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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
Pretty darn good. Only thing - it took too many hundreds of pages for the romance to reach that level that I needed it to reach in order for me to think of it as one of those ah-mazing romance novels. David was quite hard to like for most of the part. Also did not dig how Ari said that David and Ellie's relationship was "doomed", like dude if I want to believe that they're going to live happily ever after than please don't ruin that for me!
My least favorite of the three Sarra Manning books I've read, but it was still good.
The story was interesting, I enjoyed the family aspect of it and found myself not being able to put it down because I wanted to know how all of it would end. However, I found it hard to like David and believe in the romance. I just didn't feel like there were true emotions involved and not just lust.
More of a life story than a romance. 95% of the book was about Ellie and her mother's life/troubles and about 5% was about Ellie's romance with David. We didn't really get to know David well and I never felt any chemistry or connection between them. It was more of a family drama/realistic fiction than a contemporary romance. Not really exciting for me, I'm afraid.
Once again, Sarra Manning rights the perfect book for a certain time in my life. I have a feeling I'm going to be rereading this one at some point in the future.
Definitely the weakest Sarra Manning book I've read- there didn't seem to be much of a plot, and the romance felt quite forced and oddly developed, not giving us an opportunity to root for or like Ellie or David. Liked the flashbacks with Ari and Billy and would have liked those to be fleshed out more, and so good to see Vaughn and Grace I loved them so much š
You Donāt Have to Say You Love Me by Sarra Manning is one of my absolute favourite books and one I love to revisit when I need a pick me up. Every novel of hers Iāve read since I have been so excited for something equally magical and been sorely disappointed to the point where I think I wonāt try again.
The characters in YDHTSYLM are rich, deeply emotional and endearing with a great deal of heart but also of personality. The three novels I have read since, including It Felt Like a Kiss have included characters that make inexplicably terrible decisions and, in this novel, have less personality than wet cardboard.
Ellie is the art gallery working daughter of cool, hippie single mother Ari and the secret love child of world renowned ā and Knighted ā millionaire rock star Billy Kay; a man who has never acknowledged her existence. She is, for the most part, okay with not having had her biological father in her life and has watched from a distance as he and his legitimate daughters are splashed all over the news and the tabloids.
Then, the latest in a string of poorly chosen ex-boyfriends, Richie, decides to sell Ellieās birth certificate to the papers to pay for his coke habit. Ellie is thrust into the spotlight as the attention seeking white trash daughter out to steal Billy Kayās good name and hard earned fortune. Woe is Ellie and life is hard as she is hounded by the press, watches lie after lie be printed about her, is fired from her job, fights with her mother and for some reason finds her fatherās lawyer very attractive.
Forgetting the extreme soap opera style plot of this novel, which actually ended up being the best thing about it, this book was a disaster from start to finish. The characters, plot and style felt completely cold and empty and entirely void of soul ā made even more disappointing by the fact that I KNOW Sarra Manning can write extremely well.
Ellie is a bland porridge of a character. She works in an art gallery ā because all stereotypical chick lit novels require girls to have āglam jobsā ā and goes to musical festivals with her friends and her mother on weekends. Yet despite this making her sound interesting and someone with passions, she doesnāt speak about either with much enthusiasm. While she claims to be very interested in art, thereās no explanation of how she got into the field, she doesnāt once converse with someone about the brilliance of art and the only sign of her passion for it is that sheās very good at being an event co-ordinator. Again, while she may have grown up backstage of a summer music festival, she does not seem that invested in music and it felt to me she was only going because she saw it as āthe done thingā and was attempting to get cool by association points. According to her friends, sheās not picked a single decent guy to go out with and has ended up being the AA sponsor, money giver and AHA! moment to all the men that pass by her so that they are hopefully fixed for the next girl. Apart from being good at holding back tears and a healthy dose of binge drinking, that is the sum total of Ellieās personality. Doesnāt seem like enough to be the heroine of a novel, does it?
The love interest is even less interesting. David Gould aka 50 Shades of Copyright Infringement, is a rich entertainment lawyer who looks very good in a suit. His apartment gives minimalism a bad name in his anti-clutter campaign and he has a string of blondes for his sexcapdes because of reasons.
The two meet at a musical festival, though why 50 Shades of Copyright Infringement is there I donāt know, when they brush arms and feel tingles that almost made me put the book down then and there. They meet again when Ellieās scandal hits the tabloids and it is revealed that Dreamy Tingles is in fact Billy Kayās lawyer with zero emotional intelligence and a deep seated belief that everyone is evil and that Ellie must have sold her own story to the paps for cash. In order to help minimise the press, 50 Shades hides Ellie in his secret minimalist lair for a few days while she throws tantrums, he broods in a suit and they eventually snog and he gropes her boobs. When Ellie finally recognises that she has terrible taste in men and runs away to Paris, 50 Shades follows her because copping a feel of Ellieās magical breasts is all he needed to discover that he was a soulless lawyer parasite who had no significant relationships but who is now completely cured.
