Saturday 31 May 2014

50 Ways To Find A Lover - Lucy-Anne Holmes


For me 50 Ways To Find A Lover by Lucy-Anne Holmes was a complete wildcard book. It was a book that was recommended to me but has just been sat on my bookcase for a while. Putting off reading it for so long was a mistake; it really was an enjoyable read.

The lead character of the book, Sarah Sergeant, is an actress, though her acting career hasn't really taken off at all. Her parents see an advertisement looking for contestants for a new reality television program created to find love and mistakenly decide that it would be the perfect acting opportunity for Sarah. Reality tv is exactly the type of ‘acting’ role that Sarah didn't want to do but it makes her realise how pathetic her love life has become. 50 Ways To Find A Lover is about the ways in which Sarah attempts to find a relationship.  Her dating challenge started off reasonably successfully with speed dating, meeting someone she dubs Perfect Paul, who unsurprisingly turns out to be not so perfect. Sarah documents her attempts at finding the one through her online blog which is met with mixed relations from her friends and people that she dates. Her attempts at finding love include dates with a goth and a dad and his gay son.   

This book isn’t for everyone. Strong language is used frequently from the early pages of the book, so if you’re easily offended by it then this book probably isn’t for you. I found the language quite shocking when I started but once I got into the book it didn’t bother me at all. I really enjoyed the way the main character Sarah is written. I found her humour and general fumbling through life made it a pleasure to read. At many occasion throughout the book I actually found myself laughing out loud at some of the things that Sarah says and does. Yes, I it wasn’t the best book I’ve ever read, but honestly if you’re looking for a book to read and are up for trying a book you probably wouldn’t have considered reading, I would recommend 50 Ways To Find A Lover.

3/5 stars out of 5



Saturday 24 May 2014

You're The One That I Want - Giovanna Fletcher


Newly released You’re The One That I Want by Giovanna Fletcher is the follow up to her debut novel Billy and Me. Having enjoyed Billy and Me, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of You’re The One That I Want and it did not disappoint.

The story begins present day at Maddy and Roberts wedding day where it soon becomes apparent that the bride has feelings for the best man Ben, who she has been friends with since she was very young. You’re straight away presented with Maddy’s dilemma of whether or not she’s walking down the aisle to marry the right man. At first I thought it would just be a case of Maddy having a crush on both men but it is soon discovered that it is a lot more complicated than that. The story flashes back to when the trio are 9 year olds and plays out the story across the years from both Maddy and Ben’s points of view until the age of 26 – Maddy’s wedding day. The story being told from both perspectives worked extremely well, the only negative I can find is that it would’ve been nice to have chapters seeing from Robert’s perspective. I personally found I found myself siding with Ben a lot of the way through due to the fact we aren’t told what Robert is thinking. Despite this his best friends chapter’s involve him in the story just as much as themselves. The only chapters from Robert come in the form of occasional snippets in between chapters which I only discovered to be parts of his wedding speech once I’d read several. I found myself absorbed in the book from an early stage, finding myself dying to know why Maddy ended up walking down the aisle to marry Robert. The characters themselves are quite relatable. Fletcher has created scenarios in the book which are easy to identify with making you have empathy with the three leads throughout. Due to this you share all the same pain and happiness the characters do whilst reading which I always class as a sign of a good book. I enjoyed the book the whole way through until the epilogue. Although it was nice to have closure on the characters, I personally would’ve liked a slightly different ending. Regardless of this I did enjoy being able to see how everyone’s happily ever after panned out and it definitely didn’t spoil the book at all.

You’re The One That I Want is everything that you want from a book. It was a delightful read which I think that would be the perfect book to take for a holiday read. Once again Giovanna Fletcher’s book has left me eager to read more from her and I can’t wait to see more of her books on my selves in the future.


4 stars out of 5


Introduction

Hello to anyone who is reading my blog!


I have created this blog to post book reviews, concert reviews and just my own life ramblings. I've been feeling for a while that I want to get back writing more so this is my attempt in achieving this. I've currently just finished reading recently published book, You're The One That I Want by Giovanna Fletcher, so that will more likely than not be my first review post on my blog.


Hope you enjoy reading my posts.