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when-stupid-things-are-stupid
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| # | cover | title | author | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages | avg rating | num ratings | date pub | date pub (ed.) | rating | my rating | review | notes | recommender | comments | votes | read count | date started | date read |
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date purchased | owned | purchase location | condition | format | ||
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| 0440241413
| 9780440241416
| 3.52
| 314,238
| Mar 03, 1999
| Nov 04, 2003
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None
| Notes are private!
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1
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| not set
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Sep 15, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0743477111
| 9780743477116
| 3.72
| 931,461
| 1597
| Jan 01, 2004
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None
| Notes are private!
| none
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Sep 15, 2011
| Mass Market Paperback
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| 0316015849
| 9780316015844
| 3.58
| 1,696,584
| Jan 01, 2005
| Sep 06, 2006
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**spoiler alert** Honestly, there is very little I can write about Twilight that hasn't already been covered in academic-level thoroughness on the Int...more
**spoiler alert** Honestly, there is very little I can write about Twilight that hasn't already been covered in academic-level thoroughness on the Internet. It reads like wish-fulfillment fan fic. The characters are blander than bland (when they aren't being creepy). Vampires are spayed, neutered, and put out to pasture to sparkle in the sun for all eternity. Very little of note happens. Very little. Almost nothing, really. I read Twilight in 2009 at the recommendation of some friends. Now, I have since forgiven those friends, especially the one who admitted when I started reading it that the story "gets kind of weird." Does it ever! And once I started, I felt like the fate of humanity depended on me finishing that fluffy book. If I couldn't read Twilight, which required the reading comprehension of a 4th-grader, what kind of book lover was I? It turned into a sick game, the story drolling on and on, and me turning page after page, sure that something, ANYTHING had to happen after Bella gets through describing Edward's hair for the millionth time. Oh, those were confusing times. I'm not particularly proud of managing to stick it out, but at least completing the book (and the whole terrible series) gives me the right to review it. So here goes! (I'll try to be as nice as possible.) SUMMARY: Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington from Arizona to live with her dad. She's plain and shy and a book reader and boring, but everyone seems to love her. At school, she meets Edward Cullen, the dreamiest boy with the palest skin and goldest eyes she's ever seen. Edward has an attitude problem and acts like a major jerk the first time he meets Bella. It's 'cause he's a vampire, and Bella's blood is apparently Edward's "own personal heroin." Naturally, they fall in love. Meyer's narration through Bella has an easy-to-read, conversational tone, which probably explains why so many people have finished her books. This would actually be a good thing if A) Bella wasn't already a whiny jerkass with no personality, and B) the plot actually went somewhere. Huge portions of the story are dedicated to describing Edward's Adonis-like looks. Yes, the term Adonis is used multiple times. He's mega sexy and SPARKLY - every girl's dream. Bella, next to Edward, is a drab little thing. She doesn't have friends (mainly because she snubs all of the people who try to befriend her), she wears sad looking clothes, and her physical description is left pretty much blank. All the better to create an audience self-insert! Edward, for his part, is exactly the opposite of the guy you'd want dating your daughter. He's moody, lethal, a "reformed" serial killer, a girl watcher and midnight stalker, a creepy mind-reader, a hundred years old, and a member of a reclusive family that doesn't socialize with others. Like a monster cult member, only totally hot. Also: This guy can't be destroyed. The process that Edward describes for killing a vampire is near-impossible. Vampires in Twilight are characterized as immortal underwear models with no weaknesses. Buffy couldn't kill the things. Now, as far as I know, in order for a narrative to work, all characters must have a weakness. If there's no real danger for everybody involved, then there can't be a damn story. Granted, being naturally clumsy (this is supposed to be adorable, I think), Bella does fall into danger. Being close to Edward brings her close to other vampires who also think her blood smells tasty, you see. I won't spoil the "big fight scene" for you, but rest assured, Bella survives. For her first novel, Meyer did a decent job of characterizing a whiny, selfish girl who doesn't seem to like any creature that can't tear things to shreds with its teeth. Of the four books in the saga, Twilight is the least offensive. It didn't impress me, but it also didn't make me want to bleach my eyes when I finished reading. No. That particular urge came with the next 3 books. 2 stars for not being the worst! (less) | Notes are private!
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| Jan 2009
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Sep 15, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0061922994
| 9780061922992
| 3.78
| 307
| Apr 26, 2011
| Apr 26, 2011
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A Tale of Two Lovers was a bit of a wall banger for me. Rodale's a good writer, so the prose flowed well and kept me invested in the story. Sadly, the...more
A Tale of Two Lovers was a bit of a wall banger for me. Rodale's a good writer, so the prose flowed well and kept me invested in the story. Sadly, the main characters in this story are HORRIBLE PEOPLE (TM). I don't mind abrasive characters. I don't even mind characters with problematic personalities. But I do mind characters who intentionally inflict pain (physical or emotional) on others and never embark on a redemption arc. And on that note, meet our heroine, Julianna! SUMMARY: Julianna, Lady Somerset, is a widowed gossip columnist trying to break the next big story by besting her nemesis, The Man About Time, a gossip columnist from another paper. In order to do this, Julianna writes a damning story about notorious rake Lord Roxbury that ends up getting the man all but shunned by the Ton. In turn, Lord Roxbury ruins Julianna, and the two crazy kids are left with no other option than to marry (naturally). Is it a spoiler to say that they end up being meant for each other? YE OLDE DELIGHTS: Rodale's writing is the real star in this book. She kept me reading even when I was angry. The mystery surrounding The Man About Town was a fun diversion from the angst between the two main characters. I never guessed the identity of the man, and that's rare. YE OLDE GARBAGE: Julianna. Julianna, Julianna, Julianna, why doth thou hateth me so-eth? (view spoiler)[Even though the silly girl KNOWS that she published a false story about Roxbury, a story that in those times would have done more damage than to cause a few smirks (she implied that he was having sex with a man), she refuses to print a retraction. She watches two men duel over the story and is all "Woe is me! 'Tis just a story!" (hide spoiler)] What she did was horrible, and she never took responsibility for it. While Roxbury wasn't much better, at least he stopped being a nincompoop halfway through the book when he was "redeemed by love." (view spoiler)[Is anyone else concerned that Roxbury was diseased in some way? He couldn't even count the number of women he'd sexed up, and that's troubling. It's no wonder he didn't think he could stay monogamous. (hide spoiler)] I thought that the focus on the gossip columns would lead to some type of moral awakening - like, oh I don't know, gossip can be really MEAN and DAMAGING. But no. Julianna loves her work, which is nice, I guess ... if I considered dragging peoples' names through the mud for money NICE. I just couldn't relate. It especially irked me when (view spoiler)[Julianna sulks about being spurned by society when the gossip is focused on her instead of other people. Why Pot, I don't believe you've met Kettle, have you? (hide spoiler)] I wanted to like the characters. I really did. They even grew on me a few times, almost redeemed themselves by being charming. But in the end, I felt like they didn't learn anything other than how to love each other. That's great and all, but how am I supposed to believe that their love will last when they have so little respect for other people? (less) | Notes are private!
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Nov 30, 2011
| Mass Market Paperback
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| 1402210167
| 9781402210167
| 3.32
| 134
| Oct 01, 2007
| Oct 01, 2007
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No Regrets has the dubious honor of featuring the most annoying heroine I've encountered since Bella Swan. Yay ... Small victories ... This poor book...more
No Regrets has the dubious honor of featuring the most annoying heroine I've encountered since Bella Swan. Yay ... Small victories ... This poor book is a cliche-ridden fiesta of magnificent proportions. Everything is thrown into the convoluted plot, including the proverbial kitchen sink. I don't think I liked a single character in this book. If they didn't singularly offend me, then I don't remember them. This is bad. Very bad. And that's sad, because perhaps with a quarter of the plot tumors, No Regrets wouldn't have been awful. It could have been respectable. Alas! Some things are never meant to be. I have major regrets about reading this book, and they all start with the plot. SUMMARY: So Caroline something or other is a frumpy-dumpy dumpling of a woman who will never marry because she's so frumpy and undesirable and WORTHLESS. Except that she will because her HAWT childhood friend (so we're told) Lucas, Lord Foxhaven, needs a wife, like, yesterday, and he happens to find good ol' Caro's curves all the rage. So the slutty scoundrel and the long-suffering martyr with certifiable self-esteem issues marry and spend the rest of the torturously long story making stupid decisions and being horrible people. Let's go over the plot tumors in list form, eh? (SPOILERS AHOY!!!) 1. Spinster with the self-awareness of a gnat resists marriage to gorgeous boy she's loved since 4-eva ago. 2. Slutty scoundrel forces spinster friend into marriage for money. (It's always money with these guys.) Oh, and they're supposed to go a year or something without a scandal. 3. Self-flaggellation and self-imposed abstinence make horny guy horny. Also: Hero spends large quantities of time building a school for poor young boys to play music. Because nothing changes the course of poverty like encouraging young people to become famous musicians! 4. Miraculous makeover makes the frumpy-dumpy dumpling a swan. 5. Sexin'. 6. Nefarious villain is nefarious but still manages to trick the supposedly "intelligent" heroine. He encourages her to fall in with a bad crowd. 7. Uncomfortable cousin-on-cousin flirting. 8. Evil former mistress is evil. 9. ILL-ADVISED HORSE RACE! 10. "My husband doesn't really love me! This is a fate worse than death!" 11. "My wife just ran out on me! But I LOVE her, even though she's done everything under the sun to cause a scandal because she doesn't understand she lives in Regency England. WTF?" 12. Society hijinks in France. ....... Oh, there's still more ....... 13. Reformed Rake finds his wife and decides to court her again. 14. Wife disappears. 15. Kidnapped by her cousin, heroine realizes that she's fallen into her own web of idiocy and can't get out. Evil villain / cousin stows her away in a castle and pledges to marry her. 16. Hero makes a pathetic attempt at a rescue, but card-carrying villain sniffs him out and traps him in a dungeon. Yes. A Dungeon. 17. Somehow, heroine comes up with a plan to rescue her husband. I don't know. My mind went kind of numb by this point. 18. RESCUE! Time to return to England like nothing stupid just happened! 19. I think the music school for boy pick-pockets happens. Probably. Now, imagine having to read about all of that nonsense through the eyes of people you don't even like. Caro is horrible in the book. Just horrible. She has a debillitating martyr complex, which makes her do ridiculous things. Caro loves Lucas to distraction, but she decides to get a divorce. A divorce? Like it was supposed to be as easy as choosing a teacake for luncheon. And then she takes off to another country with a VIRTUAL STRANGER and acts all wounded about her husband not loving her. And Lucas is just as bad. He's really a decent guy, but because he refuses to actually talk to his wife about where he's taking off to all the time, she flees the coop. By the end, I was kind of hoping the villain would off the main characters and put them out of their misery. Not a good reaction to have when reading a romance novel. Also: A music school for under-privileged boys. That is Lucas' big secret. Ack, I think I just got a cavity! (less) | Notes are private!
