Book Review: The People We Hate at the Wedding by Grant Ginder

Right off the bat, I have to confess that I originally bought Grant Ginder’s The People We Hate at the Wedding on somewhat of a whim and read it for the first time back in 2017, and I’m so glad that I did, because this ended up being a really great book, in my opinion. I honestly hadn’t even heard of this book until I saw it at Target one day. As soon as I read the plot synopsis that’s on the cover, I immediately knew that this book was right up my alley. I thought about whether or not I wanted to buy it for several hours, and I bought it later that same day; which is something I don’t necessarily do when it comes to books that are written by authors that I’ve never even heard of. I’m much more likely to buy books rather spontaneously if they’re written by authors that I’m already familiar with and have read some of their other books. I’m also incredibly ashamed to admit that this review was originally written for the most part after I read the book for the first time back in 2017; but because I find the proofreading part of writing rather tedious, I never got around to proofreading and posting this review while the details of the book were still fresh in my mind. I finally decided to reread the book recently after finding out that Amazon made a movie adaptation of the book; which I’m planning to watch now that I’ve reread the book. That being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

 

Despite what the book’s title might suggest, The People We Hate at the Wedding is ultimately not first and foremost about a wedding. At its core, this book is about a dysfunctional family; and the problems that they have, with both each other and in their own personal lives. Eloise’s wedding simply serves as the backdrop for the conflict within the family. I have to say that while I absolutely love the title The People We Hate at the Wedding, I still think that it’s the book title equivalent of a clickbait headline for an article on the internet since the titular wedding plays such a small role in the book in the grand scheme of things. However, I still think it’s a pretty clever book title that was definitely effective when it came to getting my attention as I was looking around at Target and originally discovered this book.

 

While I personally loved this book, I don’t think that this book is necessarily for everybody, especially if you’re not a fan of books where pretty much all of the characters are rather unlikable people. Personally, I honestly love books, TV shows, and movies that feature unlikable characters, as long as the characters are written with the intention of them being unlikable, and they’re well written, and it's handled well by the author. When it comes to TV shows, my favorite comedy is definitely It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and all of the characters on that show are all truly terrible people. If characters come across as being unlikable due to bad writing, then I usually end up not liking the book all that much. For example, I don’t think that Ana Steele from E.L. James’ Fifty Shades trilogy is meant to be an incredibly annoying and unlikable, she just comes across that way due to terrible writing. That being said, I did think that Ana came across as being much more likable in Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, even though the book was still horribly written.

Book Review: Royally Matched (Book #2 in the Royally series) by Emma Chase

Right off the bat, I have to say that as much as I loved Royally Screwed, I honestly loved Royally Matched a little bit more than Royally Screwed. Having listened to Royally Matched on audiobook two times, I have to admit that I actually loved this book even more than I originally did after listening to it on audiobook a second time. The main reason I would say that I liked Royally Matched a little bit more than Royally Screwed is because as much as I love Nicholas and Olivia as a couple, I honestly found myself liking Henry and Sarah as a couple even more than I liked Nicholas and Olivia as a couple in Royally Screwed; which I’ll talk about in much more detail later on in this review.

When it comes to the overall plot of Royally Matched, the tone of the book as a whole definitely felt a little bit lighter and less angst-ridden than Royally Screwed often did, which is something that I really liked about this book. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really have too many problems with the overall tone of Royally Screwed; I simply thought that the tone of Royally Matched felt very different compared to the overall tone of Royally Screwed. Regardless of whether or not Emma Chase was consciously trying to write Royally Matched in such a way that the overall tone of the book felt much lighter compared to the more angst-filled tone of Royally Screwed; I personally like that they felt very different in tone, because I feel like it’s a great way to set Royally Screwed and Royally Matched apart from each other, while still having them be a part of the same series. After noticing a difference in the overall tone for Royally Screwed and Royally Matched, I’m definitely really interested and excited now to see how the third book, Royally Endowed, turns out from a tonality standpoint.

It was definitely interesting to see Henry struggling with adjusting to his new role as the heir to the family throne at the beginning of the book, especially since it was a role that he had never expected that he would have to fill. While I understand that Royally Matched and the Royally series as a whole is supposed to first and foremost be about the love lives of a royal family, something that I felt Emma Chase should have explored in this book more than she did, was Henry carrying out his new responsibilities as the heir to the throne, and his struggles with adapting to his new role in his family. Ultimately, the fact that Chase didn’t explore that aspect of Henry’s life very much in this book wasn’t really detrimental to my overall enjoyment of Royally Matched; but I still wish that she had done more with that aspect of who Henry is as a character now, especially considering the way he was written in Royally Screwed.

