Losing It - Emma Rathbone

This is a book I was utterly thrilled to read from the summary. I mean, a 26 year old virgin? That’s going to be an interesting contemporary read. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit all the marks. It was an interesting read but the pace and the story itself ended up falling a bit far from the mark for me.

The positives: I love a book which looks at sex and virginity in a realistic way. Romances where the female MC is a virgin and sweet and innocent and always has a wonderful first time with her one true love leave me rolling my eyes. And any time people view their virginity as this precious thing to be protected frustrates me. The thing with a girl’s virginity is that it is both admired and treasured but is also a burden. Now, this may be TMI but growing up my virginity was very much a burden I wanted to be rid of swiftly. At my secondary school it seemed like all the ‘cool kids’ were having sex and it was a given. I was not one of them and I didn’t just sleep with the first boy who was interested. I waited because I thought that was the done thing. Thing is, by the time I was at uni I felt the burden of my virginity and decided screw this and then did sleep with the first person who showed interested and didn’t seem like they would rape and kill me. It was stupid and I probably could have planned it better so that it was with someone I knew and trusted because I never even told the poor bloke I was a virgin. It was all a messy affair but the sense of relief that came with being rid of that label was ridiculous. I liked that this book showed what a burden virginity can be when you build it up to such great heights.

The negatives: I didn’t like the MC at all. She was annoying and neurotic and that could have been forgiven because I love when books feature these socially awkward characters who feel real and don’t leave me rolling my eyes at their utter flawless ability to have social interactions. The problem with Julia is she is very self involved and unable to see her flaws. I am pretty self involves at times but even I can see my flaws. I know she had gotten obsessed with one aspect of her personality and blamed that for her shortcomings but it was frustrating she didn’t come to a greater realisation about this. I wanted more character growth from her and I just don’t feel like I got that. I felt much the same about her at the end as I did at the beginning. Add into it a comment in the last couple of paragraphs about her aunt and I wanted to punch her in the face. This book was written as if finding love would solve all issues. I mean, you don’t need to be in a relationship to be deemed successful at being a person. I’m pretty sure I’ve managed perfectly well alone.

In the end, this isn’t a bad book and others may connect with the character far better than I, but for me it just didn’t go well. I was expecting a different book to what I got and that always leads to disappointment. I wouldn’t discourage you giving it a read, but be forewarned Julia is not a character for everyone’s tastes.

We Were On A Break – Lindsey Kelk

Published: 6th October 2016

Source: NetGalley

Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Chick Lit

My Rating:

This book was one I was really looking forward to because I love Lindsey Kelk but sadly it didn’t meet all expectations. It’s all about a couple who believed they were building up to an engagement and instead end up taking a break and experiencing a break up. It’s all about them figuring out their life for themselves and figuring out what they want as an individual. It was a change for Kelk’s usual books, it was still funny but sadly I don’t think this was really a book for me.

The things I love most about Kelk’s books is that I grow attached to her characters and sympathise with them but this wasn’t the case in this one. This time it wasn’t that I didn’t like the characters (I’ve had that before in a Kelk book) I just wasn’t interested enough to be dying to see their ending. I skimmed to see what happened and it was sweet but, unfortunately, love did not occur. I just couldn’t work up the passion for these characters which I get with some books and that upset me. Instead, I felt a distance to them and felt almost indifferent to their troubles. I don’t like that feeling when it comes to reading.

This is an enjoyable read with the usual humour of all Kelk’s books (seriously, it’s hard to be laugh out loud funny without being absurd). This was funny and different but just not what I wanted to read which characters who feel a bit ‘meh’ but that may have been my mood reading talking. This will be a book some will love with the humour and will really enjoy the character’s journeys, but sadly I cannot count myself as one of them.

Have you read any books lately that you were really excited to read but they didn’t live up to their summary?