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Dec 05, 2011
| Mass Market Paperback
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| 0316160199
| 9780316160193
| 3.57
| 767,266
| Jan 01, 2006
| Sep 06, 2006
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Mark New Moon as the moment when Stephanie Meyer's teen vampire romance series transformed from a troubling wish-fulfillment fantasy to a disturbing h...more
Mark New Moon as the moment when Stephanie Meyer's teen vampire romance series transformed from a troubling wish-fulfillment fantasy to a disturbing hate story with SPARKLES(!). In my review of Twilight, I described the plodding, sparse plot and the bland characters. New Moon keeps up the sparse plot bit, but the characters all take a one-way ticket to Crazy-Town. They get creepier than they were in the first book, which is really saying something because Edward's always been creppy - remember his thingie for watching Bella while she sleeps. We'll call this review When Bad Books Happen to Good Readers: New Moon Edition. SUMMARY: It's been a few months since the events (and I use that term loosely) of Twilight, and nothing has changed. Perhaps Bella has managed to count all of the hairs on Eddie's perfect head, but that's likely all the progress she's made. Bella's experiencing a mid-life crisis at the ripe ol' age of 18 because her body is now 1 year older than Edward's. She wants him to turn into a vampire so she won't grow old (and in turn, mature, wise, or gifted with an actual personality), but Edward's all angsty about it because he thinks he's a monster. Bella sulks through a birthday party that the Cullen family cult thoughtfully throws for her, and then she gets a paper-cut and all hell breaks loose. Racked with guilt, Edward dumps Bella and disappears. Then nothing happens for 400 pages or so because Bella dies inside. Really. I think her brain actually dies in the book. Now, I'm not much of a morality pusher, especially when it comes to fiction. I have my opinions about the characters' actions, but the opinions of others are totally left to their interpretations. Still. My humble opinion is telling me that New Moon is not a love story. It isn't even a like story. This is the story of a girl with really bad depression issues doing self-destructive things. There are SPOILERS below! Read at your own risk! So let's put this story into perspective. Bella has been with Edward for a couple of months, and they're in puppy love. I can understand that. But then the whole kit-and-kaboodle goes spiraling down the rabbit hole when you consider that Edward sneaks into Bella's room at night and just lays with her (no sexin' in this story). That's not cool, Eddie, and it's disrespectful to Bella's dad, who seems like a nice guy. But it gets worse. When Edward breaks it off with Bella, the girl goes catatonic. He takes her to the middle of the forest to do the deed, for some reason, and Bella just kind of wanders around until she collapses and has to be rescued. Now, what fully functioning 18-year-old can't find her way out a forest that she WALKED INTO IN THE FIRST PLACE? And in the unlikely case that she really could get lost, why doesn't she want to cut the d-bag who left her there? After Bella is rescued from the forest, the next several pages just list the names of the months in which BELLA DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It's a complete black-out period for our heroine. Without Edward around, Bella has NOTHING to lend to the narrative. Not only is this lazy writing (SMeyer); it's also annoyingly emo and silly. I'm left to believe that Bella is either braindead, manic depressive, or a robot. If Bella had a blog at this time, I bet she filled it with angsty one word entries like, "Sullen," "Broken," and "Tears." Finally, Charlie Swan has enough of his sad daughter-bot and lays down the law: Go make some damn friends or you're going back to live with your mother. Reluctantly, Bella reconnects with Jacob Black, the Native American kid she played with as a kid. Jacob's going through big changes in his life. Hairy changes. Toothy changes. If you catch my drift. You don't? OK, he's turning into a werewolf. Slowly, though. Then there are pages and pages of Bella transferring her clinginess to Jacob - following him around, getting angry when he makes new friends and starts to withdraw. At the same time, Bella makes a shocking (SHOCKING, I tell you!) discovery that she can kinda/sorta see Edward when she puts herself in danger. Cue a bunch of TSTL acts of desperation, culminating in Bella jumping off a cliff into the ocean. Suicide attempts are so romantic, I guess? Raise your hand if you're disturbed! Eventually, Bella tracks Edward down in Italy where all the really POWERFUL vampires live and hilariously prevents him from doing his own suicide dance. It's hilarious because Edward's plan to make the big, bad vampires kill him is to go out in public and sparkle. Yes. Death by sparkling. Because the general public totally wouldn't look at him and think he's just a pasty boy wearing body glitter. Oh, and at some point, Bella ends up in a love triangle between Jacob and Edward. Because: of course. Love triangles are the worst trope in YA fiction to date. I want them all to burn in a fire. So after all of the pages and endless angsting, Bella and Edward are ... back in Forks. Bella still wants him to turn her into a vampire. Edward still wants her to remain human. Jacob's scampering around in the woods all heartbroken. And apparently because Edward can't resist Bella's winning charm and outgoing personality, he proposes marriage. CLIFFHANGER! Oh, how will I ever manage the suspense? The writing was also hideous. Meyer tends to recycle words like chagrin, dazzle, beautiful, topaz, clenched, and chuckled like nobody's business. Plus, the story is all inane internal monologue and very little plot. Somehow, the final two books get even worse. (less) | Notes are private!
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Dec 08, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 0312356498
| 9780312356491
| 3.71
| 1,487
| Aug 12, 2009
| Sep 01, 2009
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I don't know if it's a new trend or if I'm just really bad at picking out new books, but this year of reading has been overflowing with awful heroines...more
I don't know if it's a new trend or if I'm just really bad at picking out new books, but this year of reading has been overflowing with awful heroines. Less than ten years ago, I remember thinking that all of the heroes were jerkasses, but now the designation of jerkass has switched. It's like current authors are trying so hard to prevent their heroines (both contemporary and historical) from ending up as doormats that they sacrifice the poor womens' souls at the Altar of Plot Device. That was my problem with Can't Stand the Heat - the heroine is a heartless shrew. But how do I really feel? Read on ... SUMMARY: Miranda (or as I like to call her, Beelzebub) is a biting food critic with a point to prove. She basically does to chefs the same thing I'm doing to this book, only with 100% less soul. Anyways. Miranda ends up making a bet with up-and-coming chef Adam (who's totes hot) that she can "stand the heat" in the high-stress atmosphere of a NYC restaurant. But really, all she wants to do is gather all of the restaurant culture's secrets and regurgitate them into a trashy tell-all book so her brother can afford to go back to college. As one might expect, Miranda and Adam are hopelessly meant for each other. Too bad for Adam that he falls in love with the Antichrist. I jest! I jest! (Mostly.) REASONS THIS BOOK ISN'T 1-STAR: Despite what I have to say about the heroine, I didn't hate this book. It had several redeeming qualities that went a long way toward stretching my rating to 3 stars. 1. I really enjoyed learning about restaurant culture. Since I'm a struggling middle class professional, I rarely have the opportunity to go to an expensive trendy restaurant. Edwards captured the frantic hustle-bustle of the kitchen, and I believed Adam's assertions that his kitchen staff was like his family. 2. Adam could have been more fully drawn, but I liked what I did see of his character. He possesses an unflinching zest for life and lives for his job. His energy bounces off of the page when he talks about cooking, which I found refreshing in contrast to all the brooding heroes out there. He's also the most understanding BF ever. Miranda doesn't deserve him. 3. The secondary romance practically stole the book. Miranda's brother Jess falls in love with Adam's sous chef and best friend Frankie, and they are adorable together. Granted, I'm not sure I believe that Frankie, who is characterized as wild and slutty, would settle down with naive little Jess so fast, but I appreciate that Edwards didn't shy away from a same-sex pairing. THE HEROINE FROM HELL: So Miranda ... Miranda is ... complicated. She treats her brother like a child and refuses to listen to his wants and needs. The woman is a control freak in the worst way. I'm surprised she allowed the poor guy to pick his clothes out without her input. Her reasons for writing her stupid, tasteless book are kind of noble, I suppose, but that's all negated when she sleeps with Adam. Poor Adam really falls for the she-beast, and she does the literary equivalent of shanking him in the groin. (Fun visual, huh?) SPOILERS AHEAD! Miranda starts to hedge on publishing her book, which is a collection of biased half-truths and bold lies fed to her by one of Adam's disgruntled ex-employees. Sadly, Miranda has the moral compass of a hell demon, so she randomly jumps to all sorts of awful conclusions about Adam to justify publishing it. First, she basically claims that Adam prostituted himself out to fund the restaurant because she couldn't be bothered to ASK why his ex-girlfriend is a part owner. Then she allows the ex-employee to convince her that Adam's kitchen is an all-around orgy that would make the Health Department flee in terror. But the worst is when Miranda discovers that her brother is A) gay and B) hooking up with Frankie. Her reaction is disturbingly homophobic, despite her constant assertions about being an open-minded liberal, and she acts like some poor victim because Jess didn't turn out the way she wanted. She repeats over and over that she wants Jess to get married and have kids and that this thing with Frankie is just a phase and she totally isn't homophobic, BUT ... Good golly, Miss Molly! The woman is unbearable! Naturally, Miranda finds a way to blame poor Adam for Jess's sexual preferences. He exposed Jess to Frankie, after all, and then he knew that Jess was gay and decided to be a decent person and allow Jess to come out on his own. Essentially, Miranda swears to destroy Adam because he refused to throw her brother out of the closet. So she publishes the book. Actually publishes the book. All because she thinks the money will put Jess in college and get him away from Frankie. The mind. It boggles. Somehow, Miranda does a very small amount of groveling and everyone, including Adam, Jess, and Frankie, welcome her back with open arms. The ending was very rushed and strange. Adam didn't even make her work for it. I don't know why. It isn't like she committed a one-time mistake. She acts like a terrible person for the entire book, but he believes she's actually good. I doubt the relationship lasted a year after the book.(less) | Notes are private!