As I said before, this novel becomes even more disappointing when you take into account the fact that Manning can write well. She is capable of writing characters with passion and a great depth of expressive feeling. She has written love interests with charm and humour and relationships that grow and evolve over time. Her characters can have wonderful relationships with friends, family and partners that make us laugh, cry, swoon and feel joy.
Yet the only character that comes close to inspiring any of this in me was Chester, Ellieās pseudo father figure and lifelong friend of Ari who is basically the Luke from Gilmore Girls of the story. Chester alone would never have been enough to redeem this novel, and sadly it was enough to put me off Manningās writing for good.
The characters in YDHTSYLM are rich, deeply emotional and endearing with a great deal of heart but also of personality. The three novels I have read since, including It Felt Like a Kiss have included characters that make inexplicably terrible decisions and, in this novel, have less personality than wet cardboard.
Ellie is the art gallery working daughter of cool, hippie single mother Ari and the secret love child of world renowned ā and Knighted ā millionaire rock star Billy Kay; a man who has never acknowledged her existence. She is, for the most part, okay with not having had her biological father in her life and has watched from a distance as he and his legitimate daughters are splashed all over the news and the tabloids.
Then, the latest in a string of poorly chosen ex-boyfriends, Richie, decides to sell Ellieās birth certificate to the papers to pay for his coke habit. Ellie is thrust into the spotlight as the attention seeking white trash daughter out to steal Billy Kayās good name and hard earned fortune. Woe is Ellie and life is hard as she is hounded by the press, watches lie after lie be printed about her, is fired from her job, fights with her mother and for some reason finds her fatherās lawyer very attractive.
Forgetting the extreme soap opera style plot of this novel, which actually ended up being the best thing about it, this book was a disaster from start to finish. The characters, plot and style felt completely cold and empty and entirely void of soul ā made even more disappointing by the fact that I KNOW Sarra Manning can write extremely well.
Ellie is a bland porridge of a character. She works in an art gallery ā because all stereotypical chick lit novels require girls to have āglam jobsā ā and goes to musical festivals with her friends and her mother on weekends. Yet despite this making her sound interesting and someone with passions, she doesnāt speak about either with much enthusiasm. While she claims to be very interested in art, thereās no explanation of how she got into the field, she doesnāt once converse with someone about the brilliance of art and the only sign of her passion for it is that sheās very good at being an event co-ordinator. Again, while she may have grown up backstage of a summer music festival, she does not seem that invested in music and it felt to me she was only going because she saw it as āthe done thingā and was attempting to get cool by association points. According to her friends, sheās not picked a single decent guy to go out with and has ended up being the AA sponsor, money giver and AHA! moment to all the men that pass by her so that they are hopefully fixed for the next girl. Apart from being good at holding back tears and a healthy dose of binge drinking, that is the sum total of Ellieās personality. Doesnāt seem like enough to be the heroine of a novel, does it?
The love interest is even less interesting. David Gould aka 50 Shades of Copyright Infringement, is a rich entertainment lawyer who looks very good in a suit. His apartment gives minimalism a bad name in his anti-clutter campaign and he has a string of blondes for his sexcapdes because of reasons.
The two meet at a musical festival, though why 50 Shades of Copyright Infringement is there I donāt know, when they brush arms and feel tingles that almost made me put the book down then and there. They meet again when Ellieās scandal hits the tabloids and it is revealed that Dreamy Tingles is in fact Billy Kayās lawyer with zero emotional intelligence and a deep seated belief that everyone is evil and that Ellie must have sold her own story to the paps for cash. In order to help minimise the press, 50 Shades hides Ellie in his secret minimalist lair for a few days while she throws tantrums, he broods in a suit and they eventually snog and he gropes her boobs. When Ellie finally recognises that she has terrible taste in men and runs away to Paris, 50 Shades follows her because copping a feel of Ellieās magical breasts is all he needed to discover that he was a soulless lawyer parasite who had no significant relationships but who is now completely cured.
As I said before, this novel becomes even more disappointing when you take into account the fact that Manning can write well. She is capable of writing characters with passion and a great depth of expressive feeling. She has written love interests with charm and humour and relationships that grow and evolve over time. Her characters can have wonderful relationships with friends, family and partners that make us laugh, cry, swoon and feel joy.
Yet the only character that comes close to inspiring any of this in me was Chester, Ellieās pseudo father figure and lifelong friend of Ari who is basically the Luke from Gilmore Girls of the story. Chester alone would never have been enough to redeem this novel, and sadly it was enough to put me off Manningās writing for good.
