Once I recover from this... this thing I'll give it a proper review.
REVIEW TIME!
NOTE: This might be a hate review in the end but that's fine by me, because I hated the book.


Alright, I’m going to go right ahead and surprise everyone: I’d rather read Fallen, Silence even freaking Halo than read a book like this again. This book simply takes excrements to a whole new level.

Enter the heroine, what’s-her-name. Seriously I can only think of her as Moi. Because that’s all she talked about in this novel. Herself. And no, she doesn’t speak French, just likes the sound of it.

So. Moi. What does one need for to know for Moi? Well, for one thing she has finished Princeton and she works as fashion… something. I think it’s a fashion journalist. She’s British and apparently, brunette.

I’m sure you’re all wondering right now just what the heck is wrong with me. I mean, she sounds ok, cool even. Let me color these details a bit for you. Moi is a British 20-something who went to Princeton and is sure that “the only reason I got the grades Princeton required was because throughout the algebra and the Latin and the Romantic poets, the thing that kept me going was the thought of oxygen facials you could get in New York.” I’m not even paraphrasing.

Moi happens to love the US. Well, New York actually. Manhattan, to be precise. She went there a lot of times when she was little and stayed over at her friend Julie’s place. And she loved it because “New York girls like Julie got to be very spoiled and had Rollerblades and ice-skates and makeup and facialists. They had wonderfully absent parents. Julie knew the geography of Barneys intimately by thirteen, and had actually shopped there.” If she says something that sound remotely… clever, then she’s probably “been reading The New Yorker again,” according to her friend Julie.

Moi is, in case you did not realize that yourself an insipid Brit and an insult to Britain, its people, women and people who work in Fashion. She’s a disgrace to New Yorkers as well. According to her everyone in New York is rude and selfish. She’s self-centered, stupid beyond belief and more shallow than... than… I cannot even find a comparative.

Not to mention the fact that the moment a guy is good, rich and fucks well she’s in love with him. Seriously, infamous Nora Grey is a much better person, woman and protagonist than this girl. At least she knows she wants one guy.

And her goal of life is not to just marry someone, anyone, who’s rich and, of course, completely focused on her.

But it does not end there. Her friends think of men as bags. Which, according to them, “makes it completely understandable that a girl may need to try out several types of fiancé before she finds the one that suits her”. And then our darling heroine proceeds to think this pearl: “Maybe I had misjudged Jolene Morgan: I secretly used to think she was one of the shallowest girls in New York.” Of course, I can see the logic behind this statement as Jolene is no longer one of the shallowest girls in New York. Our darling heroine has taken her place.

I could probably quote the whole book but seriously there’s no reason behind it. I believe you catch my drift.

Let me make a bit of an announcement here. I want to work in the Fashion department one day. Not as a designer, because I’m not that inspired, or –heaven forbid – as a model (I’m not that beautiful) but as a fashion illustrator. I like beauty. That’s what I want to work on (no, I do not mean some of these detestable images that are supposed to portray beauty. There’s not one type of beauty people.) This book actually made it sound as if anyone who is in the industry is stupid. More than that: brain. Dead. It’s beyond insulting really.

Her whole stance about Britain I am not even going to discuss. The whole Europe really. We’re all boring sorts, you know? But especially British. Unless they’re rich. What is really precious about the last bit is that the author is British. (Before you ask, yes, she lives in New York). She actually makes her country sound as boring as fuck. Listen girlie, I’ve been in London, trust me there’s nothing dull about it. And I’d simply love to see the English countryside.

On top of bad role models, the ridiculing of a whole gender and of the fashion world, Miss Syke goes on to ridicule something else as well: love and human emotions. The heroine falls in love three times in a book of 310 pages. I kid you not. She “falls in love” with anyone who’s cute and ready to spoil her. I actually felt sorry for those blocks. The only one I gave thumbs-up to is the first guy because he breaks up with her in the most fantastic ways possible.

Of course it’s all his fault.

Not to mention that the ending was crystal clear from the beginning. Not to mention that I predicted what was supposed to be a “plot-twist” halfway through. (See my status updates).

You know what? I want to go on and on and on. I’m not tired of slaughtering this… thing. Someone should really just get fired for letting this get printed. This book has no morals. I was hoping that there would at least be some major character development but oh-no. How could I ever request that? I even hoped that Miss Syke wrote that in order to show some major problem of modern society.

Needless to say I was disappointed.

Now, before anyone rushes to say anything hateful: I paid for this book. From my pocket money. Unfortunately, my parents are not ridiculously rich, which means that I don’t get as many books as I want to. On top of that, I enjoy chick-lit. Good chick-lit, that is. I was expecting a light, fun read and was instead presented with this bimbo of a book. That is fucking unacceptable. When something like this is published, when this brain-washing machine is called a book, someone has to step up and say what’s what.

Miss Syke, if a 17-year-old says this to you, you should definitely take this into consideration. You’re in my black-list of authors and hope this book doesn’t represent your way of thinking. I will think of you as someone who robbed me off my money.

Good day to you ladies and gentlemen.

EDIT I forgot to say that for once, there is a book that is treating men in a very bad way. It's not just women that are portrayed in an objectified way. In this book, it's also men.