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Dec 14, 2011
| Paperback
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| 0316160202
| 9780316160209
| 3.76
| 743,095
| Aug 07, 2007
| Aug 07, 2007
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I finished Eclipse, the third installment of the godawful Twilight series, with a scowl on my face. At that point, I realized that I'd been scowling f...more
I finished Eclipse, the third installment of the godawful Twilight series, with a scowl on my face. At that point, I realized that I'd been scowling for the entire book, my eyebrows slammed together, my lips turned down, my face set in SMeyer's favorite word - chagrin. And while it's really easy to say, "Oh, it's just a book - nothing worth getting angry about," there's still the itsy bitsy annoying fact that I spent two days reading purple prose and NOTHING happened. Well, some things happened, but they were awful, so I don't want to count them. The Twilight series has its own stages of mental distress. There are four, one for each book: 1. Twilight - Boredom 2. New Moon - Concern 3. Eclipse - Anger 4. Breaking Dawn - Numb Horror It's pretty bad when an entire cast of characters is so terrible that you can't help cheering for the villain. Let's get to it, then! SUMMARY: After Bella's crippling loss of a brain and Edward's thwarted suicide attempt in Italy, everyone's favorite star-crossed lovers are back in Forks. Graduation is looming, and Bella can't stand to age another day. You know how digustingly old 18-year-olds are and everything. She wants Edward to change her into a vampire before she starts collecting Social Security, and Eddie's all like, "Nuh-uh. Not til you marry me, you breakable and pathetic little thing." In the meantime, Bella wants to spend quality time with werewolf Jacob and his totes fun wolfpack, giving Jake the impression that he has a chance with the girl who loves a sparkly dead man. Edward disapproves of Bella hanging out with Jacob (too dangerous), and Bella's dad has a problem with Edward. He remembers how Bella totally lost her nuggets about his abandonment the year before and her subsequent disappearance to Italy to save him from the scary European vampires. Also, a new pack of vampires is after Bella. AND THEY WANT BLOOD. SPOILERS AHEAD! So a lot of things went wrong in this book, even beyond the horrible writing. The plot remained stagnant until the very end. And then, as expected, we ended up exactly where we were before. The Twilight series is very similar to a humorless, angsty, vampire version of the movie "Groundhog Day." Meyer overused all of her favorite words, and the reader was treated to more endless descriptions of Edward's sparkly perfection and Jacob's sizzling hot abs. Blah, blah, blah. But let me list the things that made me irrationally angry. 1. Edward is an abusive boyfriend - I think this point has been covered in every corner of the Internet, so I'll keep this short. Telling one's girlfriend who she can hang out with is abusive. Disabling your girlfriend's car so she can't see her friend is abusive. Having one's family kidnap girlfriend because you don't trust her to stay away from the friend? Abusive and illegal. It's bad enough that he talks down to Bella all the time, calling her fragile and weak, insisting that she can't protect herself. Sure, I get that we're talking about supernatural creatures here (and Bella is pretty useless and pathetic), but Edward's such a douche about it. Also, getting the girl all revved up for sex and then saying she can't have it without marriage is controlling and rude. Worst boyfriend ever. And who wants to hang out with a granite hard ice cube all the time? Cuddling with Edward would be like cozying up with a frozen pack of ground beef, only less nutricious. 2. Jacob loses his bananas and becomes a sexual predator - Jake never had a chance with Bella. He should have figured that out by now, considering Bella's catatonic state when Edward left her in New Moon. Unfortunately, Jacob is about as bright as any other character in the book (not very) and pursues the living daylights out of Bella. At first, his pursuit is fair-minded. He attempts to persuade Bella that dating the living is far superior to dating the dead. But then, when he recognizes that he doesn't have a chance in hell of besting Edward, he forces a kiss on her and refuses to let go when she struggles to escape. Later, he manipulates her into kissing him again by threatening to run to his imminent death if Bella doesn't admit that she loves him. I don't understand how any of this is romantic. 3. The tent scene - While Bella's supposed to be "sleeping" in a tent before their big battle with Victoria, Jacob and Edward discuss her future. The boys discuss her future. They think they know what's best for her, and Bella just lays there silently. But of course! Who needs an opinion when there are boys to decide it for you? 4. Charlie's the worst dad ever - When Bella comes home with a BROKEN HAND from punching Jacob after he assaults her, Charlie thinks it's hilarious. He even congratulates Jacob for forcing himself on his daughter. This is ... this is the 21st century, right? A YA book? For crying out loud ... 5. Bella is an empty shell - All this girl thinks about are her dead boyfriend and the hot werewolf next door. That's it. Nada. She doesn't care about school, doesn't have any hopes or dreams for the future, doesn't care what her parents have to say, has no friends, and can't even WALK on her own for large portions of the novel. I couldn't believe the amount of times that Bella, an 18-year-old woman, was carried from one place to another. When she isn't being vapid, Bella focuses on being a selfish, whiny, manipulative brat with one goal in mind - sexin' up Eddie. That's it. She essentially tells Jacob, "I love you, I do. But I love Edward more. Sorry. Hope this doesn't make your already unstable mind explode in rage. K, bye." The Cullens throw Bella a graduation party, and she whines about it the whole time. Oh, well, god forbid someone does something nice for you, Bella. Worst person ever. The only time she comes close to growing a spine is when she tells Edward that she really doesn't want to get married right out of high school because she feels too young, and Boyfriend of the Year bullies her into accepting his proposal anyway. He uses sex as a bartering tool. Sex. YA book. Not to sound like Charlie Brown or anything, but good grief! So by the end of the book, Bella and Edward are totally still together and engaged, a heartbroken Jacob runs around the forest and cries, no one dies in the "epic" battle, and Charlie Swan still has zero control over his daughter. But looking back on this now, I realize that compared to Breaking Dawn, Eclipse is almost a walk in the park. The final book in the series doesn't just play around the rabbit hole - it plunges in head first. But that's for another review.(less) | Notes are private!
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Dec 15, 2011
| Hardcover
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| 031606792X
| 9780316067928
| 3.74
| 711,409
| Aug 02, 2008
| Aug 02, 2008
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At this, the end of my tumultuous journey through the Twilight series, I thought that my expectations were as low as they could go. Yet somehow, SMeye...more
At this, the end of my tumultuous journey through the Twilight series, I thought that my expectations were as low as they could go. Yet somehow, SMeyer punched those expectations in the face and forced them into depths of awfulness I never knew existed outside of fan fiction websites. There is no nice way to say this: Breaking Dawn is a malicious attack against human intelligence, general goodness, and common sense. It stole several hours of my valuable time, and I don't think I'll ever forgive it for that. Thank you, SMeyer, for the blistering headache and the long moments spent staring blindly at the text saying, "Really? REALLY? Good god, these must be the End Times! Damn kids." So, much to my chagrin (lol), let's get to the summary. SUMMARY: Breaking Dawn opens with Bella and Edward's epically boring wedding fast approaching. Bella hates weddings. She hates dresses and clothes and stuff that requires emotion. Edward bought her some type of car that can deflect rockets (or some such nonsense) for her birthday, and she hates that, too. Doesn't he understand how draining it is to have no personality? Alice, the Manic Pixie Wedding Planner, dresses Bella and forces the ungrateful twit to have a good time at HER OWN WEDDING. Bella and Edward tie the knot, and the whole affair is excruciating and painful. Jacob leaves his pity party traipsing through the forest for a few minutes to attend the wedding reception and tries to talk Bella out of A) sexing up Eddie and B) becoming a vampire, in that order. But Bella's entire raision d'etre for the last 3 books has been acquiring the skills to sex up Eddie, so off the newlyweds go on their honeymoon. Once there, they have some of the most disgusting sex imaginable, and all of a sudden, Bella starts craving food and throwing up at weird times. This leads to a strange scene with her counting tampons (you have no idea how much I wish this was a figment of my imagination) on the bathroom floor and coming to the realization that OMG she's pregrant with Edward's demon spawn! Paging Dr. Cullen, Rosemary's having a Baby in 3 ... 2 ... There's no way I can give this review without massive spoilers. The WTF-ery is just too severe for secrets. You've been warned. Read on at your own risk. TEN REASONS WHY BREAKING DAWN IS THE WORST BOOK I'VE READ 1. The Wedding: Bella is officially the least charming wedding narrator of all time. I'm pretty sure she spends the entire walk up the aisle grimacing. She complains about dressing up, the decorations, the people, the very act of waking up and breathing every morning. For crying out loud, Bella, no one's making you marry your effeminate sparkle-pire! But golly gee, why would she fight dear Eddie's wishes when she's so unworthy and plain and clumsy and unworthy and human? Because if there's one thing we haven't learned in the past 50 years, it's that women don't need to marry straight out of high school to be happy. Sorry, Bella. My mistake. 2. The Honeymoon: After a round of fade-to-black sex that still inexplicably managed to activate my gag reflex, Bella wakes up COVERED IN BRUISES AND FEATHERS. Feathers from the pillows Edward bit during the act *snicker* in his "passion." Now, forgive me if this makes me seem naive, but what the heck kind of sex were they having? Bruises? Broken headboards? FEATHERS? Edward's a 100-year-old virgin, for god's sake. I doubt he would have lasted more than 2 minutes. Tops. How did he do all that damage? And of course, Bella LOVED every minute of their crazy destructive sex and begs Eddie for more. But he's all ashamed of his "passion" and refuses to put out for the rest of the honeymoon until Bella cries and cries and begs. So romantic. 3. The Pregnancy: SMeyer foreshadows the living crap out of Bella's pregnancy. Hmmm. What on earth would make her eat those weird things? Why's she so queasy? What? A mildly prophetic dream about ... babies? That must be a sign they'll be having chicken for dinner. Don't even get me started on the impossibility of Bella's pregnancy. According to Twilight-lore right up to the part where SMeyer was like, "F it. I want babies. Let's write babies," all of Eddie's bodily fluids have been replaced with venom. Rosalie goes into detail in Eclipse about how sad she is because vampires can't pro-create. But nope. Bella can carry Eddie's demon spawn because they're special. Since the baby is half-vampire, its birth is guaranteed to kill Bella. This is where the book goes down a rocky morality path that left me face-palming at a rapid rate. Naturally, Edward and Carlisle are all like, "Baby kill Bella. We kill baby first and save Bella." But Bella, who has shown no indication of wanting children up to this moment, decides that it's her great purpose in life to give birth to an abomination. Since Rosalie really, REALLY wants babies, too, the women gang up on the men and insist that Demon Spawn lives. Are your eyes melting yet? They should be ... 4. Jacob Tells a Story: The middle portion of the story is told from Jacob's perspective. It consists of Jacob being VERY ANGRY about Bella's impending doom, Jacob running around the forest in wolf form and insulting Leah (the only cool person in the entire series), and Jacob hanging out with the Cullen cult and watching Bella die very slowly. Fascinating times. Jacob also inflicts a collection of awful blonde jokes on Rosalie that could only have been written by a brunette with strange and out-dated prejudices about hair color (SMeyer). It's all very boring until ... 5. The Birth Scene: In the middle of the birth scene, I put down the book, walked outside, and said to my husband, "This book I'm reading ... is the strangest thing I've ever seen. I can't ... there are no words." After pages and pages of prose about Bella's growing pregancy, she finally gives birth to the little bugger. It totally maims Bella, breaking her back, cracking all her ribs, CHEWING ITS WAY OUT OF HER BELLY. Edward, who's always had a fetish for Bella's blood, joins in on the fun and aids his demon flesh out by tearing Bella's pesky skin out of the way with is teeth. This is how romance dies, ladies and gentlemen. 