Sarra Manning is a very popular author, with many, many Young Adult novels to her name including the fantastic Nobodyās Girl which I read a couple of years back and thoroughly enjoyed and, for the past few years, sheās also been writing Chick Lit novels. In fact, I have two of them on my to-be-read shelf, which I just havenāt quite been able to get around to. So I was quite pleased to receive a copy of her newest novel It Felt Like A Kiss, to review. It sounded great, I adore the cover, itās super cute, with stars and a London background and pinks and blues, and the best bit is itās even prettier in real life, and I couldnāt wait to get started and see what all the fuss was about!
Ellie Cohen is having a bit of a bad time with her boyfriends ā her friends Lola and Tess tell her that she only goes after the ālame ducksā, men who need fixing, and who after being duly fixed, then decide to go on to better and brighter things than Elle, much to her consternation. She loves her job at the art gallery, and her life is going well, until she dumps Richey, her latest in a long-line of loser boyfriends for his not-too-secret drug habit. Richey doesnāt take the break-up very well and goes to the newspapers with tales of Ellieās parentage, her Dad is none other than one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, not that he bothers with her or acknowledges her or her mum, Ari. Ellieās life implodes on itself as sheās besieged by photographers and journalists, and threatened with the sack from her job, so David Gold riding in to save the day should be a blessing, if he wasnāt her fatherās lawyer, who already thinks he knows her before heās even met her. Sparks are about to flyā¦
People becoming famous via their parents is the easiest way to fame nowadays, so I was super excited to see how Ellieās life changed once she became semi-famous, and I quite liked the fact that Ellie didnāt want it at all, it put a very different spin on things; normally, everyone just wants to be famous, and doesnāt care how it happens, as long as it happens, so Ellie putting the kibosh on it all was really interesting, like seeing it from the other side. It did, I have to admit, take me a while to get into the novel. The beginning is quite slow, as we get to know Ellie, who seems very much to be a fixer-upper, not realising that the succession of men in her life are worse with each new one. It did, however, lead to a very awesome opening conversation between Ellie and her flatmates/best friends Tess and Lola, but after that it sort of fell a bit flat, up until the big reveal. I felt it should have happened 50 pages sooner, because after that the novel really picked up the pace immensely and because infinitely more interesting as Ellie tried to avoid embarrassing herself any more than necessary when paparazzi are stalking you 24/7.
As soon as David Gold came into proceedings, I was hooked and couldnāt wait to read more. His and Ellieās relationship is a fantastic aside to everything happening in Ellieās life, and caused great enjoyment for me. They were totally into each other from the word go, not that either of them knew it. I really loved Ellie, she was a wonderful character, and I just felt so bad from her because she was getting it in the ear from all ends, except from her mum Ari, who by the way, sounds like the most awesome mum ever! An earlier Manning character makes a re-appearance, though if Vaughnās attitude in It Felt Like A Kiss is anything how he appears in Unsticky, I will never be able to read the book because he was AWFUL. I was literally gritting my teeth every time he appeared, because more often than not, he would shout and threaten the sack. As well as Ellieās story, we also got to learn the background between Ari and Ellieās father, which was a nice way to break up the story, with a couple of pages here and there between the novel. I wasnāt a massive fan of Ellieās father, he seemed like quite an awful character, and I was sort of glad he wasnāt around to see Ellie grow up as he didnāt deserve to be. I really enjoyed It Felt Like A Kiss, and Iām quite pleased this was my first Sarra Manning novel, although I am looking forward to going back and reading her other books. This was wonderful, with an ending that couldnāt have been written any betterā¦
Ellie Cohen is having a bit of a bad time with her boyfriends ā her friends Lola and Tess tell her that she only goes after the ālame ducksā, men who need fixing, and who after being duly fixed, then decide to go on to better and brighter things than Elle, much to her consternation. She loves her job at the art gallery, and her life is going well, until she dumps Richey, her latest in a long-line of loser boyfriends for his not-too-secret drug habit. Richey doesnāt take the break-up very well and goes to the newspapers with tales of Ellieās parentage, her Dad is none other than one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, not that he bothers with her or acknowledges her or her mum, Ari. Ellieās life implodes on itself as sheās besieged by photographers and journalists, and threatened with the sack from her job, so David Gold riding in to save the day should be a blessing, if he wasnāt her fatherās lawyer, who already thinks he knows her before heās even met her. Sparks are about to flyā¦
People becoming famous via their parents is the easiest way to fame nowadays, so I was super excited to see how Ellieās life changed once she became semi-famous, and I quite liked the fact that Ellie didnāt want it at all, it put a very different spin on things; normally, everyone just wants to be famous, and doesnāt care how it happens, as long as it happens, so Ellie putting the kibosh on it all was really interesting, like seeing it from the other side. It did, I have to admit, take me a while to get into the novel. The beginning is quite slow, as we get to know Ellie, who seems very much to be a fixer-upper, not realising that the succession of men in her life are worse with each new one. It did, however, lead to a very awesome opening conversation between Ellie and her flatmates/best friends Tess and Lola, but after that it sort of fell a bit flat, up until the big reveal. I felt it should have happened 50 pages sooner, because after that the novel really picked up the pace immensely and because infinitely more interesting as Ellie tried to avoid embarrassing herself any more than necessary when paparazzi are stalking you 24/7.
