The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life of a Shattered Rock Star by Nikki Sixx (book review by Eleni)

Author: Nikki Sixx
Release Date: September 18th 2007
Publisher: VH1 Books
Pages: 413
Rating: 4 stars
Buy on: Amazon , Barnes and Noble

Set against the frenzied world of heavy metal superstardom, the co-founder of legendary Motley Crue offers an unflinching and gripping look at his own descent into drug addiction.
When Motley Crue were at the height of their fame, there wasn't a drug Nikki Sixx wouldn't do. He spent days - sometimes alone, sometimes with others addicts, friends and lovers - in a coke- and heroin-fuelled daze. THE HEROIN DIARIES reveals Nikki's personal diary entries alongside commentary from the people who know Nikki best including band mates Tommy, Vince and Mick. The book is a candid look at a nightmare come true: a punishing heroin addiction that brought Nikki to the edge of losing his talent, his career, his family and finally to a near-fatal overdose which left him clinically dead for a few minutes before being revived. Brutally honest, utterly riveting and shockingly moving, THE HEROIN DIARIES follows Nikki during the year he plunged to rock bottom and his courageous decision to pick himself up and start living again.

Review:

This is one of the best autobiographies i have ever read. Its so true and you know that it happened because it is a diary, something really personal and secret is being opened in this book for all the fans to read.

I am not a huge fan of Motley Crue but i always admired Nikki for his ability to write good songs and play the bass , so i decided to pick up his book and see what he had to say , what i read screwed up with me completely.

We all know that with fame comes money and with money comes ..well...hobbies..or drugs or whatever. It depends how one will use it. In this case Nikki used his money for coke and heroin and other drugs. You see a rockstar ..an artist spiral down to the bottom of the abyss through what i call Hell. He explains how messed up he is because of his difficult childhood and how he blames his mother for everything. You get to see how a person loses touch with reality and how this artist forgets everything about music and fans and concerts and the only thing he cares about is drugs ,how, when and where he will do it.

While reading his diary entries people that actually were there tell their stories and memories of that era and you really think WTF? I read things that i didnt consider possible to happen ,how can someone OD and then just go home and shoot up again? Along the way Nikki was shooting up with other rockstars like Slash and Duff from GN'R when they were touring together.

As the book progresses you see that Nikki knew the situation he was in...he tried to get clean but that lasted for a couple of weeks and within two weeks he comes around again as a totally different person. He completely changes and then he falls again and then it gets ugly. Along with the drugs comes depression and a continuing remembrance of his awful childhood. He even kicked his mom and sister out of the hotel he was in , he didnt hang out with anyone and wanted to be alone all the time in spite the fact that he hated loneliness. 

I think this is a great example on how someone can reach bottom and then come around suddenly and change his whole life , his whole ideas about life and death. I think this is a book everyone should read because in the end you can see hope.

Time After Time by Tamara Ireland Stone (book review by Eleni)

Author: Tamara Ireland Stone
Release Date: October 8th 2013
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Series: Time Between Us #2
Pages: 368
Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy on: Amazon , Barnes and Noble

Calling Anna and Bennett’s romance long distance is an understatement: she’s from 1995 Chicago and he’s a time traveler from 2012 San Francisco. The two of them never should have met, but they did. They fell in love, even though they knew they shouldn't. And they found a way to stay together, against all odds. 

It’s not a perfect arrangement, though, with Bennett unable to stay in the past for more than brief visits, skipping out on big chunks of his present in order to be with Anna in hers. They each are confident that they’ll find a way to make things work...until Bennett witnesses a single event he never should have seen (and certainly never expected to). Will the decisions he makes from that point on cement a future he doesn't want?

Told from Bennett’s point of view, Time After Time will satisfy readers looking for a fresh, exciting, and beautifully-written love story, both those who are eager to find out what’s next for Time Between Us's Anna and Bennett and those discovering their story for the first time.

Review:

These days its hard to find a really good book to read and lately i have been reading a lot of boring books. I expected a lot from this book due to the fact that the first one was indeed amazing ,this one lacked the enthusiasm of Time Between Us and somehow the narrative seemed slow and boring. Maybe because it was from Bennett;s point of view?

We have the classic love story with the distance of a decade in the middle of everything and that should make the whole plot a lot more intriguing and have more feeling in it but unfortunately I didn;t feel the rush at all. I want a book where I can feel the characters , i want to be able to develop feelings for them and want them to do certain things. In the first installment of the series I couldnt wait to have Bennett and Anna fall for each other, in this one I should have felt the urge to see them together..and I didn't and thats because of the writing.

The plot was great it had a lot of doubt and frustation and sadness but not in the detail a reader should expect..something which ruined the book for me. Other than that it was an okay book , it had equal amount of drama and fun in it ,lots of stupid stuff too and the classic i-dont-want-to-do-this-but-i-have-to-because-you-think-its-right-for-me-to-be-a-{insert word here} . Its a teen book like all the rest and besides the fact that it was boring in a level of apathy i read it because I wanted to see what will happen in the end ,seriously I will read book three because i think it will be great but i pray that someone intervene with the author and make her do some great changes in the development of the characters.