6. Renesmee: Yes, that is Demon Spawn's real name. Renesmee. Just roll that around in the mouth a few times for good measure. Bad, right? Yep. At this point, it would have been a blessing if Renesmee was just a normal baby. Imagining Bella and Edward changing dirty diapers on next to no sleep is actually amusing. But no, let's just go into complete fantasy land and make her the most special, most perfect baby of all time. She can communicate by simply touching people! She grows super fast! She'll be mature enough to have her own demon babies by the time she's SEVEN! And speaking of which ... 7. Jacob Imprints on Renesmee: Queasy yet? Every infant daughter would adore being bound for life to her mommy's sloppy seconds. No book is complete without a little squicky pedophilia. And at this point in the book, my mouth was in a permanent gaping position. It just kept getting worse, and there was MORE ahead! 8. Bella the Vampire: After 3 1/2 books of reading about how pathetic Bella is, the reader is treated to Mary Sue Cullen, the bestest vampire who's ever been a vampire. She's super beautiful (because that's all that really matters). She controls her uncontrollable bloodlust (even though that's supposed to be impossible). She has tons of bed breaking sex with Eddie (because ... ew!). She ends up saving everyone from the spineless Volturi simply by being a vapid thing with some type of love shield that makes them impenetrable. I thought that Bella's whining was the worst thing ever, but her bragging nearly sent me over the edge. 9. Vampire Convention at the Cullen Compound: Suddenly, the Cullens accumulate a bunch of friends and invite them all to Forks to "witness" on their behalf when the Volturi arrive. Out of the blue, all of the vampires have special gifts. Some of them are X-Men-ish, while others are super lame. For example, Esme's gift is her ability to mother all of the grown adults / children Carlisle's abducted throughout the years. Poor Esme. All the vampires stand around and display their awesome vampire powers and talk about how awesome it is to be an awesome vampire, and of course, Bella and Renesmee are the most awesome of all. 10. In the End, NOTHING HAPPENS: The Volturi finally show up, Bella saves the day, and nobody dies. They get to keep Renesmee until she grows to the ripe age of 7 and can shack up with Jacob. Bella and Edward get to live in their storybook cottage in Forks together FOREVER. Peace to all and to all a good night. Oh! And Bella figures out how to let Edward read her mind. No sacrifice. No progress. Just saccharine sugar-shock. This is how not to write a story, folks. Remember that. HONORABLE MENTION: When Edward wants Bella to abort the baby, he asks Jacob to offer his "services" (aka - werewolf lovin') and make babies with his wife. And Jacob TAKES HIM UP ON IT. Bella refuses, to her credit, but she isn't the least bit creeped out by the heavy-handed behavior of the men in her life. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. So that's it. I've reviewed the entire Twilight series, and I can't say that reliving the ordeal has been a pleasure. At least I can laugh about it now. Bella Swan probably hates laughter. Too much feeling involved in that. That makes me feel better already. 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Dec 23, 2011
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| B004CJ8174
| 3.80
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Sweet mother Mary, now I remember why I typically won't touch contemporaries with a ten-foot pole these days. My generation is really taking a beating...more
Sweet mother Mary, now I remember why I typically won't touch contemporaries with a ten-foot pole these days. My generation is really taking a beating in the self-worth department, if this book is any indication. I remember being bombarded with cheesy "Girl power!" testimonials and Oprah telling me I don't need a man to be happy in my youth. Far be it from me to call the Spice Girls liars, but if Jane Graves says so ... SUMMARY: Heartstrings and Diamonds Rings is the story of dried-up spinster - I mean, "lonely" thirty-something Alison Carter, who wants to get married so much that she'd probably consider a potted plant to get the job done. Alison, like all the heroines in contemporary romancelandia, is unlucky in love. All she wants to do is find her soulmate and get married, pronto, then make gaggles of snotty children and move into a house with a pretty white picket fence. Why is life SO HARD? The men she dates are pretty much like, "Uh, Alison, your desperation is showing. It's actually blanketing you and displaying flashing lights making out the word SPINSTER in place of your face. I think maybe it would be best if I dated a woman who wasn't already checking my blood type." So Alison, dumped once again, cries and moans about how undesirable and lonely she is to her - wait for it - cats. (I feel like I'm in the cliche machine, and it's been set to spin cycle.) Finally, after all kinds of woe-is-me angsting, Alison decides to take matters into her own desperate, dried-up hands ... by hiring a match-maker. Brandon Scott is an unsuccessful home-flipper (or something along those lines) who's running his deceased grammy's matchmaking business to make a quick fortune. When Alison walks into Brandon's office and spills her desperation all over him, he promises to find her the perfect match. Unfortunately, Brandon is about as good at matchmaking as Alison is at deflecting crazy cat lady accusations. As expected, Brandon sets her up on several disastrous dates, each one worse than the last. And then Alison starts to wonder if her inept matchmaker is the man to fill the hole in her ... heart. Would it have been so hard for Graves to write Alison as anything other than a boy-crazy empty shell? At first, I thought that the cat lady implications, the mental breakdowns over bad dates, and the silly talk about NEEDING to get married because being unmarried is the worst thing ever were a joke. You know, like Graves was parodying the tropes that show up in poorly written romance. But then, to my horror, I realized that Alison is supposed to be taken seriously. Brandon even points out her creepy desperation at one point, and it ends up getting glossed over, apparently because Alison is just SO adorable or something. I don't know. This type of story just isn't my cup of tea. The humor is a little too cutesy, and the unintentional cat lady jokes made me angry. I have cats, too, but Alison's cats are used as a plot device to emphasize her spinsterhood. Stupid. Brandon, for his part, seems like a decent enough guy. I wouldn't let him anywhere near my business, considering that he crashed and burned with the housing market and has the matchmaking senses of a drunk sailor. Still, he genuinely likes Alison even though she's about 95% cray-cray, and I have to respect a guy for that. (less) | Notes are private!
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Dec 29, 2011
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| 9780061739361
| 3.87
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Review in the works. Every time I start thinking about summarizing this book, my face twitches. Not a good sign.
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Jan 31, 2012
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| 3.80
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I think the cover of The Notorious Anne Stuart's Hand in Glove sums up this WTF crapfest of nonsense perfectly. Let's examine it, shall we? You have o...more
I think the cover of The Notorious Anne Stuart's Hand in Glove sums up this WTF crapfest of nonsense perfectly. Let's examine it, shall we? You have one of the Sweet Valley High twins (thanks, Audrey!), probably Jessica because Jessica was The Worst (TM) 99% of the time, clinging to a furrow-browed man who I can only assume is her father or a child predator. And why is Jessica scared? Well, for one, she's standing in a fucking warehouse with a creepster in a golf shirt. But also, check out the tormentors to her left. PUPPETS! Creepy, demon-possessed puppets. The purple one is actually connected to a disembodied arm, its wretched fangs exposed to the world, and it looks like it just murdered a girl puppet by the way she's all splayed out and terrified. Strangely, Jessica doesn't seem to be aware of the carnage literally RIGHT BESIDE HER. She's looking off into the distance ... somewhere, scared about ... something. But she never once notices what's staring her right in her vapid little face! My friends, this is how the main character, Judith Daniels, behaves for the entire book. She is so dumb that flies can buzz in one ear and out the other. She is so vain that she thinks this song is about her. She is so awful that even NAZIS can't make her sympathetic. Oh, this book was a doozy. I read it at the recommendation of some snickering GR friends, who basically told me, "You'll hate yourself for reading this, but you have to do it!" Well, I do hate myself now, but I hate this book more, damn it! I really don't know how this book ever got published. Sure, it was the 80s, but I can't imagine a decade that would tolerate a murder mystery romance about a murderous puppet factory. Granted, the book could have been decent if written as a comedy. But no, Hand in Glove is dead serious about its Jim Henson-on-hallucinogens premise. This book is BAD. HORRIBLE. ATROCIOUS. My god, I think my brain is still oozing out of my ears. BLAME THE PUPPETS! GIFSoup Not these puppets. These puppets are cool. SUMMARY: Fix-it columnist Judith Daniels decides to go all Nancy Drew after her childhood friend Lacey ends up dead at Jim Henson-lite Ryan Smith's Puppet Factory. Judith is suspicious because Lacey called her hours before her death in a panic saying that Ryan Smith was trying to kill her. So like any responsibile citizen, Judith keeps that information to herself and decides to pack up, get a job at the Puppet Factory, and investigate the sitch for a story like a SERIOUS JOURNALIST. Of course, the minute Judith sets foot in the Puppet Factory, everyone hates her because she's Bryn Mawr educated (which is apparently something people care about), gorgeous, and basically Grace Kelly without any of the grace or common sense. Because Judith looks just like Grace Kelly. It's mentioned a couple times. No big deal. Anyway, Judith meets puppet magnate (lol) Ryan Smith, who's totes hot but a huge douche to her. He automatically knows what Judith's up to because he actually LISTENED when Lacey talked to him, unlike Judith, who callously brushed off Lacey's fears of being murdered. Then they share all sorts of adorable scenes where they argue and flirt and give each other scorching gazes. Judith keeps snooping around in peoples' stuff because she believes calling herself an investigative journalist gives her some sort of immunity badge to be a nosy cow, and each time Ryan catches her because Judith's about as subtle in her investigating as a marching band made up entirely of cymbals. The Puppet Factory has a big problem because Hideous Harry the Hippo wants to kill all the whores. Hideous Harry the Hippo is a puppet. No, I'm not kidding. You see, at the Puppet Factory, the puppeteers are collectively kind of - oh, how do you say it - batshit insane, and they communicate as the puppets all the time. So one of the puppeteers has clearly lost his bananas (this shouldn't surprise anyone) and is on a murder-spree to cleanse Ryan's world of DIRTY WHORES. Will the hero of this story, Hideous Harry the Hippo, succeed in killing everyone? Or will horrible cow Judith and Grade-A douche Ryan have some extremely boring sex and prevail? GIFSoup Pictured: A real American hero I figured out who the villain behind Harry the Hippo was right off the bat. It was so blindingly obvious that Judith's brain-numbing stupidity made me want to punch things. Judith is such a cow in this book. Good god. She's a judgmental shrew, a lying liar, a dumbass, and a self-absorbed twit. "Oh, look at me, I'm a wealthy and privileged moron with an inflated ego who (allegedly) looks like Grace Kelly. Watch me play Nancy Drew for 250 pages and prove that wealthy inbreeding has diminished every last brain cell in my head. I'm the worst! Tee-hee!" And just when I thought the wangst and lying couldn't get any worse, Stuart dropped a NAZI-bomb on us. I suppose that no godawful abomination of a book is complete without fucking Nazis. If you want quotes from the story, just read my numerous status updates. I swear Stuart dropped a WTF-bomb on every page. Between all the plot insanity and Judith being a goddamn mess, all kinds of random tidbits and prejudices were sprinkled throughout the text. Near the end, it was like a truckload of Deus Ex Machinas rolled over on its way to a good story and drenched Hand in Glove in even more insane plot points. This book, for brief moments, made me wish I couldn't read. It was that bad. (less) | Notes are private!
