My Story by Cheryl Cole

So I’m obviously a pretty big Cheryl Cole fan and when I got this as a present for Christmas I was more than a little excited about reading it. I actually had a different book in mind to read after Lover Reborn but I just picked this up to skim through it for a few minutes and ended up being glued to it for a few days until I finished it.

It starts off with Cheryl telling us about her early life in a council estate in Newcastle. She really had a tough upbringing and didn’t have an easy rise to fame at all. In her early years she had to deal with the break up of her parents and the discovery that her older siblings were actually only half-brothers and sisters as they had a different father to her. Although this affected her, obviously, she was more affected by the actions of her older brother Andrew who was involved from an early age in drugs and related crimes. He made their home a scary place for a while and she carried this fear into her adulthood.

Anyone who is in any way interested or intrigued by Cheryl would probably be most interested in her relationship with Ashley Cole, the footballer who she married and who subsequently broke her heart what seems like multiple times. She doesn’t hold back in giving the true details of the events that took place throughout her marriage and even though we see how much Ashley hurts her by cheating on her and not being trustworthy in general we also see how much they seemed to be a genuine couple in love through most of their relationship. It’s actually quite sad to see because you feel that if only Ashley could have kept his d*ck in his pants they would have had a long and happy life together but there you go. The only consolation is if Cheryl can’t make a man stay faithful there’s never any need for any woman on the planet to worry it was somehow her fault if their man strays. If they’re a cheater they’re going to cheat. Regardless.

It was really interesting reading to see her journey and rise to fame through her eyes also. She seems to be a person that a lot of people, famous and not, take a shine to. Simon Cowell seems to have been just bowled over by her and couldn’t seem to resist her charms. Also Derek Hough, who she seems to have a lovely sweet relationship with, was just completely smitten with her. She never really clarifies whether they had a romantic relationship or not and a part of me wonders is he gay and just doesn’t want to come out.

The part I found most surprising was the trouble that she had with the paparazzi and the newspapers writing lies about her. I suppose I just never put myself in her shoes and thought that as someone who was famous for a good few years before the revelations about Ashley came out that she would somehow be immune to the hardships of bad publicity but clearly she isn’t and never will be. She really struggled with depression and anxiety throughout the break up of her marriage and as I, myself have suffered with anxiety in the past, I can’t imagine doing that with the whole world watching. It just sounds horrific.

All in all I feel like Cheryl is someone who has had a tough early life but has been both extremely lucky and unlucky with how her life has panned out. It just goes to show you can have the money, the fame, the looks and the life but it all means nothing if you haven’t someone you love to share it with.

 

Fifty Shades Darker & Freed (Fifty Shades Trilogy Book 2 & 3)

For the first time in my review-writing history I am just going to double up and do one review for these two books. The reasons are twofold;

One, I literally can’t remember what happened in the middle book as they all just seemed to mesh into one by the end.

Two, they don’t deserve the time or effort.

So basically in the last two books in this trilogy it pretty much follows what happened in the first one which was exactly what happened in the Twilight Saga except obviously with more sex involved. He proposes, they get married, they go on honeymoon, some madman trys to kill Ana and finally she gets pregnant and had Christian Greys child. You know in all fairness to the author the background storyline isn’t terrible. It pretty much would be standard for any chick lit novel but she ruins it by making the characters so unlikable.

I HATE Ana. I don’t think I’ve ever hated a lead character so much in all my life. She is the most painful, weak, idiotic and stupid woman ever written. Christian is the most disgustingly sexist, arrogant, selfish, spoilt man ever written. I suppose they suit each other really…

I don’t know what else to say. Words actually fail me.

The sex just continues the same as the first one so don’t expect anything too new or exciting. In fact when people said to me ‘Oh I ended up skipping the sex bits by the end’ I always presumed they were lying just to save face that they weren’t sex deprived lunatics but I skipped every sex bit in the last book. They are just so repetitive. If we got to see other characters sex scenes then maybe it would have been slightly more entertaining but no. It’s just crazy sadist Christian and oh-so-innocent Ana.

That’s it…..

I’m not writing any more, I refuse. Ain’t worth the energy used to type it.

 

Fifty Shades Of Grey by EL James (Fifty Shades Trilogy No 1)

Dear God….

This is the worst piece of literature (it pains me to even call it that) I have ever read in my entire life. It actually beggars belief that this is a bestseller. My eleven-year-old niece could write something better right now, without the godawful porn of course. It reads like a primary school essay. It’s just so stilted and the grammar… dear God the grammar.

