ellaellaellaetc's Reviews (494)

I watched the movie (Angus, thongs and the perfect snogging) for the first time with a group of my friends and def laughed my knickers off!! such a fun movie and really is just so girlhood. mildly problematic but love. the book on the other hand😭😭 not okay!! this book is about 14 year old georgia and it's just her wacky, goofy life in england as she and her friends deal with crushes on boys, beauty, popularity, worrying about being a lesbian etc. now I knew that this was going to be super problematic (was written in 1999) but I thought that it was going to be problematic in a fun way😭😭😭😭 but as you can see from the next slide, an unbelievable amount of sa 😭😭 like genuinely unbelievable amount that is just brushed off so easily. i get that this was a different time but damn!! this is a children's book!!! and these are only the instances of sa that happen to the main character!!! I can definitely see the appeal in something like this and I'm not saying that every children's book needs to be perfect and obviously this was written a while ago, but this amount of sexual assault in a children's book that goes unaddressed is actually harmful. if you want to read a 20-25ish old children's book that has these vibes and is still problematic but in a fun way, I would recommend the princess diaries series! 1.75 stars

 

 not your best work miss alderton :// this is about andy, he's 35 when he gets broken up with by his girlfriend of 3 years and it follows him as he gets over it across the next 6 months. dolly alderton has this thing where she writes a book and the first three quarters I'm like oh okay this isn't bad and then the last quarter just hits me so hard and I realise that everything that happened in the first three quarters was a set up to lead to something extremely profound, love that about her!! this wasn't even bad though I just felt a little meh about it. i actually had no idea what this was about going into it I just knew that I like dolly alderton, and maybe I wouldn't have read this now if I knew. I read really good, actually by monica hesley only a few months ago and it almost has the exact same set up and similar plot so this just didn't feel that fresh to me and I think would enjoy it more if I read it with more time between the two books lol. I love dolly alderton's writing but I've decided to not read anything else by her for like 5+ years. probably will stick to this??? maybe? she just writes a lot about adulthood in your late twenties and early thirties and while I can appreciate it, I just know that I will enjoy it a lot more once I understand the emotions she's describing on a deeper level, she has the capacity to really move me I know it?? 3.5 stars 

 decided to pick this up despite not really enjoying acotar on recommendation from my friend jana! sorry it took me so long to get to it girl😭😭 (she recommended me this is in april 2022). this is about a teenage assassin who starts off the book in this horrendous jail where they're used for slave labour in mines. she gets picked to compete in this trial thing for the king and if she wins, she has to be the king's guard for a few years and then she will be pardoned for her crimes. this had an interesting premise but it just felt like a useless book. this entire book is about the trials (which happen over the course of like 2 months and there is one challenge every week) but sometimes it just skips over them??? like obviously a bunch of interesting stuff happens between the trials and the book should focus on that too but they felt like such a back drop for the love triangle. you know me I love romance but I can't stand when it's done so poorly😭😭 especially when there's meant to be cool trials going on!!! the scenes with the trials are often so short and at some points, just skipped over entirely!! there's one where she just goes "oh yeah, the next trial was yesterday and thank god it was knife throwing so I did great" like what?? please elaborate girl that's the interesting part??? anyway there's apparently like 6 books and jana told me that the first 2 are bad but it gets great at book 3 like girl😭😭 do I really put myself through that? idk we'll see. 2.5 stars 