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Feb 24, 2012
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| 3.81
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**spoiler alert** I have no idea what happened to this book during the second half, but whatever it was needs to die in a fire. I know I'm being all P...more
**spoiler alert** I have no idea what happened to this book during the second half, but whatever it was needs to die in a fire. I know I'm being all President Grump-Ass right now, but you'd be disappointed too if the first half of a book was compelling and entertaining, only to devolve into a hurried-up plot mess with more loose ends than those ladies in the Bachelor house. Forever and a Day concluded with such a non-ending that I'm not even sure it meets narrative standards. I want to punch the second half of the book in the face SO BAD right now because my cold, nearly dead heart was actually enjoying itself until the bottom fell out from under the story. Blah. Blech. Belch. Brrr. Let's get to this, shall we? SUMMARY: Lord Roderick Gideon Tremayne meets cute with Georgia Milton on Broadway Street, and then disaster strikes. Roderick chases after a kid who lifts Georgia's purse and ends up getting pummeled by an omnibus. When he wakes up, he has no idea who he is. All he remembers are the numerous books he's read, and of course, how to be a gentleman. Roderick's mind is so totally freaked that he thinks his name is Robinson Crusoe, which he goes by ... until his memory sadly comes back. Hilariously, no one in the book seems to understand what "memory loss" means, leading to several awkward conversations of Georgia saying, "He's actin' funny in the head 'cause he can't remember anything." Guilty about the circumstances of his injury, Georgia takes "Robinson" back with her to the Five Points to live in squalor with her until he regains his memory. Georgia was born and raised in New York, but Marvelle makes a point of talking about how Irish she is. So when you think of Georgia, you get the image of this: GIFSoup Viva Ireland! instead of this: GIFSoup As American as apple pie. In absolutely no time, they're licking each other's tonsils and for-real humping in a public hallway. That's how true love works. But the age-old question eventually rears its ugly head. Can an aristocrat love a filthy poor commoner from AMERICA? As Roderick's memories slowly come back to him, he's torn between duty and his love for Georgia. Will they cross that great ocean together, or will Georgia end up alone and desperate, just one more victim of Robinson Crusoe? I really enjoyed Georgia's character. She's practical, kind, and doesn't pout about her circumstances. Georgia is the straight-man in her relationship with Robinson. He keeps pledging his undying love and vowing to run away with her (all within the confines of his memory loss), and she keeps saying, "Oy, boy-o, you'll be forgettin' me the moment your memories come back. Now don't be pinin' after a dream!" (And that concludes the single-worst dialect-to-dialogue you will ever see.) Robinson's cool, too, in the beginning. He has a child-like innocence and a strong sense of honor. It was fun reading about him seeing the world through wide new eyes instead of the jaded perspective of a London gentleman. But then Roderick's memories come crashing back, and the book stutters and dies. In less than 100 pages of text (SPOILERS COMING!): 1. We're gifted with 2 whole chapters dedicated to the story of Roderick's life before he meets Georgia. It's boring and tedious, and his emotional hang-ups aren't given any credibility. He did sleep with his late brother's fiance ONCE and then ran away to Paris when she wouldn't marry him. And his mom died at some point. 2. Roderick decides that the heir to a dukedom can't take a scrawny girl from the streets of NYC back to London with him, so he decides to break it off. However, he whines and pisses and moans about how much it hurts and how much he loves Georgia until I seriously wanted to reach into the book and smack the angst out of him. 3. Roderick's dad, the Duke, starts to play a prominent role in the book. He's in NYC with Roderick to track down his late wife's brother who was somehow disappeared by Roderick's grampy. None of this is given much context. Anyways, the duke tells Roderick that he can't take Georgia to England with him because he'll ruin the girl's life. Because people in London are really damn mean. And stuff. 4. Georgia hatches a plan to stay with Roderick in England. He comes to her to break things off, and she's like, "Shut your mouth right now, boy-o! You just sit on your arse and let me be explainin' things. I'm goin' to hatch a Master Plan to turn me into lady, and then we'll meet again. You just wait and see!" Then she runs out the door, and they don't see each other again for nearly a year. 5. Meanwhile, Georgia and the duke (who's totally in on the "My Fair Lady" scheme) team up with Mr. Astor to enlist people to teach Georgia how to stop being such a filthy commoner. You see, Georgia's just perfect the way she is, but she has to change. Let this be a lesson to all the ladies out there. You must expose yourselves to societal wrath and months of hard work learning to suppress everything that makes you YOU to get a man-child with amnesia to marry you. 6. Lady Something-or-Other is assigned to Georgia to basically taunt the poor out of her. She teaches Georgia to finish her words properly and ... Well, we don't get to see anything else because that part of the book abruptly stops. 7. Fast forward several months, and Georgia's in London being all lady-like and the talk of the Season. Yes. She is now the toast of the Ton. 8. Roderick finally encounters her at a ball, and they reunite in a bedroom. He apologizes a couple of times, and Georgia tells him he has to beg for her. But no sex is had. No sex at all. The only physical encounter these two share in the book is about 100 pages in when they have ravaging sex in a public hallway up against the wall. I don't read these books for the sex (well, not JUST the sex), but it struck me as odd that Marvelle didn't put in a tender, lovers reunited love scene. But nope. There was still another thing ... 9. Roderick's long-lost Uncle Atwood shows up at the ball intending to kill the father that did him wrong (never explained) long ago. So the duke asks Roderick to talk to his uncle, and they do. Roderick convinces the guy not to kill his grampy. Atwood acts very strange and proposes having a threesome with Georgia even though he doesn't know her. Then Atwood rejoins the party, and Roderick heads back to Georgia for ... NOTHING because it cuts right to the epilogue. 10. The epilogue takes place seven years later, and Roderick and Georgia have a daughter with a stupid name I've already forgotten who wants an elephant. With the help of Georgia, the little scamp convinces Roderick to take them to India in place of the elephant, and Georgia's all happy because ... uh ... I'm really not sure what the big deal was with India. They never even discussed it in the book. No scenes of them staring at the stars in the Five Points talking about how they've always wanted to see an elephant in India. Georgia used to dream about settling her own land in Ohio and growing apple trees, but that's never mentioned again when she abandons her entire life for her man. And that was it. THE END. Oh, and Georgia's stepson who's older than her (from her short-lived marriage at 18 to an older guy) shows up in London, too. Georgia sees him in a park and wonders what he's doing there, but we never get an explanation. I think he may have been with Uncle Atwood, but once again, it's left a mystery. Is this book actually a magic trick? If I tap a magic wand on my Nook three times, will the real ending reveal itself? I'm going to assume that Marvelle's setting up for more books in a series, but that isn't an excuse. The ending was the strangest, most rushed thing I've read in a long time. Even worse, it's implied that Georgia can't stand London society. But then they just stay there. Just 'cause, apparently. This book could have rated three stars or more if any attention and care had been given to the ending. Like Roderick, Forever and a Day must have been pummeled by an omnibus, hit its head, and forgot the entire first half of the book. Can a book get amnesia? I'm deciding it can.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Mar 05, 2012
| Mar 09, 2012
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Mar 05, 2012
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| 0061973009
| 9780061973000
| 3.53
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Mon dieu, this book is strange. And not in the good, "Wheee! Look at all the crazy things the author threw in here! It's so crazy it's fuuunnnnn!" way...more
Mon dieu, this book is strange. And not in the good, "Wheee! Look at all the crazy things the author threw in here! It's so crazy it's fuuunnnnn!" way either. No, Never Resist Temptation is a typical cookie-cutter Regency romance. Spunky heroine with the self-preservation skills of a blind and deaf puppy, angsty hero with debilitating mommy issues, a card-carrying villain who totally fails at all villain-y things, misunderstandings dropped all over the place, an incompetent Bow Street runner, a shady guardian whose ugly soul is showcased by his fat gut and flabby jowls, French people with French ties to the French revolution, gay pastry chefs. The only thing it lacks is a secret baby plot. Thank you, Miranda Neville for avoiding the secret baby plot. The strangeness of this book has more to do with the writing. The formatting made very little sense, sections and chapters just dropped off abruptly, and sometimes the head-hopping made me dizzy. Oh, and also, the hero got a boner for the heroine when he thought she was a young boy. GIFSoup Some things just can't process. SUMMARY: Jacobin Le Oui Oui Bonjour (or as Neville calls it, de Chastelux) ends up working in one of the Prince Regent's households in Brighton as a pastry chef. Naturally, she acquires a job in the kitchen by dressing as a boy. And why is she in such a precocious disguise? Because her Uncle, some baron or other, gambled her away in a card game to the Earl of Storrington. Instead of becoming an unwilling mistress, Jacobin flees to work as a pastry chef. As a boy. It's never revealed if she intends to remain a boy forever, but this is the story as it's told, so go with it. When Jacobin's uncle ends up sick from poison at one of the prince's dinners, she runs again in fear that the authorities will discover her womanly bits and arrest her (for murder, not for the womanly bits). Unfortunately, Fate has decided that Jacobin's only refuge is as a cook named Jane Castle at the estate of the dreaded Earl of Storrington. Fortunately, Anthony, aka Lord Storrington, is a total hottie with a body. He's also an asshat of the first order, but RACHEL, this is a romance. Your heart is supposed to melt. Anyway, stories intertwine and fail to make a lick of sense, but it all comes down to Jacobin and Anthony. Is she too French for his staid English balls? Or will they create a perfect French pastry of love? Jacobin isn't that bad until she becomes Anthony's personal doormat. He gambled for a PERSON. Who the fuck does that? And who the hell falls IN LOVE with that? Between Anthony's manipulative asshat stylings and the way he mopes around like, "My mommy didn't love me enough because she DIED. She dismissed my favorite nanny. A POX ON ALL THE WOMEN!" Then to read all of the long sections dedicated to his boner over Jacobin as a woman and a boy ... I had no patience for any of this. I could forgive the ridiculous story, though, because once I climbed out of the fever I was in when I bought it (no joke), I realized that I was in Insta-Romance Avon Land. The story was never going to do anything besides piss me off, and I decided to keep reading for the pure WTF spite of it. Sadly, the disjointed pace of the book and the fragmented sentences made an enemy out of me. Some of the phrasing made me O__o until I was afraid my face would stay that way. For instance, I just turned to a random page in the book and found this: He himself had consumed a couple of those puffy things and raised his glass in a silent toast to the cook. - Page 94. "He himself ..." Then there was the text's aversion to commas: In one way at least the dinner had succeeded beyond expectations. - Page 94. I could do this for days: Waiting crouched in the shrubbery, she shivered with cold, but her information had been correct. Sure, the sentences aren't AWFUL, but they definitely aren't pleasing to the eye or the mind. The only good thing about the abrupt chapter endings was that they saved me from further tediousness described in the characters' conversations or inner-monologues. At least Neville added some kinky action with the pastries. Granted, that enabled a pathetically awkward moment in which Anthony squeezed a dab of cream on his peen and shocked the hell out of virginal Jacobin. I clutched my pearls a little when I read that. And I laughed. A LOT. She never licks it off, and I'm left to assume that Anthony walked around with pastry cream on his peen for the rest of his days. GIFSoup Filthy, FILTHY book! A massive edit could make Never Resist Temptation tolerable. Alas, this is the finished product. Sick Rachel is never allowed to pick out a book again. (less) | Notes are private!