Book Review: Calendar Girl (January) (Book #1 in the Calendar Girl series) by Audrey Carlan

Right off the bat, I have to admit that I went into reading the first book/novella in the Calendar Girl series, January, with very low expectations for both this book/novella, and the series as a whole. After actually reading January, I have to say that January is definitely a book that utterly baffles me, because there are definitely a lot of things about Carlan’s writing for January that come across as being bad or problematic writing. Sometimes I would describe Carlan’s writing as being both bad and problematic at the same time; that being said, there are also times throughout January where Carlan does come across as being a decent writer. For that reason, I’m very hesitant to say that I think that Audrey Carlan is a truly bad writer.

One thing that really bothered me about this book is that it was very difficult for me to get good read on the protagonist of the series, Mia Sanders, in terms of her personality. When Mia is talking about the four guys that she had dated and thought that she had fallen in love with at the beginning of the book, she comes across as having a very bitter and jaded attitude towards men. She also comes across as really giving off a bit of a tough girl vibe at times throughout the book, and yet when she was talking about the first guy that she thought had found true love with, whose name was Taylor, she mentions that he had a small penis, but she referred to his penis as being a “winky the size of a circus peanut”. Mia saying that really made her come across as being immature, and if you ask me, Mia referring to a guy’s penis as a “winky” really contradicts the idea that she’s supposed to be a tough girl; which seems to be what Carlan was going for at times throughout the book. To be fair, it’s kind of understandable that Mia has a very bitter and jaded attitude towards men at the beginning of the book, given her history with the men she has dated prior to the events that take place in January; but it didn’t make her seem very likable in the first chapter.

Even though I didn’t think that Mia was a very likable character in the first chapter, and I thought that she was kind of annoying at times throughout the book, she never got to the point where I thought that she was an extremely unlikable and annoying character. While Mia can be annoying at times, she’s definitely not the most annoying and unlikable character that I’ve ever encountered in a book. (The award for the most annoying character that I’ve ever encountered in a book would definitely go to Ana Steele from E.L. James’ Fifty Shades trilogy.) However, as the plot of January progressed, I feel like Mia came across as being a fairly likable person for the most part, who enjoys giving people advice and helping them with their problems. I thought that was especially the case whenever she was talking to Jen, who was the wife of a guy that Wes works with.

Fifty Shades Darker: Official Trailer #2 (HD)

Here's the second official trailer for Fifty Shades Darker. I know that the Fifty Shades trilogy is supposed to be a romantic series, but there are moments in this trailer where I honestly think that this movie looks like more of a horror movie than a love story. Regardless, I have to admit that I'm really looking forward to seeing Fifty Shades Darker. :)

Book Review: One with You (Book #5 in the Crossfire series) by Sylvia Day

I should probably start out this review by saying that I originally wasn’t planning to read and review One with You any time soon, but reading the second book in Christina Lauren’s Beautiful series, Beautiful Stranger, and writing my review for the book really got me thinking about the Crossfire series again quite a bit, so I decided that it would probably be very fitting for me to go ahead and read One with You now. That being said here are my thoughts on One with You.

Because I feel like I’ve been repeatedly disappointed by Sylvia Day, and the Crossfire series as a whole, I’ve definitely been putting off reading One with You ever since it was released back in April of this year. Since this is the last book in the series, I was really hoping that I would enjoy One with You, and that the Crossfire series would end on a good note. Sadly, that definitely didn’t happen. While One with You does have some elements that I enjoyed, I was ultimately extremely disappointed with the book, especially when it comes to the fact that this is the final book in the series. To me, One with You came across as being the book equivalent of a TV show having a season finale where the writers have the season end with multiple cliffhangers, leave storylines open to be continued in the following season, and introduce whole new storylines, because they’re confident, or at least fairly optimistic about the show’s chances to be renewed for another season, only to have the network cancel the show. However, the fact that this or any final book in a series would have that kind of vibe to it is absolutely infuriating to me, since an author has the luxury of knowing whether or not a book is actually going to be the final book in a series. If an author who’s writing a book series knows that a book is going to be the last book in the series, they can and should write it as such, which Sylvia Day unfortunately didn’t do when it comes to this book.

One of the many problems that I’ve had with the Crossfire series is a lot of the writing and character development for Gideon, or rather the lack of character development and growth for him throughout the series. As I’ve read each book in the series, I constantly found myself thinking that I didn’t fully understand why Gideon is the way he is. Sure, we were given some information throughout the series about his past and the abuse he suffered when he was younger, but the character development and growth for Gideon still always felt rather incomplete, in my opinion. I feel that way even more so after reading One with You, and the fact that the series ends without Gideon truly working through and overcoming all of his issues, particularly his sexual parasomnia. The lack of character development and answers regarding Gideon’s past is one of the reasons why I would liken One with You and the Crossfire series as a whole to a TV show that’s abruptly canceled, leaving various storylines unresolved. However, I’ll admit that there was one “revelation” that’s revealed in this book, which I’ll talk about later on in this review, that does make me feel a little more understanding when it comes to the fact that Gideon doesn’t truly work through all of his issues by the end of the series.