Crossed by Allie Condie (book review by Eleni)

Author: Ally Condie
Release Date: March 13th 2011
Publisher: Speak
Series: Matched #2
Pages: 367
Rating: 3 stars
Buy at: Amazon , Barnes and Noble

The Society chooses everything. 
The books you read. 
The music you listen to. 
The person you love. 
Yet for Cassia the rules have changed. Ky has been taken and she will sacrifice everything to find him. 
And when Cassia discovers Ky has escaped to the wild frontiers beyond the Society there is hope.
But on the edge of society nothing is as it seems...
A rebellion is rising.
And a tangled web of lies and double-crosses could destroy everything.

Review:

Personally, I wasn't so impressed with this one. And that's why it was so hard to rate this book. I didn't know if it deserves two stars or three but in the end i decided with three so the following reasons.

It's not an amazing book lets be clear about that. It is more like a cliche boy loves girl , girl loves boy, they risk everything for each other and one of them ends up doing something he considers wrong just to please the other person.

I expected this book to be a little more adventurous than the first one but in the end it was blant and boring. It was really really really predictable and for not even a second I didn;t doubt my guesses...and in the end I was right. But the writing was really good and although I wanted to drown myself, I continued reading because at some point I felt something for the main protagonists of the book. It was not strong but it was there so I finished the book.

As with all the young adult books , this one is not an exception of the rule , it follows the pattern of every second book - the couple loses each other and they both begin a journey of finding each other and themselves. Lame but what can we do. 

The characters were okay and the descriptions were really good too but the plot needed a little more adventure and action and also the characters needed stronger targets. Stronger motivations for doing what they were doing.

Other than these I don't have anything else to say about this book. It wasn't exciting and I expected a little bit more than that.

Angel Evolution by David Estes (book review by Eleni)

Author: David Estes
Release Date: October 17th 2011
Publisher: Smashwords
Series: Evolution Trilogy 1
Pages: 263
Rating: 1 star
Buy on: Amazon 

Angel Evolution- the first book in the young adult fantasy trilogy: The Evolution Trilogy... When Taylor meets Gabriel at college, she is in awe of the subtle glow that surrounds him. No one else, not even her best friend, seems to notice. Something about him scares her. Is all as it appears? While Taylor struggles for answers, she finds herself in the middle of a century old war centered on one miraculous revelation: evolution.


Review:

What the Hell was I thinking? I spend like 2 days of my entire life just to read this book -which by the way I didn't finish- for like 100 and something pages. I regret everything.

I wasn't expecting much from this book , it reminded me of the Hush Hush trilogy which by the way is awesome ,so I picked it up and started reading it. The first thing that actually hit me were the dialogues.
To me they seemed really really forced and unnatural and sooooooooooooooo freaking cliche. The characters themselves did not have a solid background and I could not ''bond'' with them the way I or any other reader should. They show emotions so superficial that made me wonder if they just pretend to be depressed , in love or whatever. 

Let's go over to the aspect of romance...where it is none! When Taylor meets Gabriel you will expect some romance. Instead Gabriel reveals some shit to her and she plays it off cool and thats it..they move on with their ''romance''. Even Bella reacted with the fact that Edward was a fucking vampire and the fact that she was irrevocably and irresistibly in love with him -and Twilight was romance. In this book what you get is a ''TWO MONTHS LATER'' title and that's it. Basically I thought the author was bored enough to just get into the art of writing and developing a solid relationship between the main heroes of the book.

Apart from that the whole story with Angels and Demons and Gods etc was pretty interesting and it would be more if the writing was a little bit better. Thus the one star. 

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino (book review by Eleni)

Author: Natsuo Kirino
Release Date: March 13th 2007 (1st published in 2003)
Publisher: Knopf
Pages: 480
Rating: 3 stars
Buy on: Amazon ,Barnes and Noble

Tokyo prostitutes Yuriko and Kazue have been brutally murdered, their deaths leaving a wake of unanswered questions about who they were, who their murderer is, and how their lives came to this end. As their stories unfurl in an ingeniously layered narrative, coolly mediated by Yuriko’s older sister, we are taken back to their time in a prestigious girls’ high school—where a strict social hierarchy decided their fates — and follow them through the years as they struggle against rigid societal conventions.

Shedding light on the most hidden precincts of Japanese society today,Grotesque is both a psychological investigation into the female psyche and a work of noir fiction that confirms Natsuo Kirino’s electrifying gifts.

Review:

This book confused me so much when it comes to the rating. It;s one of those books that belong in the in between and I really didn't know how to rate it. So I closed my eyes and gave it a 3. 

