There’s nothing quite like a boatload of teen angst and crappy parents to make a good story (My thoughts on 99 Days by Katie Cotugno)

Let me start out by saying that while 99 Days by Katie Cotugno has been on the list of books that I’ve wanted to read for several months now, I originally wasn’t planning to review it any time soon. However, I was feeling bad about the fact that it took me so long to read First Time (Penny’s Story) by Abigail Barnette and write my review for the book; not to mention the fact that I’m currently in the process of reading A Game of Thrones. That’s definitely taking me a while since it’s: A) A very long book compared to all of the other books that I’ve reviewed so far B) I’ve been trying to do some research on the A Song of Ice and Fire book series to help me with writing my review, and C) I’m also trying to watch at least some of the first season of Game of Thrones before I write my review for the book and post it.

I’m definitely putting a lot more time and work into my whole process for reading A Game of Thrones and writing my review for that book than I have for all of my other book reviews at this point in time. Obviously, taking a break from reading A Game of Thrones for several days in order to read and review 99 Days is counterproductive to my finishing A Game of Thrones, but I really was feeling bad about not having reviewed more books by this point in time. I decided to read and review 99 Days now, because I figured that it would be a quick and enjoyable book to read and review; that being said, here are my thoughts on the book.

Right off the bat, I have to say that I definitely have mixed feelings about 99 Days. On the one hand, I felt like the story was rather cliché in some ways, and there were times when the whole Gabe/Molly/Patrick love triangle that 99 Days was centered around was a little exasperating. The backstory of what happened before Molly left town, and what things were like for her throughout most of the book reminded me a lot of Gossip Girl and the way the show began. If you’ve never watched Gossip Girl, it’s a teen drama about teenagers that pretty much all live on the Upper East Side of New York City. The show began with Serena returning to the Upper East Side from her self-imposed exile under somewhat mysterious circumstances. She originally left the Upper East Side after she slept with Nate, who was her best friend, Blair’s, boyfriend, and things weren’t smooth sailing when she first returned. Going back to 99 Days, because the backstory between Molly, Gabe and Patrick reminded me of Gossip Girl in some ways, I felt like the book was kind of lacking in originality. While 99 Days wasn’t the most original story in the world, it was still a very enjoyable book. Plus, Molly is a pretty likable protagonist for the most part, even though she did frustrate me at times.

First Time (Book #1 in the By The Numbers series): I wanted to know Penny’s side of the story, but…sometimes ignorance truly is bliss (My thoughts on “Penny’s Story” by Abigail Barnette)

Let start out by saying that I ended up taking a much longer break between reading and reviewing First Time (Ian’s Story) and reading and reviewing First Time (Penny’s Story) than I was originally planning to. One thing that I neglected to mention in my review for First Time(Ian’s Story) is that I received an advanced copy of both First Time (Ian’s Story) and First Time (Penny’s Story) from Abigail Barnette so I could review them for my blog. Because I had received an advanced copy of both versions of First Time, I was originally going to review them back-to-back. However, as I was reading “Ian’s Story”, I decided that it would be a good idea to read and review at least one other book before I read this story, so I read and reviewed The Bourbon Kings by J.R. Ward. One thing led to another and I ended up going on to review Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined by Stephenie Meyer, and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Anyway, here I am now. I’ve finally read First Time (Penny’s Story), and I have to say that I’m actually really glad that I waited a while and read several other books before I read First Time (Penny’s Story). As weird as this might sound, I think that reading several other books after I read First Time (Ian’s Story) and before I even started reading First Time (Penny’s Story) actually helped me to enjoy this book more than I probably would have if I had read First Time (Ian’s Story). Part of me was afraid that I would end up feeling a sense of reader’s fatigue if I read “Ian’s Story” and “Penny’s Story back-to-back since they’re essentially the same story, only told from two different points of view. That’s the main reason I decided to read and review several other books before I read “Penny’s Story”. I especially think that reading Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined in particular really helped me to enjoy this book more and also really caused me to think about this book in a different way than I probably would have if I had read it sooner. I say this because I think that Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined and First Time (Penny’s Story) are similar to each other in the sense that they are a retelling of sorts of a different book that their respective authors wrote. Although, it’s a somewhat different situation with First Time since Abigail Barnette released both “Ian’s Story” and “Penny’s Story” at the same time. Reading Life and Death: Twilight Reimagined really got me thinking about what I as a reader would and wouldn’t want to see if a writer wrote and published multiple versions of the same story. That being said here are my thoughts on First Time (Penny’s Story).