Beautiful Bastard: This book is seriously even better than I was expecting it to be (My thoughts on book #1 in the Beautiful series by Christina Lauren)

Before I get too far into discussing my thoughts on Beautiful Bastard, I definitely need to mention that this is actually a book that I’ve wanted to read for several years. The list of reasons for why I’ve wanted to read this book has definitely evolved over the years. I initially wanted to read Beautiful Bastard because I had heard that much like Fifty Shades of Grey, Beautiful Bastard was also originally a Twilight fan fic. Fifty Shades of Grey and Beautiful Bastard’s origins as Twilight fan fiction has definitely led to a lot of people that I’ve encountered online frequently comparing and contrasting the Fifty Shades series and the Beautiful series to each other, which naturally caused me to become interested in both series since I do like the Twilight books.

However, what ultimately served as my motivation to finally read Beautiful Bastard is the fact that I discovered that pretty much everybody who has been a narrator for the audiobook versions of Emma Chase’s books from her Tangled and Legal Briefs series have also served as narrators for various books and short stories from Christina Lauren’s Beautiful series, as well as their Wild Seasons series. I’ve loved all of the narrators for the audiobook versions of Emma Chase’s books, so that has definitely made me want to listen to the audiobook versions of Christina Lauren’s books even more than I already wanted to in the first place; that being said, here are my thoughts on Beautiful Bastard.

For the record, when I started reading Beautiful Bastard, I decided that I wasn’t going to spend the entire time that I was reading the book actively looking for similarities to Twilight and things about the book that might hint at or give away its origins as a Twilight fan fic; even though learning that Beautiful Bastard started out as a Twilight fan fic was one of the first things that got me interested in reading the Beautiful series. Based on what I’ve read of Fifty Shades of Grey so far, there’s no denying that it’s pretty obvious at certain points in the book that it originally started out as a Twilight fan fic. However, when it comes to Beautiful Bastard, there wasn’t really anything about it that I think screams, “Twilight!” Since I haven’t read the original Twilight fan fic version of Beautiful Bastard, which was called “The Office”, I obviously can’t do a comparison of Beautiful Bastard to the fan fic version of the story. That being said, I think that Christina Lauren did a great job of really distancing the story from Twilight and making Beautiful Bastard its own story. Honestly, if I hadn’t known about Beautiful Bastard’s origins as a Twilight fan fic before I started reading it, I’m pretty sure that I never would have guessed or believed that it ever had any connection to Twilight at all.

Fifty Shades of Grey: If you haven’t already figured out that this book was a originally a Twilight fan fic, this chapter should convince you (My thoughts on Chapter 3)

Let me start off by saying that I’ve really been meaning to get back to doing blog posts on each chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey, but I’ve clearly been putting that off for quite a while since I posted my commentary on chapter two way back in March of 2015. This is due to several reasons. For starters, I don’t want to buy the audiobook version of the book, and it’s really become a challenge for me to discipline myself enough to sit down not just read this book, but any book for that matter. That’s pretty much the whole reason why I’ve really gotten into audiobooks these days. Listening to audiobooks allows me to “read” books while I do jobs around the house, run errands, which also involves me having to ride the city bus and walk a lot since I don’t drive, etc. Plus, I’ve never been a very fast reader to begin with, and listening to audiobooks enables me to “read” books relatively quickly. Anyway, I pretty much spontaneously decided to read chapter three of Fifty Shades of Grey and write a blog post on it since I had the day off from work this past Sunday, which hasn’t happened in quite a while; that being said, here are my thoughts on chapter three of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I was waiting until I read this chapter and was ready to comment on it to discuss the fact that Ana blushes at the drop of a hat. I always thought that it was a really ridiculous quirk for Ana to have. It doesn’t really add anything worthwhile to the story or anything interesting to Ana as a character and the book as a whole. It’s a very well known fact that Fifty Shades of Grey originally started out as a Twilight fan fic, but as I said in my review of Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer, I haven’t read the Twilight series in years; so I didn’t remember anything about it being established that Bella had a tendency to blush a lot. That originally led me to believe that E.L. James had added the whole thing with Ana having the tendency to blush at the drop of a hat in an attempt to “make the character her own” when she decided to take her Twilight fan fic (Master of the Universe) and retool it as the Fifty Shades trilogy. However, after reading Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, which is a gender swap of Twilight, it’s clear to me now that James didn’t add the whole thing about Ana having the tendency to blush a lot when she retooled “Master of the Universe” as Fifty Shades of Grey. I think it’s pretty safe to say that James got the whole idea for Ana’s tendency to constantly blush from Twilight, too. I say this because it turns out that I had forgotten that Bella blushes a lot in Twilight, and Beau, the male equivalent of Bella in Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined, blushes quite a bit, too.