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| Mar 14, 2012
| Mar 20, 2012
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Mar 14, 2012
| ebook
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| 1101559675
| 9781101559673
| 3.50
| 151
| Jan 03, 2012
| Jan 03, 2012
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This was a weird one, friends. I almost rated Twice Fallen 2 stars to be generous - I did finish it, after all - until I remembered that a whole lot o...more
This was a weird one, friends. I almost rated Twice Fallen 2 stars to be generous - I did finish it, after all - until I remembered that a whole lot of nothing happens in this book. I'm not saying that the book is plotless, but I do think I read books with more plot in elementary school. My main complaint is the lack of focus on the main characters. According to the blurb, Twice Fallen is about wartime spy Lord Damien and ruined spinster Lady Lillian becoming embroiled in a Ton mystery together. I expected some love wangst, some implausible sex scenes, and a tortured confession by one of them that they could never really love. Maybe some danger and knife fights. You know, a story about the main characters. Unfortunately, what I got instead were some glossed-over encounters between Damien and Lily, a half-baked mystery plot, and a shitload of scenes between a secondary couple that had next-to-nothing to do with the main plot. In the first 100 pages, Damien and Lily take part in a couple brief conversations. That's it. They check each other out, she wonders about his crippled leg, he wonders why she's still single, and then they go their separate ways. Damien gets a few pages of text due to the fact he's getting pulled into some spy plot to track down the person blackmailing and sometimes killing aristocrats, but that's about it. We're told that Damien's a super awesome spy and that Lily's intelligent and, of course, "different than the other girls in her social circle," but they do nothing to support these claims. Everything is told to us instead of shown. On the other hand, in the same 100 pages, the secondary couple - consisting of Lily's cousin James and some lady named Regina - have sex a whopping 4 times, three of which are written in full-blown sex scene mode. We don't see how they meet or why they become attracted to one another. I just opened up Chapter 4, and BAM! Two virtual strangers are fucking all over the place. James and Regina aren't bad characters, but their insertion into the story is so random and jarring that I kept wondering, "Why the hell are these people in my book?" There isn't any juxtaposing of the couples or social meshing. It would go from Damien nosing around about Lily's life and making a big deal about his limp straight to James and Regina meeting up and banging in an art studio. Near the end, the couple do end up in the same place. I think that was supposed to be significant, but I didn't really care at that point. So what? In Regina's defense, (view spoiler)[she does save Lily from a knife-wielding mad-woman by literally happening upon the scene. It was unintentionally hilarious because Lily has no idea who Regina is, nor does Damien when he enters the scene, because NONE OF THEM HAVE FREAKING MET YET. (hide spoiler)] By the time Damien and Lily have sex, it seems incredibly rushed and out-of-the-blue. One moment, they share politely inquisitive glances in ballrooms, and the next, Damien decides he can't live another minute without banging her. If a little more time had been spent developing these characters and their relationship, the timing for their hook-up would have been splendid. Unfortunately, they just seemed like strangers who had dragged me through a whole lot of misdirecting filler to get to an underwhelming declaration of mutual lust. The shame in it is that Damien and Lily seem like cool people. Neither of them particularly offended me, even if they didn't interest me. Unfortunately, no time was put into developing them into full characters, which seemed like a waste. There are no real obstacles in Damien and Lily's relationship. I'm not exaggerating, either. Not even a misunderstanding to stoke the flames. Just a bunch of blah, blah, blah. So I definitely wasn't impressed with this story. It's also part of a series, and the epilogue suggested that the next book will be focused on a frumpy little miss who likes to garden and also likes to complain about people who don't understand her and also people who don't garden. Or maybe it will actually be about some distant cousin of the frumpy miss's who has an affair with Hero A from Book X's cousin. I won't be buying the next one to find out. (less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| May 21, 2012
| May 24, 2012
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May 21, 2012
| ebook
| |||||||||||||||
| 0451235223
| 9780451235220
| 3.97
| 1,516
| Nov 01, 2011
| Nov 01, 2011
|
**spoiler alert** Please believe me. I didn't purchase this book expecting a great story, but I needed something to read to distract me from the unfin...more
**spoiler alert** Please believe me. I didn't purchase this book expecting a great story, but I needed something to read to distract me from the unfinished backlist I have piling up on my Nook. I figured it would be a fast read, that there might be some angelic badassery and a little angelic sex and a happy ending. What I didn't expect was to quit the damn thing 2/3rds through. I didn't expect the visceral anger and the burning desire to growl out the words, "Fuck you SO HARD, book!" Alas, my husband was in my presence when I reached the point in the story where I wanted to kill everything, so I kept my mouth shut. But I wanted to say it. I also want to burn the memory of the utter crap I just read from my mind, but that's impossible because (1) I feel a responsibility to warn my GR friends far, far away and (2) some things need to be bitched about. So here goes. WARNING: PROFANITY AND SPOILERS AHEAD! SUMMARY: Two thousand years ago, God - or the Old Man, as characters call him - gifted his four favorite archangels with girl angels called archesses. For being super loyal and the totes best angels in all the heavens, Michael, Gabriel, Azrael and Uriel each got a soul mate to - I don't know - make sweet angel babies on clouds with or something. Unfortunately, before the archangels could "claim" their prizes (the book's word, not mine), a gang of jealous angels fucked the works up and caused the archesses to be cast from Heaven to Earth. Furious at the loss of their new toys, the four favored archangels fell to earth to search for their archesses. Two thousand years later, Uriel finally finds his lady in a bathroom. Yeah, Avenger's Angel really amps up the romance. Eleanore Granger has no idea she's an archess. But of course! If a woman knew something, even the tiniest thing, in this book, the whole world would come to an end. She knows she has special powers, like the ability to heal others and telekinetic skills. Since humans are freaking awful, Eleanore's spent the better part of her 25 years dodging shady government vehicles containing men in suits with nefarious collections of needles. Uriel meets Eleanore as his human alias, Christopher Daniels, the sexiest goddamn movie star in the whole world. He comes onto Eleanore fast and hard, but she's unsure about who to trust. You see, the archangels have a nemesis, some angel with daddy issues (and probably a really tiny peen) named Samael who's determined to win Ellie for himself through any means possible. Naturally, Samael's antics lead to a menagerie of male posturing, growling, and tug-of-warring over the pretty new girl thingy. I don't think that this book meant to be sexist. Several times, Ellie even complains about her destiny with Uriel robbing her of the choice to live her own life with her own choices. Incidentally, the prose is so damn pleased with itself when it describes these totally hot archangels and all of their super-alpha powers and their maneuvering of this kind of boring girl that my sexism detector starting blaring louder than a virgin heroine experiencing her first orgasm. And then there was THE SCENE, the one that made me stop reading, but I'll get to that later. All you have to know now is that I think this book is accidentally sexist. Wait, no. It had to be intentional. Maybe ... Screw it. Whatever the intent, I still feel like this: GIFSoup So disappointed right now. THE PROBLEMS 1. Every Male Character is a Gary Stu: The archangels are supernaturally beautiful and powerful. The bad guys are supernaturally beautiful and powerful. They're all great lovers. Their physical descriptions are incredibly similar aside from differing eye colors and hair colors/styles. Apparently, the Old Man didn't use much creativity when he created his perfect celestial beings, nor did he know that different races are a thing. I suppose the one thing I can't use against the archangels is that they're so freaking dumb that bees can likely buzz in one ear of their celestical craniums and out the other in record time. Samael's pretty smart, but he's also an infantile asshat with an inferiority complex. However, it wasn't enough for the author to establish that the boys are THE BEST EVER ... 2. The Repetition: I lost count of how many times the male beauty was mentioned. Eleanore spends a majority of the text distracted by the "handsome," "gorgeous," or "beautiful" men and often mulls over the way their muscles "ripple," "flex," or "bulge" under their extra-tight shirts. Uriel always wears a tight thermal, and for god's sake, I don't know how any being can flex as often as he does from the amount of times his muscles are mentioned. That has to be exhausting! However, Eleanore isn't the only one who mentions how super-hot all the penis-wielders are in this book. The men do it, too! No matter whose perspective is used, it must be repeated how sexy and perfect the stupid guys are. You know, when one has to insist on something like physical beauty so much, it's usually because the fucker ISN'T THAT HOT. 3. Eleanore is Useless in Comparison to the Supermen: At first, I was excited that Eleanore got special powers of her own. "Cool!" I thought, "She'll be able to add some badassery to the story." But no. I hate it when a book makes me feel naive. Eleanore can move things with her mind; the boys can move BIGGER things with their minds and with more control. Eleanore can influence the weather with her emotions; the boys have control over the elements. Eleanore can heal; Uriel becomes a goddamn vampire, the most powerful thing EVER, and gains the ability to FLY. Adding powers to the characters exponentially doesn't make for a very interesting story. 4. Uriel the Vampire: My main complaint is that there's no indication on the blurb that this turns into a freaking vampire story. I was willing to let it slide at first because it seemed like vampirism would be very difficult and very painful for Uriel. Unfortunately, he adapts at the freaking speed of lightning, and his brothers allow him to go after Eleanore after A WHOLE DAY, even though he craves her blood more than anything else. The characters pass around the Stupid Ball in this story constantly. I honestly don't know how any of the boys learned to tie their shoes. 