As soon as David Gold came into proceedings, I was hooked and couldnāt wait to read more. His and Ellieās relationship is a fantastic aside to everything happening in Ellieās life, and caused great enjoyment for me. They were totally into each other from the word go, not that either of them knew it. I really loved Ellie, she was a wonderful character, and I just felt so bad from her because she was getting it in the ear from all ends, except from her mum Ari, who by the way, sounds like the most awesome mum ever! An earlier Manning character makes a re-appearance, though if Vaughnās attitude in It Felt Like A Kiss is anything how he appears in Unsticky, I will never be able to read the book because he was AWFUL. I was literally gritting my teeth every time he appeared, because more often than not, he would shout and threaten the sack. As well as Ellieās story, we also got to learn the background between Ari and Ellieās father, which was a nice way to break up the story, with a couple of pages here and there between the novel. I wasnāt a massive fan of Ellieās father, he seemed like quite an awful character, and I was sort of glad he wasnāt around to see Ellie grow up as he didnāt deserve to be. I really enjoyed It Felt Like A Kiss, and Iām quite pleased this was my first Sarra Manning novel, although I am looking forward to going back and reading her other books. This was wonderful, with an ending that couldnāt have been written any betterā¦
I don't normally mind a thinly veiled* celebrity knock-off wish fulfilment tale, and at first this one seemed to be right up my alley. Ellie, a dedicated art gallery assistant, is betrayed by an ex who spills the secret to the tabloids that her estranged father is none other than British rock legend Billy Kay, wreaking havoc - havoc that only her father's hot, young lawyer can save her from. See? Sound fun, right?
But errrrm...was I meant to find what transpires romantic? Because what actually exists on the page borders on creepy and awful. David (the lawyer) as written goes from "creepy robot control freak meanie" to "lovely sweet conflicted hero" in milliseconds, and continues to swing back and forth between these characterisations throughout the book, so I couldn't enjoy any of the sweet parts because BAM right around the corner is a moment that spoils it.
Also this wants to be feminist ā Ellie manages to stay feisty and awesome at her job even in the midst of a maelstrom of crap in her personal and professional life - but also paints almost every other female in unkind, sort of sexist strokes (superfan Georgie is a bitch because of her creepy love for Billy, Billyās daughter Lara is a bitch and constantly falling out of her dress, etc etc) - while keeping the ultimate villain (Billy) at a remove. So that it's not satisfying in the end when you acknowledge that he's an asshole because yeah, that's exactly how he's appeared the whole way through, at a distance.
*Iām not kidding about āthinly veiledā. Thereās enough clues in here to make me wonder what kind of dirt Manning has heard about a certain well-respected 80s rocker who is now a āSirā mostly due to his work on a charity single.
But errrrm...was I meant to find what transpires romantic? Because what actually exists on the page borders on creepy and awful. David (the lawyer) as written goes from "creepy robot control freak meanie" to "lovely sweet conflicted hero" in milliseconds, and continues to swing back and forth between these characterisations throughout the book, so I couldn't enjoy any of the sweet parts because BAM right around the corner is a moment that spoils it.
Also this wants to be feminist ā Ellie manages to stay feisty and awesome at her job even in the midst of a maelstrom of crap in her personal and professional life - but also paints almost every other female in unkind, sort of sexist strokes (superfan Georgie is a bitch because of her creepy love for Billy, Billyās daughter Lara is a bitch and constantly falling out of her dress, etc etc) - while keeping the ultimate villain (Billy) at a remove. So that it's not satisfying in the end when you acknowledge that he's an asshole because yeah, that's exactly how he's appeared the whole way through, at a distance.
*Iām not kidding about āthinly veiledā. Thereās enough clues in here to make me wonder what kind of dirt Manning has heard about a certain well-respected 80s rocker who is now a āSirā mostly due to his work on a charity single.
30 pages into the book, i realized I've actually read this book before but completely forgotten about it! another part of the when-i-was-a-precocious-preteen-who-ran-out-of-books-to-read-in-the-public-library saga.