The difference between how James handles it in this book versus how Stephenie Meyer handled it in the Twilight books is that James takes it to the absolute extreme. Stephenie Meyer may be a rather mediocre writer, but at least she didn’t overdo it when it comes to how she portrayed Bella/Beau having that particular quirk. When it comes to how E.L. James handles Ana’s tendency to blush at the drop of a hat, it’s just beyond ridiculous and way too over the top. Kate reacts to seeing Ana blush in this chapter in a way that’s absolutely ridiculous, because her reaction makes it seem like Ana blushing is a rare occurrence, rather than being something that she does practically every five seconds. 

It’s time to play a game of “People Watching: Extreme Edition” (My thoughts on The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins)

Right off the bat, I have to say that I loved this book. However, I have to admit that I’ve kind of been dreading writing this review since The Girl on the Train is a mystery novel. When it comes to books in the mystery genre, I think it’s really important for the reader to be surprised by the book and all of its twists and turns when they’re reading it. Personally, I was really surprised by some of the plot twists in The Girl on the Train, and I would hate rob people of the chance to also be surprised by this book.

When it comes to the people that I’ve encountered online who have said that they didn’t like The Girl on the Train, I’d say that the most common reason people give as to why they didn’t like this book is because none of the characters are entirely likable. I’d say that’s a perfectly valid reason for somebody to not like a book, TV show, or a movie. After reading the book, I have to say that I definitely agree with the assessment that none of characters in this book are truly likable, and I can see why that would cause people to not like this book.

Personally, a book, TV show or a movie having characters that aren’t necessarily very likable doesn’t always cause me to not enjoy it. I think a story featuring unlikable characters can still be very enjoyable, especially in the hands of good writers, and if the characters are intentionally being written as unlikable or bad people. For example, when it comes to my favorite TV shows, my favorite comedy is without question It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. All of the characters on that show are written as being rather horrible people, with Dennis quite possibly being a sociopath, and yet that’s a big part of the show’s appeal when it comes to people who like the show. A critic actually once described It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as being, “Seinfeld on crack”. As someone who’s also a big fan of Seinfeld and was never bothered by the fact that Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer were all rather selfish and horrible people, I think that’s the perfect way to describe It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia in just one sentence, but I digress.

What can cause me to not like a TV show, movie, or this case a book, that has characters that aren’t very likable people, is when the characters aren’t written with the intention of being viewed by the reader as a bad or unlikable person. If they just end up coming across as being extremely unlikable due to bad writing, that can really ruin a TV show, movie, or a book for me. When I think about fictional characters coming across as being unlikable people due bad writing, the first examples that I always think of these days would be Ana Steele and Christian Grey from the Fifty Shades trilogy and Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian by E.L. James. While I’m not 100% certain, I’m pretty sure that E.L. James didn’t write the Fifty Shades trilogy and Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian with the intention of Ana and Christian being viewed by the reader as horrible and annoying people. That just happened because E.L. James is a terrible writer. To be fair, if you’ve read my review of Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian, then it should be clear that I actually liked Ana in that book and the book itself.

Twilight Saga: Get ready to see Twilight like you’ve never seen it before (My thoughts on Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer)

Let me start of this review by saying that prior to Stephenie Meyer announcing that she would be releasing Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined as a part of the tenth anniversary edition of Twilight, I had actually been thinking a lot about possibly reading the original Twilight saga again and reviewing them at some point. While I’m not planning to do that any time soon, I decided to go ahead and read and review Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined now since so many other people are also posting reviews for the book and talking about it lately, especially on YouTube. For the record, I haven’t read the Twilight books since the beginning of 2009, so my memory of the first book isn’t perfect, but I did watch the movie as I was reading Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined to give myself somewhat of a refresher; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

I’m going to just come right out and say upfront that I didn’t like this book very much at all. Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is definitely my absolute least favorite book that I've reviewed for my blog at this point in time. While I was immediately intrigued by the concept of Stephenie Meyer releasing a gender swap version of Twilight as a part of the tenth anniversary edition of the book, I was also immediately skeptical about the idea actually being able to work as soon as it was announced. Maybe other people will disagree with me, but in my mind Twilight just isn’t the kind of book that would translate very well if someone were to do a gender swap version of a book and publish it professionally as an actual book. To me, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined is basically a Twilight fan fic that was written by Stephenie Meyer. I might be more forgiving of the writing for this book if it had been written by a random Twilight fan and posted on a website where people can post fan fiction for various TV shows, movies and books. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with this book.

I should also probably mention that I didn’t buy the actual anniversary edition of Twilight since I already own all of the books in the Twilight saga. I did, however, buy the audiobook version of the anniversary edition of Twilight, because as I said earlier, I’m kind of interested in reading all of the books again and reviewing them at some point, and I’ve been listening to audiobook versions of almost every single book that I’ve reviewed so far. The reason why I’m interested in reading and reviewing all of the books in the Twilight saga is because it’s a very well known fact by now that the Fifty Shades books by E.L. James apparently started out as a Twilight fan fic. Whenever I see people talking online about all of the creepy and controlling things that Christian Grey does in the Fifty Shades books, there are pretty much always several people who will mention some of the things that Edward does throughout the Twilight series that they think is creepy and inappropriate for a guy to do in a relationship. Since I haven’t read the original Twilight saga in over five years, I don’t really remember the examples of Edward’s behavior that people usually give when they’re comparing Christian Grey to Edward, which is one of the main reasons why I’m kind of interested in reading the entire Twilight series again. 

Reflected in You: Get ready, everybody, because you’re about to board the Eva Tramell and Gideon Cross angst train (My thoughts on Book #2 in the Crossfire book series by Sylvia Day)

Since I really enjoyed the first book in Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series (Bared to You) and my review of the book appears to have been very popular with people, I decided to read and review the second book in the series, Reflected in You. Unfortunately, I have to say that while I did enjoy this book, I found it to be a pretty disappointing follow-up to Bared to You.

Right off the bat, my biggest problem with Reflected in You is that while I couldn’t help but root for Eva and Gideon’s relationship to work in Bared to You, this book really made me question whether or not their relationship was one that was worth rooting for. The story itself picks up almost immediately where Bared to You, which is something that I really liked about this book. Eva and Gideon are still very happy together, and Cary is dealing with the aftermath of Eva and Gideon walking in on his orgy.

However, that happiness seemed to end pretty suddenly and fairly early on in the book, and things just took a pretty angst-ridden and dramatic turn for Eva and Gideon’s relationship for essentially the rest of the book. While I usually think that having plenty of drama in a story is good thing when it comes to writing a relationship for a TV show or in this case, a book series, because it keeps things interesting; this book was so full of angst and drama that it honestly left me questioning whether or not I should be rooting for Eva and Gideon’s relationship to work out.

That being said, I’m really glad Eva and Gideon are both people who recognize that they have some major emotional baggage and issues, and that they are at least trying to deal with those issues instead of being completely blind and in total denial about their problems, both as a couple and as individuals. While they both see Dr. Petersen individually, I have to question how seriously they were taking couple’s therapy. After all, despite the fact that Dr. Petersen suggests that the role that sex plays in their relationship, mainly when they’re having some kind of argument, is doing more harm to their relationship than good; that didn’t even prompt them to consider that maybe they should take a break from having sex with each other.

It wasn’t until after they had broken up as far as Eva was concerned that she realized that taking a break from their relationship had been a good thing for her personally. However, I really have to question how seriously Gideon was taking therapy since he apparently didn’t show up for several of his appointments with Dr. Petersen. Sure, I suppose Gideon unexpectedly bailing on his sessions with Dr. Petersen could have possibly been a calculated move on his part when it came to his plan to kill Nathan, which involved making it look like he had broken up with Eva and gotten back together with his ex, Corrine, but I still have my doubts about how seriously Gideon was taking therapy. I’m really hoping that Sylvia Day will touch upon this in the third book in Crossfire series (Entwined in You).

Brace yourselves, Everybody! It’s time to talk about Fifty Shades of Midnight Sun (My thoughts on Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian by E.L. James)

I’d like to start out this review by explaining why I decided to read and review E.L. James’ new book Grey: Fifty Shades of Grey as Told by Christian in its entirety rather than do a chapter-by-chapter commentary like I’m slowly doing with Fifty Shades of Grey. For starters, after listening to the preview of the audiobook version of Grey on iTunes, I decided that I liked Zachary Webber’s narration of the book enough to buy the audiobook version. I didn’t do that with Fifty Shades of Grey because I don’t like Becca Battoe’s narration of the Fifty Shades trilogy. Another reason why I decided to not do a chapter-by-chapter commentary of this book is because unlike the original Fifty Shades trilogy, this book isn’t broken into chapters in the traditional sense. Instead, each “chapter” is labeled with a date. For example, the first chapter of the book is label, “Monday, May 9. 2011” and all of the “chapters” in the book are pretty long. I didn’t take the time to figure out how long each “chapter” of the book is, but according to a commenter on Jenny Trout’s website, chapter six is eighty pages long.  I’ll discuss my thoughts on the format of the book is different from the format of the original Fifty Shades trilogy and the fact that the chapters in this book are very long later on this review; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

I’m going to go right ahead and say that I actually like this book more than the original trilogy, which is something that honestly really surprised me. Don’t get me wrong; E.L. James didn’t magically become a literary genius in the time that’s passed since Fifty Shades Freed was released. This book is still a pile of crap that has a lot of problems, but I do think that compared to the original trilogy, the quality of the writing for this book is at least a little bit better than the original trilogy.

Aside from this book being a shameless cash grab, I’m guessing the reason E.L. James wrote this book is because she wanted to try and convince the people who think that Christian Grey’s an abusive sociopath and that his relationship with Ana is an abusive relationship that they were wrong for thinking that. Unfortunately, I don’t think that she succeeded in convincing people that Christian Grey isn’t the horrible person they think he is. In some ways, Christian comes across even worse than he does in the original trilogy.

That being said, there were times throughout the book where I actually felt that Christian showed hints of being a good person that people could like and feel sympathetic towards him, especially in regards to his traumatic childhood. However, whenever I found myself thinking that perhaps Christian Grey isn’t truly a horrible person like I’ve pretty much always thought that he was, he would quickly go and do, say or think something that would make you feel like you were riding on the Space Mountain rollercoaster ride at hell’s version of Disneyland, and he would be acting like an even bigger asshole than I already thought that he was.

Bared to You: Is it just me, or is everybody in this book fifty different kinds of screwed up? (My thoughts on Book #1 in the Crossfire book series by Sylvia Day)

Let me start out by saying that the main reason why I decided to read and review Bared to You is because I’ve encountered a lot of people who’ve compared the Crossfire book series to the Fifty Shades trilogy. In most cases, I’ve seen people say that the Crossfire series is significantly better than the Fifty Shades trilogy, which has mostly been attributed to Sylvia Day being a much more experienced writer compared to E.L. James. Although, I’ve also seen people say that they like the Fifty Shades trilogy more than they liked Bared to You. After reading Bared to You, I’m absolutely baffled by the fact that anybody would think that the Fifty Shades trilogy is better than the Crossfire series since it’s pretty clear to me that Sylvia Day’s writing ability is definitely completely superior to E.L. James’ writing.

That being said, I realize that everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and when I think about how there are some people who like the Fifty Shades trilogy more than the Crossfire series, I’m reminded of the fact that I like 90210 a lot more than Gossip Girl. While I do like both 90210 and Gossip Girl, I’m also not blinded by the fact that in terms of the quality of the writing for the two shows, the writing for Gossip Girl is definitely superior to the quality of the writing for 90210. At the risk of seeming like I’m going to far off topic, one of the main reasons why I like 90210 more is because anybody with even just a small shred of maturity can see that the relationship between Chuck and Blair, who are arguably the main romantic pairing on the show, is incredibly toxic and abusive. The sad thing about that is the way the producers always talked about Chuck and Blair’s relationship, it’s as if they view that relationship as some epic fairytale romance when it really did end up being a very toxic and abusive relationship. I feel I should mention that I was originally a major Chuck and Blair shipper, it was only when their relationship became truly abusive at some point during season three that I stopped being a fan of that relationship.

While 90210 didn’t have much of a clearly defined endgame couple, the closest 90210 had to an endgame couple was Liam and Annie. Liam and Annie’s relationship wasn’t necessarily handled all that well when it came to them frequently getting together only to almost immediately breakup with little to no buildup or development to them either getting together or breaking up. What I think made Liam and Annie’s relationship better is that at least it wasn’t sick and abusive with them constantly treating each other like crap or either of them trying to sabotage the other’s happiness when they weren’t together like Chuck and Blair constantly did. They definitely handled things between them with a lot more maturity, which is one of the reasons why I liked them as a couple as much as I did, but I digress.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Cyndi Lauper should seriously make a song called “Ana just wants to be miserable forever” (My thoughts on Chapter 2)

It’s been quite a while since I posted my thoughts post on the first chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey, so I decided that it was time to do a post on chapter two. As weird as it may sound, I’m actually doing my commentary on chapter two as a part of my preparation for reading and reviewing the first book in Sylvia Day’s book series Crossfire, which in case some of the people reading this are unaware is called Bared to You. Since I’ve heard a lot of people compare the Fifty Shades trilogy to the Crossfire series, I thought it might be a good idea to read and comment on at least one more chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey before I read Bared to You; that being said, here are my thoughts on chapter two.