5. THE SCENE: The first love scene teetered treacherously close to rape and/or abuse. It made me sick. Here's a book from 2012, and it's still clear that people - both men AND women - don't fully understand consent. It pains me to do this, but the only way to get my point across is by posting quotes. The point of the scene is apparently that Uriel is so overcome with lust for Eleanore and vampiric bloodlust that he can't help himself. The bad writing speaks for itself, but the content is even worse. Read at your own risk: "Coherent thought all but left him as he turned to the bed and threw her down onto her stomach in the center of the bed. Aw, how romantic! He cut off her mobility. What a charmer! Uriel uses vampiric mind control during this scene, telling her to "trust" him and to submit. THESE ARE THINGS YOU ASK, CAPTAIN RAPE-KIT! Holy hell, I HATE it when authors write these things like I'm supposed to think the interaction is sexy. "Another part of her relished in the domination, wanting more," my ASS. But maybe Uriel doesn't realize what he's doing. Maybe this a misunderstanding ... "Uriel's self-control was gone. There was nothing left in him but a dominant vampire, an archangel who needed his archess, and a determination that forced his will upon the woman trapped beneath him." Damn it. "Forced his will." Now I was pissed at myself for giving the dude the benefit of the doubt. He ends up tearing off her clothes, all while she's immobile. I will admit that Eleanore's apparently super turned-on by this, which is kind of hard to believe considering that she's often afraid of him and also a 25-year-old virgin who only received her FIRST KISS a couple days ago from Uriel. But yes, I'll be fair, the interaction is supposed to be sexy. But then you have THIS gem, and if it doesn't freak you out, I don't know what will: "'I'm going to let you up. Don't try to get away, do you understand?' he whispered harshly in her ear. This is the part in the interaction when Oprah would tell you to scream and run for the hills, ladies. I don't care if your name is Admiral Sexy Beast and your bowel movements give women orgasms. Wrapping your hand around another human being's throat is NEVER okay. Fucking shenanigans. Isn't this basic stuff? You know, like how we've collectively decided not to stab our loved ones with steak knives. Some things just don't fall in my gray area. Uriel makes Ellie grab the headboard and ends up taking the virgin from BEHIND. To add insult to injury, he's a total dick about Ellie's grip on the headboard. "Eleanore moaned again, and with hard eyes, Uriel watched her fingers slip a little on the railing. Yes, master, because if she lets go of the headboard thanks to the pain of you ramming into her like a rutting buck, God will kill a kitten. Is that what happens if an archess disobeys her archangel, or is this just an asshole vampire thing? Uriel eventually grabs her by the hair and yanks her head back so he has access to the veins in her neck. I'd just like to SEE my husband try to grab me by the hair. Oh, but he wouldn't try something like that. BECAUSE HE ISN'T A DOUCHEBAG. But I'm sorry, I haven't including a quote from Uncle Uriel's Creepy Factory in awhile ... "He lowered himself until he could once more whisper in her ear. 'I'm going to take you now the way I've wanted to take you since I saw you that night in the bookstore,' he told her, keeping his grip on her hair tight so that she couldn't pull away. 'I'm going to take you hard and fast,' he promised her. 'Because you're mine, Ellie.' He almost growled his ownership. 'And you always will be' He COVERS HER MOUTH WITH ONE HAND, presumably so no one can hear her screams. My rage has yet again reached a boiling level, so I won't share anymore quotes with you. You should know that when Ellie finally loses grip on that freaking headboard, Uriel ends up biting and feeding from her. WITHOUT HER CONSENT. I'm pretty sure romance is dead now. It may never recover from the bad vibes this book put out into the universe. You may be relieved to learn that Ellie has an earth-shattering orgasm from being turned into Uriel's chew toy and kneeling submissive. I'm not relieved, though. I'm just done with the godawful book and its godawful message. If the writing had been decent, perhaps the romance wouldn't have turned into an American Horror Story, but I can only judge on what was presented to me. I wouldn't recommend this book to my cats. They have more respect for people than the hard-bodied arch"angel" Uriel has for the love of his life in this book. So this is apparently my limit - rape disguised as romance. Good to know. Utter crap. C'est fin.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Jun 09, 2012
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Jun 10, 2012
| Mass Market Paperback
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| 3.81
| 2,314
| 2008
| Apr 2008
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**spoiler alert** Warning: GIFs and major spoilers ahead! Private Arrangements is the tedious story of horrible people being horrible to each other in...more **spoiler alert** Warning: GIFs and major spoilers ahead! Private Arrangements is the tedious story of horrible people being horrible to each other in horrible circumstances. After reading Sherry Thomas's Ravishing the Heiress, I figured that wangst was her schtick. I hate wangst. I'd rather read about things happening than about people complaining all the time. But since Sherry Thomas has so many glowing reviews, I thought, "Well, maybe some of her wangst is more tolerable than the wangst I just read. Everyone deserves a second chance." And then this book was like:  September 19, 2012: The day I decided, NEVER AGAIN. Lessons have been learned, my friends. It wasn't all bad, I suppose. Mostly bad, of course, but a few glimmers of hope in the text kept me reading. Thomas has a very distinctive prose style. She excels at creating an atmospheric sense of despair. This would be well-suited to a horror or suspense novel - or maybe one of those depressing books people like to read about kids with deformities or terminal illnesses (you know the ones) - but really drags down the mood in a romance novel. Every time happiness glimmered on the horizon, the characters dutifully fucked it all up. And the worst thing is that they never really have to fuck it up. They just do. Apparently for the LULZ. It's like the main characters took a blood oath at birth to stand in the way of their own happiness, and in turn, the happiness of all the characters around them and the happiness of any innocent person who happens to read their book.  I am the kangaroo. This book is the fucking bird. The Story: Gigi Rowland comes from a family that's mega-rich in trade but not so high in the aristocracy. Her mother, never one to pursue anything but the loftiest ambitions, makes it her life mission to marry Gigi off to a duke. Indeed, Gigi does catch a duke, through less than noble but totes clever means of buying up all his debt and blackmailing him into marriage. Unfortunately, the poor sod dies shortly before the wedding. Or lucky sod, depending on how you look at it. Gigi and her mum think that they're back to square one, but miracle of miracles! The dead duke has a cousin who will inherit the dukedom when his daddy kicks the bucket. The cousin is poor-as-dirt Camden Saybrook, who hogs what Gigi lacks in blue blood but starves for cash where Gigi is rich. Fortunately for Gigi's until then dormant little heart, Camden is super hot and all educated and cultured 'n stuff because his parents had to sweep their kids all over the continent as a result of not having enough money to have a home of their own. She falls in love with him the very day they meet. Okay, so this is looking good. Boy needs money. Girl needs title. They both want to do the horizontal tango. Hearts and butterflies and mix tapes are in their future! Right? Hell to the no. This is a Sherry Thomas book, you naive fool. Naturally, Camden has promised his heart to some boring, fickle girl from some European country I can't bother remembering. The girl's about as inspiring as dry toast, okay? She isn't worth the trouble her presence brought to this book. Even though this girl's actively seeking a wealthy, titled husband in England, Camden feels honor-bound to uphold his adolescent pledges of eternal love. When Gigi points out all the reasons he should insert his Tab A into her Slot B in the marriage bed, Camden's still like, "Even though I masturbate to you, like, constantly, my heart has been pledged to another. Just friends, 'kay?" And Gigi's like:  "Oprah and I are NOT buying your shit." So, like any other enterprising Victorian girl, Gigi takes matters into her own hands. With the help of a poorly forged letter and a slight lack of ethics, she tricks Camden into doing exactly what he wants. They promptly set a wedding date. Everything's GLORIOUS, for like a minute, until Camden discovers Gigi's betrayal a day before the wedding. Now, instead of behaving like a fucking HUMAN BEING and confronting Gigi about the deceit directly, Camden literally runs across the village in a fit of angst like an infinitely less cool Forrest Gump and then decides that he must have REVENGE. I'm not sure if Camden got more upset over Gigi's forged letter from the "other woman" saying that Miss Boring was betrothed to another or if he was pissed at himself for being stupid enough to believe it in the first place. Either way, Miss Boring really does get betrothed to someone else, so all the whinging in the world wouldn't have brought Camden to any other place than into Gigi's willing arms. What Gigi did was crappy, but at least she did it out of LOVE for Camden. If he had confronted her before the wedding and talked or yelled it out, I'm sure they still would have decided to fuck like rabbits. What I'm trying to get across is this: The wangst in this book was easily avoidable! Like a romance hero after my own fantasies, Camden pretends that everything's totes cool until the wedding night. He tries to act all dickish but can't quite pull it off until after he screws the daylights out of Gigi. You know, to rid himself of his disgusting lust for her. They have sex, and it's earth-shattering while angels probably cry tears of joy in the heavens, and Gigi's incredibly happy. Enter: Camden taking a massive dump on all things happy the morning after. He curses Gigi, refuses to accept her apologies, and leaves her high and dry for ten years. Yes, because abandoning the wife that you DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TO MARRY IN THE FIRST PLACE is totes nobler than the actions of a freaking teenager forging a letter and releasing you from an ill-suited marriage.  Even Neil Degrasse Tyson can't make sense of this shit. Ten long, painful years pass until Gigi decides that she's had ENOUGH of her absentee husband. She wants a divorce so she can remarry a younger man who naively worships the ground she walks on. At the age of 29, Gigi is now a seasoned cougar, apparently. If we lived in a fair world, Camden would have granted the divorce and released us from the torturous inanity of this plot. But this is a very UNfair world, so Europe's Wettest Blanket (AKA Camden) returns to London from America to make one last demand of his dear wife. Camden wants an heir before he'll grant her a divorce. Yes, an heir. And then he'll grant her a divorce. Let that sink in. Camden, an educated marquess, wants to knock up the wife he doesn't like, get an heir, and then sentence the kiddo to a life of shame and humiliation by granting a scandalous divorce to the baby's mother. Camden is just like a soap opera villain, only not interesting at all because he's a whiny bitch. I got incredibly bored with the story at this point. It was just a lot of pain and whinging to reach a foregone conclusion. Hate sex ... hate sex ... hate sex ... Sorta/kinda like sex with all the erotic appeal of this:  Pointless, boring scenes dedicated to Gigi's mum having not very clever conversations with the single duke down the street. Because the ONE THING this stupid-fest needed was a secondary love story. I love her. I love her not. I love her. I love her not. I love him. I love him not. I love him. I love him not. Stupid angsty quotes that totally don't fit the actual problems these people have, like ... Camden slapped down the towel and caught his own reflection in the mirror above the washbasin. He looked about as happy as the citizenry of Paris on the eve of the Storming of the Bastille, primed for violence and mayhem. Painful separation. Stupid quotes that confirm that this IS NOT romance ... True, there were all sorts of ways he could bludgeon her, with the diminished but still powerful husbandly prerogatives granted him under English law. But in the end, what would it accomplish? A gratuitous scene of Camden hob-nobbing with the Vanderbilts, Astors and Morgans. A rushed and unsatisfactory reunion. And then, god help me, this ... "She turned onto her back and slid a knuckle across her lower lip. "Won't you come to bed and make me pregnant?"  The. Fucking. End. I know that Sherry Thomas has a lot of fans. If this kind of story floats your boat, that's great. Sadly, this is just NOT my cup of tea. My reading of this book is a result of a devious Buddy Square Read. Check out Karla, Kerrie, and Sarah's reviews for some more wacky perspectives into the books of Sherry Thomas.(less) | Notes are private!