 ugh!!! so boring!!!!!!! this is about flop loser boring girl millie who works for a temp agency and this is about one of the assignments and occasionally it dips into the perspective of other people in the office. ig this was like an autistic coded character because the main character spends a lot of time trying to work out how to be a normal person, it's kind of a musing on performance and the idea of changing your life except you actually never do anything :/ lowkey very relatable. the problem with this book is that this is soooo boring and millie is insufferable to read about. it's not that I hate slow moving plot, you just need to have beautiful writing or really astute observations about something because otherwise you just have a plotless book with no meaning. it's not that I can't read about unlikeable main characters, god knows I've read so many😭😭 but I have to have a reason for caring about their life, maybe they're really funny or charismatic so they're fun to read about, or they're metaphorically steering the train off the tracks and you can't help but watch with rapt attention, maybe they're a terrible person by you can really understand how they got like that and it provides commentary on something. idk man be creative. however, this was just about a boring person who sometimes made kind of clever observations but other than that was super boring and there was not remarkable writing or an interesting plot. boring. 1.75 stars 

 this is a wild book guys😭😭 for context, the only reason why this book is even on my radar is because my friend natasha brought it to our cafe date for the sole purpose of explaining the insane plot to me and having the physical copy on had to read out the most egregious passages. anyway I thought that that was amazing so I asked if I could borrow it! this book is about the main girl (forgot her name already, sorry) who gets broken up with so she moves in with her bff whose husband is a movie star (the first book, which I have also read, is about this couple getting together). her friend and the husband live in the rich actor part of LA and one night, main girl and best friend (olive???? I think???) spy on the next door neighbour with binoculars cause he's very hot apparently. anyway, this is just a fun drunken vibe but then the main girl starts spying on this dude (AND HIS YOUNG SON) every single day and takes pictures 😭😭 she has a whole set up with a ladder and binoculars and everything😭😭 mind you the next door neighbour has a bodyguard that apparently never notices this???

anyway, like 2 weeks into this stalking, she watches as the kid jumps into the pool unsupervised and he starts drowning so she goes to save him but then they're like wtf who is this random girl in my backyard you're a stalker and she's like no I was saving your son but then they go through her phone and see all the pictures she took 😭😭 she gets taken away by the cops but friends movie star husband convinces main guy to not press charges. the nanny gets fired cause she wasn't watching the kid so then main girl gets hired as nanny???? but not technically cause she refuses money??? reasoning is cause the kid likes her???, anyway, now she hates main guy cause he accused her of stalking (which she was doing??) and they don't like each other but she's still over all the time cause she's babysitting. but yeah they eventually fall in love. huh🤯🤯

I knew it would be terrible but was thoroughly entertained. natasha thank you for lending this to me, I cannot wait to tell you the rest of the plot!! anyone else who wants to know more DM and I will give you a plot break down too 1.5 stars 

 first book of the year!!! guys... ngl I actually went slightly insane about this one😅😅 no seriously like actually mad with addiction 😅😅 this is about jude, who is a teen human girl who lives in faerie because the dad of her half sister is fae so he came and murdered her parents and the takes in jude and her sisters and then like, is her dad 😳😳😳😳 insane. she actually has a terrible life cause the fae usually enslave humans and the book is basically about her getting bullied by this insane guy prince cardan ad his friends and she dreams about revenge and then she ends up getting entangled in some of the court politics and she ends up being a main player in deciding who will be the next monarch of faerie? by like tricking and deceptive shenanigans?? was this a good synopsis??? if you didn't see my story, my new years resolution is to put a synopsis for each book, I hope I get better at writing these as time goes on😅😅 anyway this was amazing. such an intricate world with incredibly well thought out lore. the character dynamics between all the characters are so interesting, the relationship she had with her sisters vs. madoc vs. balekin vs. cardan and just everyone ahhhhhhh. the politics of this story is so so interesting!! i thought that I didn't like political intrigue in fantasy but I think the books I was reading before were just doing it in a boring way!!! ugh this was awesome!! it was so so readable and addictive, there were multiple times where I was quite literally on the edge of my seat and audibly gasping! the start was great at setting the scene and everything but wow. that final 3rd of the book really made me adore it. this was so so awesome and if you're in to ya fantasy I'm begging you to read this, I can't wait to continue with this series!!! 4.5 stars!! subject to change once I read the rest of the books in the trilogy 🤑🤑