Perfect Chemistry Simone Elkeles

Brittany Ellis has the picture perfect, cookie cutter life:  wealthy parents, the perfect boyfriend, the right clothes, the popular group of friends.  But looks can be decieving.  There are cracks in her facade.  When Brittany is partnered with Alex Fuentes, the bad boy gang member from the wrong side of town, he starts to get under her skin and chips away at the cracks. 

Alex is the bad guy in the story and he knows it, in fact he loves it that way.  So when he makes a bet with his friends about luring Brittany into his life and into his bed he sees it as nothing more than another challenge.  But as they spend more time together thoughts of the bet fly out of his head and he finds himself wanting to get under this girl's skin for purely different reasons.  Reasons which have nothing to do with winning a car. 

Alex is entangled in a gang he doesn't really want to be a part of but is loyal to the gang in order to protect his family.  While Brittany is desparetly trying to keep a handle on her life at home and to keep the outside world from seeing the real her. 

It's a story as old as time:  the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks and the preppy good girl who hate each other but who have more in common than they could first imagine.  Alex and Brittany's bickering is highly entertaining and there's no mistaking the sexual tension between them.  Simone Elkeles takes the cliched story and imbues it with sexual tension and emotional intensity, bringing two individuals who are from the outside so different and who should be able to work together.  She mixes in the reality of gang membership and loyalty with wanting something so badly you'd do anything to get and keep it. 
The moments when Alex and Brittany realise they have deep running feelings for each other is beautifully written.  Watching them sort through their mixed emotions and their sense of loyalty and what's right and wrong and figuring out how to deal with their emotions is delightful and realistic.  It was wonderful to see the character's love develop as a slow burn rather than the 'we hate each other one minute then the next love each other' which is commonly portrayed.  Simone Elkeles portrays the fluttering of first love but also the consequences of the characters actions which is rarely portrayed in teen novels. 

Am back from a long absence

I'm terribly sorry I have been missing in action for so long....there have been technical difficulties and I found out I have a gluten/wheat intolerance so have been trying to figure out exactly what that would mean for me- figuring out a new diet to go with the fact I don't eat a lot of meat.  But now I'm back with a whole new layout (which I'm still trying to figure out how to use). 

On My Wishlist #9

On My Wishlist is a weekly meme hosted by Book Chick City whose blog I absolutely love. Anyway, On My Wishlist is where we can post our list of books which are on the list to be read, wishing we owned....books we covet.


This week's book is Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow


Dru Anderson: Night Hunter. Knife Wielder. Heart Breaker. Dru can sense evil, which helps when she and her Dad are tracking down ghosts, suckers, wulfen, and the occasional reanimated corpse. It's a dangerous life, but it's the only one she knows. Then Dru's dad turns up dead and she suddenly finds herself in the middle of a deadly game where every move she makes could be her last. Dru is more special than she realizes - and whatever killed her dad could be coming for her next. Can Dru stay alive long enough to fall for one - or both - of the guys hungry for her affections? 


What more could I possibly want?  It's got mystery, intrigue, romance and a kick-ass female main character.  Can't wait to get my hands on this one.

Random Post

Here's a little random post:  I've joined the library!  The boyfriend has banned me from buying more books, so I found a loophole in that rule.  I toddled to the local Surrey Library and joined up and was so excited about it - you can get books and CDs and DVDs.  It's like heaven on earth.
Don't get me wrong I'm still more a fan of buying/owning books but I've always looked the atmosphere of a library - the musky smell of the books, the rustling of pages being turned.

Fierce by Kelly Osbourne

So, I've just finished reading an autobiography which I must admit I don't really enjoy reading but this one by Kelly Osbourne was a suprisingly witty read.  I have always been a sucker for stories about the bad girl gone good - it's a strange fascination.  And Kelly Osbourne is one of the ultimate bad girls turned good - with Ozzy Osbourne for a father and Sharon Osbourne for a mother.

This book, when read doesn't appear to be one of those contrived celebrity books where you can just tell that they didn't write it themselves, in this one the style and tone really is that of Kelly Osbourne, it's written the way she speaks.

