel and, after finally getting my hands on it the other day, I decided to reread the first one to remind myself of the story. Honestly? I don't know why I made such a fuss about it.

Yes, this book has a great plot. What impressed me when I first read it was how great the characters were AND how diverse they were. Hey look, well-developed adults in a YA book! Shocking! And yes, I stand by that statement. The characters are interesting and I loved reading about them. Mia in particular is a great narrator, somehow keeping the story flowing even when it's jumping about all over the place.

(Unrelated but seriously, Chloe Grace Moretz is in this movie. I HAD to include a gif of her)

Which brings me to why I was somewhat disappointed. The writing style is...simplistic. Maybe a little too simplistic. This coupled with the book being very short made me feel like I was reading something meant for younger readers. Heck, maybe I was. But the majority of YA books can stretch across the whole age range and this is one of the few I've read which made me feel like I was reading a YA book instead of just a book about teenagers.

Overall though, this is still a decent book driven by a great plot and intriguing characters. The sequel on the other hand...well, I'll save my thoughts on that for another review

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

Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson

I wanted to read this book years ago. I remember going into my local bookshop about a dozen or so times and each time I'd pick it up, consider buying it before ultimately walking out again. To be honest, I completely forgot about it after that until I saw the movie trailer. It looked so good that I decided to go see it, making a vow to read the book first of course.

God I loved this book. So much so that I stayed up an extra two hours until 4 am just to finish reading it. Before I Go to Sleep tells the story of a woman who loses all her memories each night while she sleeps and so wakes up with no idea who she is. Fortunately her husband is there to tell her everything only she discovers that she's been seeing a therapist behind his back and keeping a diary which slowly reveals some startling secrets...

As a Psychology student, I was all prepared to hate this book. I'm used to the media taking liberties with Psychology but thankfully I was pleasantly surprised. Okay granted, some artistic license is taken with the way Christine's amnesia works but on the whole, it was reasonably accurate. Also I am so glad  that [HIGHLIGHT TEXT FOR SPOILERS] the therapist was not evil. That happens far too often in fiction and it just sends a bad message.

There's not really much else I can say to be honest. I did see the ending coming but only because I basically guessed every possible ending and the book was very good at creating doubt and disguising what was actually going to happen. All I can say is read it yourself. If you're looking for a good thriller that focuses very much on the characters and creating tension, you won't be disappointed.

Overall Score: