It's a wee bit eggy...

Throbbing feet and a practically deceased bank account was all the confirmation I needed to prove that Sherlocked 2016 wasn’t a dream. The weekend was fuelled from excitement and coffee, and certainly displayed an array of highs and lows, all of which I will try to remember now. As mentioned above, this event completely slaughtered my bank account. I’m not talking ‘made a little dent’, I mean it grabbed my purse, took a shit on my bank card and set it on fire – it was that expensive.  Originally I had only planned to go on the Sunday with my friend (as she was busy on the Saturday), so bought a day pass; however, once Andrew Scott was announced, I quickly changed my mind and bought a day pass for the Saturday too. This is something I definitely won't be doing again, as the day passes cost around £35 each, and this literally only allowed you entry to the event and the ability to buy more tickets i.e photo passes (I know, it's so generous!).  On top of this, the...

From looking at my previous reviews, I feel as though I have made it very clear that I enjoy books of the thriller genre. Understandably, when I then became aware of the enormous hype that surrounded M. J. Arlidge’s Eeny Meeny, I was quick to buy and engulf the novel. Unfortunately, I was nothing but disappointed. The book surrounds the concept of couples being abducted, and then being given the choice to kill or be killed. Detective Inspector Helen Grace finds herself against the clock, desperately trying to catch the killer before another life is lost. Enigmatic and mysterious, two key features that I expected to find within this novel, and unfortunately, two elements that refused to make an appearance. I understand that writing a thriller is bound to be difficult work; however, I found that the pacing, wording and even character development was just all poor. The book seems to be moving so fast, that I found myself not caring about people’s deaths. There’s no build up or ch...

The time has come, my friends. Time to move on to the third and final book of the trilogy – Fifty Shades Freed. I know that E. L. James has also released a spin-off story now, which is the events in Christian’s point of view, but I am yet to read this, and I feel like reviewing another one of her books this month would just ruin my Christmas. I would go into every nook and cranny of the parts I disliked and like, but I fear I would be writing until next year, so instead, I’ll just pick out some main points. To me, this book was the worst of the three. There was no momentum, the characters that had previously been built up were lost, especially Christian who seemingly turned into a hopeless romantic at the end of the book, and even the attempts of drama and tension seemed futile. Firstly, let’s start with the writing style and wording, both of which has declined back to the quality of the first books. I’m pretty sure everybody knows that words such as “Flesh” , “carnal” and...

Time for round two! I’ve given each of you a week to digest the Fifty Shades of Grey review, and now it’s time to move on to the next book; Fifty Shades Darker. I must admit, I did enjoy this book a bit more than the first one of this series, but did also find that many of the flaws I commented on in last week’s review are apparent. I will briefly touch on these reoccurring flaws in this review, but I do not want to tackle them in detail, through fear of making this review overly repetitive (just like the books themselves!). The first thing I noticed once I had read this book, was the slight character development for Christian, and I quite enjoyed this. I liked the way that there was a focus on Christian fighting his past and inner demons, but then these parts seemed to be ruined by Ana’s constant whining at him as she wants to know more. I also felt as though this futile attempt to explore his history was the author’s way of trying to justify his character’s overly possessive n...

One thing is very clear when it comes to E. L. James’ ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, you either love it or you hate it…but for some reason, I find myself sitting on the fence. There are so much that could be said about this first book of the trilogy; however, I only have one day to write this review, so will try my best to stick to the main positives and negatives which I found with the book, instead if turning this review into a 10,000 word dissertation. For those of you who have been living under a rock, Fifty Shades of Grey is said to be an erotic novel, focusing on the relationship between Ana and Christian, and Ana’s exploration into BDSM. For a start, I would not classify this book as erotica, but instead as a romance novel with a bit of poorly described sex. One sentence which I can still remember, even though I read this book a year ago, was one when Ana was stating how she was giving Christian a blow job, and called him her own “Christian Grey flavoured lollipop”. I don’t this tha...

It wasn’t until I was writing a plan up for Blogmas that I realised that I had never actually reviewed the Sharon Bolton book ‘Now You See Me’. I read this book a few months ago, and I must admit that I have read another two books of that series since then, but for this review, I’m using some notes I had found the notes I had written whilst I read it. Also, I did intend to accompany this post with a picture of the book, but when hunting for it, I realised it was up in Birmingham where my boyfriend is reading it, so just pretend that there’s a picture and that this blog is all professional. ‘Now You See Me’ is the first book of Lacey Flint Series, it definitely leaves the reader desperate for more. Engaging from the first sentence, this novel is a crime/detective thriller, based on the concept of a modern day Jack the Ripper. To me, this concept and the way it was portrayed is flawless. Not only are there some intelligent links between the novels victims and the Ripper’s victims, b...