It touches on growing up with her father's drug addiction and her mother's fierce protection from it, the bullying she suffered at school because of her father's fame, her close relationship with her brother and lastly on her struggle with drugs and self-image.  What really makes this biography unique is that she has included advice from experts on fashion, beauty, drug addiction and eatting disorders.  It really is a suprisingly intelligent read.

The Tenth Circle - Jodi Picoult (part of the Jodi Picoult challenge)

The Tenth Circle - this book is part of the Jodi Picoult challenge I'm participating in.

When Daniel Stone was a child, he was the only white boy in a native Eskimo village where his mother taught, and he was teased mercilessly because he was different. He fought back, the baddest of the bad kids: stealing, drinking, robbing and cheating his way out of the Alaskan bush – where he honed his artistic talent, fell in love with a girl and got her pregnant. To become part of a family, he reinvented himself – jettisoning all that anger to become a docile, devoted husband and father. Fifteen years later, when we meet Daniel again, he is a comic book artist. His wife teaches Dante’s Inferno at a local college; his daughter, Trixie, is the light of his life – and a girl who only knows her father as the even-tempered, mild-mannered man he has been her whole life. Until, that is, she is date raped…and Daniel finds himself struggling, again, with a powerlessness and a rage that may not just swallow him whole, but destroy his family and his future.

I wasn't sure about this book when I first picked it up.  Not because I wasn't sure it would be beautifully and intelligently written but because of the subject matter.  I already had a preconceived notion of what my opinion and reaction would be.

The teaser on the front cover says: 'Your daughter says she was raped but the man she's accused was her boyfriend.'

Yet again Jodi Picoult has tackled the subject matter in a sensitive but controversial way - it's thought provoking.  She takes a seemingly black and white subject and smudges at the edges until it becomes a shade of grey.

The relationship between Daniel and 14 year old Trixie is written in a way which is so relateable if you are or once were a teenage girl:  Trixie needs to remain Daddy's little girl but at the same time needs to break away and experience life and claim her own independence.

For Daniel when Trixie comes home and tells him she was raped by the boy who broke her heart, his first instinct is to hunt down the boy and rip him apart.  There's no doubt in his mind his little girl is telling the truth - until it's revealed Trixie isn't the virginal angel he wanted her to be but that doesn't mean she's lying, does it?

All through this book I couldn't decide what really happened.  I was sure a sexual encounter had occured, I wasn't sure if it was consensual or if perhaps it was a drunken encounter Trixie wished to forget or even if Jason was really the boy who forced himself on Trixie.  That's what is so intriguing and intricate about this book, Jodi Picoult takes the subject and examines it and portrays it from every aspect and angle and destroys every pre-conceived notion the reader has and forces the reader to re-examine their thoughts and opinions.

This book is darkly moving, gripping, compelling and tugs at the heart strings - not exactly a light, fluffy read but definitely unmissable.

On My Wishlist #8

On My Wishlist is a weekly meme hosted by Book Chick City whose blog I absolutely love. Anyway, On My Wishlist is where we can post our list of books which are on the list to be read, wishing we owned....books we covet.

The book on my wishlist this week is 13 to Life by Shannon Delany.

Firstly, I'm just intrigued by the cover art of this book, it's misty blue colour and design on the left hand side give it a tribal feel.  And the eyes staring back at you are intense and beg the question as to what mystery lurks behind the eyes.  And then there's the deliciously intriguing synopsis:

Something strange is stalking the small town of Junction...

When junior Jess Gillmansen gets called out of class by Guidance, she can only presume it’s for one of two reasons. Either they’ve finally figured out who wrote the scathing anti-jock editorial in the school newspaper or they’re hosting yet another intervention for her about her mom. Although far from expecting it, she’s relieved to discover Guidance just wants her to show a new student around—but he comes with issues of his own including a police escort.

The newest member of Junction High, Pietr Rusakova has secrets to hide--secrets that will bring big trouble to the small town of Junction—secrets including dramatic changes he’s undergoing that will surely end his life early.