| none
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1
| not set
| Sep 19, 2012
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Jul 09, 2012
| Mass Market Paperback
| |||||||||||||||||
| 1476296138
| 9781476296135
| 4.37
| 51,232
| 2012
| Aug 31, 2012
|
Some spoilers ahead! Oh, good grief. Before I even get started, let's just establish a couple of facts about this review: 1) I know my opinion is not th...more Some spoilers ahead! Oh, good grief. Before I even get started, let's just establish a couple of facts about this review: 1) I know my opinion is not the popular one (at the moment). 2) I do not feel guilty about Fact #1. 3) Therefore, I am going to be brutally honest. If I could go back in time one week and erase the crazed idea I got to read On Dublin Street, I would. Even though I'm an avid romance reader, I have incredibly shitty luck with contemporaries, mainly because I expect modern characters to be more enlightened than they ever turn out to be. But here was this new, shiny thing with all kinds of 5-star reviews and a generous amount of buzz. "It can't be that bad," I thought. Then I read it. This doesn't end well. While I know On Dublin Street is right up some readers' alleys, almost everything about it is my own personal Kryptonite. The only thing I liked about it was the ending because that meant I was finally done with it. So, with no further ado, let's get to the meat of this rotting carcass. Things Rachel Didn't Like About On Dublin Street The Quality Apparently, this thing had two editors. I couldn't tell. A constant stream of errors kept me detached from the story about 90% of the time. Punctuation is misused (or not used at all), words and phrases are repeated with wild abandon, dialogue tags are left beaten and bloody behind crumbling storage sheds, sentences are mangled, and needless descriptions and characters are rolled out of a clown car even though they bring nothing to the story. The narration tested my patience time and time again with its repetitiveness. Joss can't just say "shit" or "fuck" when she feels like using a curse word (which is often). She'll take off on some Fuckity, shit, shittity, fuckity, fuck, shit exclamation that makes it look like the prose is suffering from Tourette's. In addition, she uses the annoying curse "Jesus C" all the freaking time. It's Jesus CHRIST, Joss. You can't throw around all those fucks and shits like a politician throwing out candy to little kids at a parade and then act all coy when it comes to Jesus. We all know it's Jesus Christ. "Jesus C" would have been fine if used once (or never), but it wore out its welcome VERY FAST. The whole story needed to be compacted and fine-tuned. Alas, it wasn't and ends up reading like a first draft fan fiction instead. If you're thinking, "Rachel, it can't be that bad," allow me to present to you the following: Example 1: As I had been for the last few weeks I was working Saturday's now at Club 39. These are just a few that really made my head splinter. You can find more on just about every page of the book, or you can check out my epic collection of status updates. Near the end, I felt like everyone just stopped trying. "You're" was used instead of "your" multiple times. Run-on sentences ran crazy. The plot just kept going and going for no reason other than to drag out the page count. Call me a nit-picky bastard. I'm not ashamed. If a book goes out on the market for people to buy and spend their time reading, then it should be properly edited. Isn't it enough that we have to put up with wonky plots and asshole characters? Can't grammar and proper syntax rise above all that? I refuse to give more than one star to a book that uses "My look castigated" as a fucking dialogue tag, or that uses "Saturday's" as the plural for Saturday, or that neglects the use of commas like they're just "special gifts" we give out every once in a while. Joss is a Cow This narrator has the special honor of reading like both The Most Horrible Person in the World and a generic Mary Sue. Joss comes fresh out of the Tragedy Factory with a dead family, a dead best friend, and a shit-ton of "I've got issues" baggage. In order to facilitate Joss' fucked up persona, Young just has her do everything in the most irrational manner possible. She has all kinds of nice friends but insists that she can't let anyone in. She has a hefty inheritance that she "never" uses (which is a fucking lie) and acts like some great martyr because she works in a pub and wants to write for a living. She acts like a total hypocrite with her friends and even makes the problems of her roommate, which are actually serious, ALL ABOUT HER. Joss is such a bullshitter that she'll tell you one thing in the first-person narrative and then completely contradict it in her totally unnecessary inner monologue. That brings me to another complaint: Why the hell do I keep reading first-person narrative stories with frequent inner monologues? They do the same goddamn thing! Joss makes a good decision when she starts going to therapy, but the therapy sessions annoyed me because it read like Young pulled every aspect of it from what she's seen on TV. If that damn therapist cocked her head like a bird one more time, I was going to scream. I'll give Joss credit for being a caustic bitch to Braden a majority of the time, though. Sure, her "I don't deserve LOOOOOVVVEE!" reasoning is irrational, but Braden seriously deserves every ounce of difficulty she throws at him. Braden Carmichael: Alpha-Douche-Bitch This guy. He's a real piece of work. I hate this New Alpha character we've been seeing in books ever since Edward Cullen made stalking "sexy" again in Twilight. Perhaps my fantasies don't line up with popular opinion these days, but I don't find these guys attractive at all. The alpha male used to be confident, and yes, demanding, but he knew where to draw the line. Now, the alpha male is written as some wangsty, twagicy bitch with more insecurities than a teenager going through puberty and a majority of the characteristics you find in those lists that tell you if your partner might be abusive. I don't find this sexy. At all. I find it revolting, disappointing, and above all, ANNOYING. I don't give a shit if Longshacks McGiantWang is a tortured soul with a sad past. That doesn't give him an excuse to shuck all personal responsibility and mistreat the people around him. Braden Carmichael: Manipulative A-hole is one of these gems. From the beginning, he refuses to respect Joss' boundaries. All of their conversations go something like this: Joss: Braden, I need space. I am being entirely up-front with you about this. Braden: I don't give space to women I want to fuck, Jocelyn. Joss: I can't have sex with you. Braden: I'm going to fuck you so hard you won't be able to stand straight in the morning, Jocelyn. Joss: I told you to call me JOSS. I hate it when people call me Jocelyn. Braden: I'm never going away, Jocelyn. Joss: You're a dick. Braden: I am Alpha Male. Hear me roar! (throws her down on bed) Now let's fuck. Braden has a very foul mouth that never gets sexy, and this is coming from a person who uses liberal profanity in her reviews. He actually made me tired of the word "fuck". His list of sins against Joss (and women in general) is long and well-documented in my reading updates. I'll just tell you the ones that pissed me off the most here: He threatens to beat up just about every guy who flirts with or looks at Joss. He ACTUALLY beats up a guy who flirts with Joss. He tells her what to do with her hair and how to dress because he doesn't want "other men" knowing how sexy she is. He shows up at her apartment unannounced even AFTER she tells him she needs space. He goes on and on in these really creepy exchanges about how he'll never "share" her, like she's a pair of his gym shorts or something. He initiates sexual encounters with her WHILE SHE'S SLEEPING. He manipulates her BIG TIME near the end of the story, telling her that he slept with another woman just to make her break down emotionally so he could discern if she "loved" him. Frequently, Braden's body language and behavior are described in a way that suggests he's about to murder Joss. Example 1: "That's it, we're done. This was a complete mistake." I moved to get up but found myself tackled back onto the couch, flat on my back with Braden lying over me. After that second quote, he actually tickles her, which may disturb me even more. His moods rapidly fluctuate between "charming Scotsman" and "slasher pic serial killer". It was very hard for me to handle. Braden is just a walking laugh factory of everything I've never wanted in a boyfriend. "Because ... I like being the only man who knows how beautiful your hair is. How gorgeous you look with it down." That seems sweet on the surface, I guess. But then think about it. If Braden could push it that far, I bet he would like to be the only one who knows how gorgeous Joss is, PERIOD. What I'm implying is that he would never let her be within seeing distance of another man if he could get away with it. "You try to leave, I'll tackle you." Even though he wasn't looking at me when he said it, I could tell he was deadly serious. Deadly serious? She believes that he's DEADLY SERIOUS about threatening to TACKLE her? This is so unromantic that MY vagina has put up a "Closed Until Further Notice" sign so I can recover from this shit. Things Don't Make Sense Joss' back story makes very little sense. It seems that Young knows very little about American trust laws and the American foster care system. We're told that after the death of her parents, Joss was funneled into the "awful" foster care system. This requires a great suspension of disbelief on the reader's part. For one, her family had a great deal of friends and neighbors who probably wouldn't want to see Joss end up with strangers. For another, her parents apparently took the time to set up provisions for her to inherit a great deal of money at 18 in the event of their deaths but neglected to arrange something major like CUSTODY OF THEIR CHILD? Lawyers and executors would be involved in this type of deal, and they would exhaust every last option before putting an heiress with family friends and a fucking UNCLE in the foster care system. Nothing is explained, though. We're just expected to believe that Joss obviously went there because she's a poor little thing. I don't buy it. The Sex is the Same Thing Over and Over Again On Dublin Street doesn't really push any erotic boundaries. Most of the sex is missionary and involves Braden basically sexing Joss into submission. While he constantly talks about how much he wants to "fuck" her, Joss has the same physical reactions EVERY DAMN TIME she sees him. "Oh, Braden wore a new shirt! My panties dampened and my nipples pebbled in response." Joss' panties are referred to as "damp" so often that I've started a working theory that her vagina is the Dead Sea. It didn't help that Braden makes all kinds of comments about how "wet" she is during the love scenes. Is there no other description to use? I get it! Joss is in a perpetual state of horny for the possessive bastard. The Elitism Basically, rich people like Braden and Joss are totes awesome and principled. The only poor people are described as gold-diggers and drug dealers/users. I read another review that went into this in detail, so I won't rehash it here. In short (and I know, there's nothing "short" about this review), this book is not my cup of tea. If I could give it ZERO stars, I would. However, GR won't let me, so one star will have to do. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a truckload of neglected commas in Scotland looking for a good home right now. I think it's my duty to rescue them. Just for fun, I'll leave you with this randomly plucked-from-the-text quote: ... when a bolt of lust shot between my legs and I looked down to see a gorgeous merman's head there. >:D Edited on 10/19/12 because I woke up in the middle of the night to the realization that I forgot to include a couple of the repetitive phrases that annoyed me. If you've already read the review and really want to know what would wake me up in the middle of the night, the additional material is in the first paragraph under the heading The Quality.(less) | Notes are private!
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| Oct 09, 2012
| Oct 16, 2012
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Oct 09, 2012
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