Right off the bat, I have to say that while I absolutely loved “Ian’s Story” and thought that it was perhaps the best romance novel that I’ve read years, I ended up having extremely mixed feelings about “Penny’s Story”. While “Ian’s Story” really sucked me in and made me want to read large amounts of the book each time I sat down to read it, “Penny’s Story” was really hard for me to get through. Reading it constantly felt more like a chore to me than something that I actually enjoyed doing. For a large chunk of the book, I found myself constantly wanting to read the other books that I’m reading at the moment (A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin and The Swan Gondola by Timothy Schaffert) instead of reading this book. Honestly, if I hadn’t requested an advanced copy of both versions of First Time so I could review them for my blog, I’m not sure that I would have bothered to finish reading “Penny’s Story”.

First Time (Book #1 in the By The Numbers series): This book is seriously the best romance novel that I’ve read in years (My thoughts on “Ian’s Story” by Abigail Barnette)

At the risk of starting this review off on a bit of a tangent, if you’ve read my review of the fourth book in Emma Chase’s Tangled series, Tied (My thoughts on Tied), it should be pretty clear that I found that book to be rather disappointing. One thing that I didn’t talk about in my review for Tied is the fact that while I was reading it and found myself thinking about how it was a rather disappointing way to end the series, I also found myself thinking a lot about what I personally would like to see in a romance novel as I was reading Tied. I thought about discussing my thoughts on what I personally would like to see in a romance novel in that review, but I ultimately decided not to mention that because I felt like my review for Tied was already getting to be kind of long, and I wasn’t entirely sure how to work the subject into that review without completely derailing that review. However, I think it’s very important that I share my wish list for things that I’d like to see in a romance novel in this review, because it really relates to my thoughts on “Ian’s Story” for the book First Time by Abigail Barnette. The things that I found myself wanting to see in a romance novel were as followed:

1. I wanted the guy to be more average looking, while still being an attractive man, instead of being a guy who’s beyond gorgeous and could easily get a job as a model for men’s underwear.

2. I wanted the guy to have a relatively successful career, but at the same time not be a millionaire or a billionaire like so many guys in romance novels tend to be, based on my own experience with reading books in the romance genre.

3. Instead of having the guy be an uber confident man who can flirt and charm women with ease, I wanted the guy to be somewhat insecure and perhaps a little awkward around women at times, without coming across as being a creepy weirdo.

4. I wanted the woman in the story to be smart, strong and confident, but still have a vulnerable side, rather than be simply being an incredibly naive idiot and a total doormat like Ana Steele from the Fifty Shades books is.

The reason why I’m mentioning my personal wish list for things that I’d like to see in a romance novel is because the writing for “Ian’s Story” for First Time really made me feel like Abigail Barnette somehow got ahold of my wish list for a romance novel when she wrote “Ian’s Story”, and that’s huge part of why I love “Ian’s Story” so much. I don’t know how the timeline for when I read and reviewed Tied compares to the timeframe in which she wrote First Time, but I think it’s safe to say that she had to have at least started writing it, if she hadn’t already finished the book for the most part by the time I read Tied. There’s also the fact that I never wrote down any of the things that I’d like to see in a romance novel, so in order for her to have gotten access to my wish list, she most likely would have had to have gotten access to some form of time travel, as well as the ability to read people’s minds or the assistance of someone who could read people’s minds in order to get my personal wish list for a romance novel.

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.