I’d like to start out by mentioning that reading this chapter in order to review it was a part of my third or fourth attempt at reading the first three chapters of the book. For the most part, my having to start reading the book all over again several times isn’t necessarily a reflection on the book itself. However, I do maintain my opinion that this is a pretty terrible book. I started reading this book the first time back in June I believe, and I was originally going to comment on more than one chapter at a time. Once I actually got started reading the book, I realized how horrible it was and quickly decided that commenting on more than one chapter of the book at a time would probably result in my posts being the longest piece of writing in the history of the written language. Just reading and commenting on one chapter of the book at a time leaves me with a great deal of things to talk and rant about. Unfortunately, I ended up having a lot of health problem starting at the beginning of July that I was dealing with all the way until around the middle of September, which didn’t leave me with enough time where I would be able to read the book and write posts on it since I was constantly surrounded by doctors, nurse, family, friends, etc. during that time. Once I got to a point where I had time to read any books and review them, I got really into reading Emma Chase’s book series Tangled and wanted to start reviewing those books, which are MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better than the Fifty Shades trilogy. Long story short, here I am again, finally commenting on chapter two of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Another reason why it has taken me so long to read and comment on this chapter, and this reason is definitely reflection upon the book is the fact that it’s fourteen pages long. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t consider having a chapter of a book being fourteen pages long to be all that long of a chapter. However, when it comes to this particular chapter, it seemed like the chapter was a lot longer than that as I was reading it though. There were times during my earlier attempts to read this book where I got so bored reading this chapter that I literally fell asleep reading it. I would say that it was mostly due to the fact that for most of the chapter I felt like I was reading a written summary of Ana’s daily life, which seems to focus mainly on her mentally dwelling on how embarrassed she felt about interviewing Christian and thinking bitchy thoughts about Kate as she tried to go about her usual routine of going to work at Clayton’s Hardware Store, working on her schoolwork, and hanging out with Kate and another friend of hers, José. 

Tamed: Hold on tight, Matthew! You've just boarded the crazy train (My thoughts on Book #3 in the Tangled book series by Emma Chase)

As I said in my review of Twisted (My thoughts on Twisted), I thought that it was a rather disappointing follow-up to Tangled, which I absolutely loved. Thankfully, Tamed is MUCH better than Twisted. One thing that I found myself thinking about a lot as I was reading this book was that I think both Drew and Matthew are much more interesting protagonists than I thought Kate was in Twisted. Personally, I find the fact that Drew and Matthew were both much more interesting protagonists than Kate was rather interesting given the fact that this book series was written by a woman.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I’m really curious as to why Emma Chase chose to take a slight detour from what I like to call “The Drew and Kate Show” to write a book from Matthew’s point of view for the third book in the Tangled series. Like I said, I loved this book, but if I were her, personally, I would have waited until after Holy Frigging Matrimony had been released to write a book from Matthew’s point of view. Since Emma Chase didn’t really do anything to indicate when exactly the events that took place in this book took place in relation to the events that took place in Tangled and Tamed, I found it a little jarring to read this book. The closest Chase came to specifying the timeline of this book at the beginning of the book was having Matthew tell the reader that while Drew and Kate were dealing with their drama, he had his own relationship drama that he was dealing with.

It wasn’t until towards the end of the book when I finally figured out that the events of this book took place during the same period of time that Tangled did since Matthew went to visit Drew when he was stuck in bed because he had “the flu” as Drew put it back in Tangled. I definitely think Chase should have put some kind of note at the beginning of the book specifying when the events of this book place, so the reader wouldn’t have to spend almost the entire book trying to figure it out for themselves. Honestly, based on the beginning of the book, I thought the events of the book took place at some point during the two years that had passed between Tangled and Twisted, but I was never absolutely certain, and I was still a little confused once it was established that the events took place at the same time that the events that happened in Tangled.

While I’m definitely very curious as to why Chase chose to take a slight detour from The Drew and Kate Show for the third book in the Tangled series instead of waiting until after she published Holy Frigging Matrimony, this book reminded me a lot of why I’ve enjoyed Emily Giffin’s books in the past. While they haven’t really been labeled a series by anyone, several of Giffin’s books do take place in the same world and characters from her books have often made brief cameos in the books that followed whatever book they were a main character in, which allows people like me who have read all of her books to get a brief glimpse of what’s happened in the characters’ lives after the book they were the focus of ended. That’s something I’ve always like Giffin’s books, so I really did like getting to see Matthew and Dee be the focus of Tamed. Admittedly, I found both Matthew and Dee to be very forgettable characters when I was reading Tangled and Twisted. When I discovered that Matthew and Dee were the focus of Tamed, I honestly really had to think hard to try and remember anything that Chase had said about Matthew or Dee in those books.

Twisted: Reading this book makes me wonder if therapists should offer gift certificates for couples therapy (My thoughts on Book #2 in the Tangled book series by Emma Chase)

Since my review of the book Tangled by Emma Chase ended up getting a fair amount of traffic and I absolutely loved that book, I decided to review the second book in the series, Twisted. That being said, I’m going to come right out and say that while I did like this book, I thought that it was a rather disappointing follow-up to Tangled.