Look, I’m not a prude. Sex in a book does not bother me. I actually really enjoy it usually to be honest so this is not the reason this book bothers me so much. There are actually so many reasons I’m not sure where to start. Okay so first of all the similarities to Twilight. I know she wrote this as a Twilight fan fiction first and then it evolved into this and that is fair enough. However, she could have at least tried a tiny bit harder to change up more of the details. Lets just summarise the basic similarities. Ana, short for Anastacia is Bella, short for Isabella. She is in love with Edward/Christian who has a brother called Emmet/Eliot and a sister called Mia/Alice. His fathers named Carlisle/Carrick. Edwards father is a doctor. Christians mother is a doctor. Ana/Bella also have a separate love interest who is head over heels in love with them but they (shockingly) have trouble believing this. His name is Jose/Jacob. (I’m not kidding) Ana/Bella are stunningly beautiful but for some reason don’t understand that they are indeed ‘total babes’. (Her words, not mine) You could delve a little deeper and look at the similarities between the storylines and stuff but to be honest I just couldn’t be bothered.

The next thing that annoyed me so much is Ana. She is painful. I have never disliked a main character so much. Christian is also a disgusting human being. Ana is everything I dislike in a person, indecisive, weak, dependent on others, naive and above all else, stupid beyond belief. If I have to read the words ‘Oh my’ again I may indeed curl up in a ball and die a little inside. Christian, other than his obvious flaws, is a complete stalker with schizophrenic tendencies who needs to be locked up in a mental asylum as soon as possible. If I have to hear him tell her to stop biting her lip (something that makes him want to ‘take her right here’ for some unknown reason) once more I may also crawl to the nearest corner and die some more inside.

Next up is the sex. It’s so extreme and ridiculous it didn’t once make me even a tiny bit ‘hot and bothered’. My muscles ‘down there’ certainly didn’t clench with delicious desire that pooled somewhere below my waist. Yes people, that is what these sex scenes are like. Run, run while you still can! Also it seems that Ana along with not having a gag-reflex is the most easily turned on person in the history of mankind and has earth-shattering, mind-blowing orgasms at the drop of a hat, or trousers as the case may be. Also for someone who was a virgin a week ago she learns pretty fast. I actually thought the whole bondage and S&M side of things was going to be a little more extreme. We really just got shown a lot of items and paraphernalia related to that lifestyle and only got to see it being used maybe twice. Big whoop…

Even though this book is the worst thing I have ever read I unfortunately bought the trilogy on Kindle and due to my OCD tendencies when it comes to reading series’ I will more than likely follow through and read the remaining two books. At least I can then feel justified in having an informed opinion on what is quite unbelievably a bestseller….

Beggars belief people….

 

Lover Reborn by JR Ward (BDB No 10)

I’ve been preoccupied with my new little man it’s been ages since I’ve read a BDB novel and boy did I miss them! There’s just something about them that gets the blood pumping and it’s not just the great sex scenes.

This one doesn’t disappoint in any way and I enjoyed it so much. They’re just such an escape into a totally different world than the one we all walk around in. In this installment we finally get to know Thorment a bit better and finally get to see him get a little happier. In the beginning of the book he is still obviously devastated by his shellan, Wellsie’s, death. I should mention that she was also pregnant with their first child so it was pretty much a double blow for him when she was shot and killed by a lesser. Even though he’s back fighting and looking after himself a little bit better than before when he had disappeared into the wilderness immediately after hearing of Wellsie’s murder, he is still a shadow of his former self.

Of course we then meet his love interest, No One. Now, at first, I was wondering how Ward was going to develop this relationship without making Thorment out to be somehow betraying his dead shellan but at the same time I wanted him to cheer up a bit and let himself be a bit happier. It’s a tough line to tread. I think she did pretty much the best she could have possibly done without it being either too boring or too easy for Thorment to move on. I, for one, loved No One or Autumn as she eventually becomes known. She is a forlorn character in the beginning without a purpose in her life which has been a pretty tough ride so far in general. It was nice to see her slowly blossom into a happier person.

The side stories were really good in this instalment as well. Ward seems to have turned to talking more about Xcor and his Band of Bastards than the lessers who she usually focused on as the side story. I thank the heavens above for this as I never truly enjoyed the chapters focusing on the lessers whereas the Band of Bastards are so much funner. I am so intrigued as to where the hell the storyline with Layla and Xcor is going to go. Especially after what happens with Qhuinn.

Also lets spare a word for the first gay sex scene in these books. Blay and Saxton obliged as the willing participants. It was…. not that good actually. Ward chickened out a little. It was basically one, maybe two, paragraphs. Not good enough Ward! However I do have a theory that maybe she is holding out for a proper gay sex scene between Blay and Qhuinn when they eventually get together but again now with this new storyline with Qhuinn and Layla, I’m not sure how that will work any more. I presume we’ll find out in future instalments.

Another awesome installment in the BDB series.