Like many teenage girls, the first John Green novel that I had read was ‘The Fault In Our Stars’. I decided I wanted to read it before I watched the film last year; however even a year later, the book had still stuck with me, but for all the wrong reasons. For those of you who have been living under a rock, the story is centred on Hazel, a teenage cancer patient who finds herself falling for cancer survivor, Gus. This heart-breaking novel is one of love, life and loss, which, even if you disliked it like me, is sure to leave you in tears (although they could be tears of bitter disappointment). The character development is, quite simply, poor, to the point where I feel that if you take the aspect of cancer out of the plot, you’ll only be left with empty shells where a character should be. Not a single one of them is relatable, especially Hazel who I personally couldn’t stand. I understood her realist nature and her hatred for all things sugar-coated; however, I also found her to ...

Anne Cassidy’s novel ‘Looking for JJ’ is one that I read after it had been suggested in a video by Carrie Hope Fletcher. Within this video, she stated that it was one of those books that she had read when she was younger, and felt as though it stuck with her forever – a feeling which is completely understandable. Looking for JJ is a gripping novel that explores an intriguing concept regarding  the circumstances and motives behind the murder of a child by her own friend. Six years after the incident, JJ has been released with a new identity; however, is there really the possibility that she can lead a "normal" life anymore? To begin with, I have no idea who to suggest this book to. It has a very simplistic writing style, which seemed a little too simple for a young adult reader-base; however, many of the topics addressed were more adult. I do, therefore, assume that it is intended for a young adult base, but more advanced readers may find the style infuriating simple. W...

‘The Girl on the Train’ was written by Paula Hawkins, and is one of those books which everybody seems to demand that you read. The story revolves mainly around the character of Rachel, a divorced alcoholic, who is suffering an alcohol-induced sense of amnesia in regard to the night when a girl went missing. To begin with, the stories layout is somewhat complicated. Not only is the story told in three different perspectives, but the dates of accounts also jumps around, meaning it can be complicated if you don’t take note of the date at the start of each passage. The chapter sizes are also longer than I usually prefer, but there are easy places to stop. Perspective wise, I found two of the characters very irritating; Rachel and Anna. Anna I found to be self-absorbed, naive and nasty, and Rachel I found to be heavily infuriating and irritating. Although these characters were realistic, it did mean I had to put the book down for a few hours sometimes, just to stop me wanting to punch ...

The Good Girl is a debut novel from Mary Kubica, and follows the story of 25-year-old Mia Dennett. Mia is the outsider within her upper-class and well-respected family, but one night, when she originally plans to meet her boyfriend, she meets an enigmatic stranger, who is quick to turn her life upside down forever. It is stated that this book is a mystery-thriller, but I slightly disagree with this genre, for reason which I will later state. Firstly, the narrative structure of this novel. The story is told through a first person structure from three separate characters, Eve (Mia’s Mother), Gabe (The Detective) and Colin (The Kidnapper). The account changes with each chapter, and I personally enjoyed this style as it allowed different characters thoughts and feelings to be expressed. On top of this, the book does also change between times, often alternating between before (Mia was found) and after (Mia was found). Usually, a slow and basic reader like me would find this complicated a...

Usually, when deciding which book to read next, I tend to avoid the “classics”. From many bad experiences with “classic novels” in the tedious GCSE torture that was English and English Literature, I often find them overrated and over complex in writing style, something which I (as a very weak reader) cannot usually cope with. It is for these reasons that me choosing Stephen King’s horror classic ‘Carrie’ off of the beautifully over-stoked shelf of Waterstones was completely out of character. ‘Carrie’ tells the story of a young girl, Carrie White, who is heavily picked on by her fellow classmates. As the novel progresses, so does her power of telekinesis, thus stemming a suspenseful and tense plot, right until the very last page. I found that they storyline itself was horrifyingly relatable, thus causing several of the faultlessly described events to bring a lump to my throat, a reaction that many eighteen-year-old girls assumedly had. Not only does this book display a disturbing l...

As a kid, I only followed one religion: Pokemon. Whether it be watching the program or playing the game on my Gameboy Colour, it was always a large proportion of my day, until I went to junior school and my priorities changed, causing me to be fixated on the concept of superficial popularity, as opposed to Ash and Pikachu. It wasn't until recently that I regained my interest in Pokemon, and started reading the first Pokemon Adventure manga. Admittedly, I did start this as a way to break up my somewhat torturous reading of 50 Shades (a review which will come later (no pun intended)), but I have to say, it was enjoyable. Obviously, it's backwards layout threw me at first, but after a couple of pages, it felt natural and I no longer had to focus on reading, but instead the images. Of course, all manga drawings are amazing, and the speech is realistic for the characters and direct in comparison to the story line. Enough information of the plot was given via the speech, and it wasn...