One of the reasons I gave Tangled such high praise in my review (My thoughts on Book #1 in the Tangled book series) was because I thought that Emma Chase did a great job of putting fresh spin on the romance novel genre by telling the story from Drew’s point of view since romance novels are typically told from the woman’s point of view. However, with the exception of the epilogue, which is told from Drew’s point of view, Twisted is told from Kate’s point of view. As a result, Twisted didn’t come across as being a book that put its own unique spin on the genre for the most part, and I also feel like waiting until the epilogue to shift the story to Drew’s point of view really caused the book to suffer as a whole, but I’ll explain why I feel this way later on in this review.

At the start of the book, it’s established that two years have passed since the end of Tangled. Kate and Drew seem very happy together, and the readers are treated to a rather steamy sex scene, which involves some anal sex. I don’t mean to over share here, but since this review is about my thoughts on the book, I’m just going to come right out and say that I’ve never thought of anal sex as being sexy, erotic, a turn-on or all that appealing, but I still thought the whole sex scene was rather hot despite my personal feelings regarding anal sex. The sex scenes in both this book and Tangled are definitely a lot steamier than the sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey, which pretty much all include the word “There” as a way to refer to various parts of Ana’s body WAY TOO MUCH! I especially enjoyed the part leading up to the anal sex where Kate handcuffed Drew to the bed before she went to the kitchen, only to have Drew somehow manage to free himself from the handcuffs and join her in the kitchen, which is where they ended up having sex.

As I said in my review of Tangled, I’m also in the process of reading Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, and as I’ve been reading that book, it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the amount of time that E.L. James devotes to rather mundane events in the book compared to things that the reader is most likely going to view as being a very important detail is rather disproportionate, causing the story as a whole to move very slowly. I’m mentioning this because I thought it was very refreshing read a book where the author (Emma Chase) dives right into the main action of the story. Although, I do think that this book still has some issues when it comes to how suddenly the overall conflict of the story comes about.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Super Bowl TV Spot (2015)

Here's a new commercial for the upcoming Fifty Shades of Grey movie that was shown during the Super Bowl. Personally, this is definitely my favorite commercial for the movie that I've seen so far. I absolutely love that they included the X Box line from the book. :)

Fifty Shades of Grey: My long descent into hell begins… (My thoughts on Chapter 1)

I’ve decided to read the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E.L. James for my next foray into reviewing books for my blog. Although, for the record I might read a different book before I read Fifty Shades Darker since I did read the first several chapters of this book several months ago, and I can already tell that this book is pretty bad, and I don’t know if I want to subject myself to reading the entire trilogy all at once instead of taking a break between each of the books. For the record, I’m fairly familiar with what happens in all three of the books since I’ve read a lot of Jenny Trout’s chapter by chapter recaps of the entire trilogy (Jenny Reads | Trout Nation). If you’ve never read them, I strongly recommend checking out Jenny’s recaps because they are incredibly hilarious, yet very insightful. I’m going to state right upfront that once I finish reading the book, I won’t be giving it a final score, because after reading Jenny Trout’s recaps for most of the chapters in this book, I think that even giving this book a 1 out of 10 would be too generous of a rating, and I’m sure that by the time I finish reading this book, I’ll have already ranted about the book more than enough, so officially giving the book a 0 for a final rating would just be beating a dead horse. That being said, here are my thoughts on the first chapter of the book.

After reading this chapter again in order to write this post, along with chapters two and three, which I read several months ago, I definitely don’t like Ana Steele as a fictional character, at all, and reading the first chapter again in order to write this post definitely didn’t change my opinion of Ana for the better. A major pet peeve of mine is when people are very judgmental about something or someone that they know very little, if anything about, so as I’ve reflected on my thoughts of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, I’ve tried my absolute best to not be too much judgmental of E.L. James since I’ve never even met her, but I have to admit that’s definitely been a real struggle for me at this point.

One question that’s really plagued me when it comes to the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy is whether or not the reader is supposed to actually like or care about Ana as a character, or Christian for that matter. Ana acts rather insufferable, self-centered and unlikable pretty much as soon as the book begins and she’s getting ready to go interview Christian Grey for her college’s school newspaper because her best friend Kate, who’s the editor of the school newspaper, got sick and therefore can’t go interview Christian herself. After complaining to the reader about Kate for about a page and a half, she then all of the sudden says that Kate is apparently her very best friend in the whole world. One thing that really bothered me about Ana in the first chapter is on page four where it says, “I ignore my pang of unwelcome sympathy.” as she’s complaining about Kate and how she has a paper to finish, final exams to study for and that she also has work later that day, while outwardly acting like she’s willing to go interview Christian for Kate.