Like all Natsuo Kirino's books you get to see the story from multiple POV'S and I guess that's a good thing but not in Grotesque. At some point the narration becomes really boring while we get to know the background of Yuriko's murderer , and my opinion is that it was unnecessary for the author to do so in this book. I would like the book a lot better if it was based on two POV's instead of 3. It would me more mysterious and more fast paced and enjoyable rather than painful. Although , I wanted to commit suicide from boredom I couldn't put the book down because it was enjoyable from a whole different aspect...modern Japan.

While the main protagonist lives her life and tells the story of her sister Yuriko we get to see a Japan so much different than the cuteness and the happiness that we know. It's a Japan dark and grey where people judge from appearance and are nosy and above all they see mixed Japanese as ''bastards'' . You get to know the ''goods'' and bad's of prostitution and why people choose this kind of life. Kirino did a really good job with the writing in this one, although the translation had a lot of mistakes and at some points you couldn't make sense, blending fiction with reality in a book that was really intriguing and in the end sad. 

I didn;t enjoy this book as much I did with Out and Real World but I have to give it to her for her writing and the way she makes you see the real world people live in.

Unteachable by Leah Raeder (book review by Eleni)

Author: Leah Raeder
Publisher: Velvet Pony Press
Release Date: July 27th 2013
Pages: 356
Rating: 5 stars
Buy on: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

This novel contains graphic sexual content and strong language. It is intended for mature readers. 

I met him at a carnival, of all corny places. The summer I turned eighteen, in that chaos of neon lights and cheap thrills, I met a man so sweet, so beautiful, he seemed to come from another world. We had one night: intense, scary, real. Then I ran, like I always do. Because I didn’t want to be abandoned again.

But I couldn’t run far enough.

I knew him as Evan that night. When I walked into his classroom, he became Mr. Wilke.

My teacher.

I don’t know if what we’re doing is wrong. The rules say one thing; my heart says screw the rules. I can’t let him lose his job. And I can’t lose him.

In the movies, this would have a happy ending. I grow up. I love, I lose, I learn. And I move on. But this is life, and there’s no script. You make it up as you go along.

And you don’t pray for a happy ending. You pray for it to never end.

Review:

This book is beautiful..simply and amazingly beautiful. It starts with the main protagonist Maise, being in a carnival during a summer night doing nothing but wander around. Since the first sentence, we know that we have nothing to do with the classic heroine that falls easily in love, that gets excited with boys, we have a cynical, sarcastic, wild and no- fucks- given- girl that the author crafted so carefully I thought Maise was real.Apart from that, the whole plot falls under the category of contemporary and it is a cliche love story but  seriously the first two pages of the book did it for me and I couldn't stop reading until the book was finished.

The writing is so so so mesmerising and the words blend together in a way that makes you want to jump out of your bed ,chair whatever and run the world until you find real love. It's so intoxicating sometimes it hurt. While reading this book I remembered how I acted as a teenager in love , when you fear nothing and no one, you are your true self with no restraints and want nothing more that one person in your life. That's what I consider an amazing book, the ability of the author to make you relate with the characters and the story. 

We dive into a real dysfanctional family with a long gone father and a mother who does nothing more than drink all day and according to Maise *suck her clients dicks in her van for more money* , while Maise has to fend for herself on her own. Her whole personality kind of reminds me of a slut or that is until she meets Evan at the carnival and then in his...classroom. 

The forbidden love makes the whole relationship a lot more interesting and anticipating. Maise starts to change her view of the world and the people around her , Evan is just as cute and broken as her. Although, they both are in love they deal with their problems on their own, they box them up and put them in the back of their heads and those boxes are starting to make a wall so tall and crammed up until everything comes down. I loved the fact that they were understanding of each other no matter their age gap and made their mistakes as a couple and then learned and moved on after forgiving each other.

While they try to be careful with what they do and when there are slip ups and a dark figure obsessed with Maise documents her everyday life. Sneaking in classrooms and making out with your teachers must be a huge dose of adrenaline and recklessness and you lose track of time and place until someone sees you. 

The narrating was in past tense giving the sense that Maise was in a different place and time when she was telling the story and that had an extra bit of biterness and sadness in it, I felt like I could hear the rise and fall of her voice while she was telling me the story. It was so alive. 

The 75% of the book is fast and intimate...like really really intimate. Although, I would like a little more talking between them than raw (sometimes) masochistic sex I liked the sex scenes a lot. 

This is a book about growing up and learning from your mistakes, whether you are 18 or 33 you still make mistakes and you still learn. How a person can change her whole life in just a few months and how she sees things after she finds trust and love to the most forbidden person - her teacher.

Unteachable is the kind of book that I will read again some time soon...really soon. Hope you like it too.

Did Someone Order Room Service by Charlotte Phillips (book review by Sharon)

Author: Charlotte Phillips
Date published: 3 October 2013
Publisher: Harper Impulse
Series: Do Not Disturb (book 2)
Pages: 108 pages.
Rating: 3 stars!
Buy on: Amaozn UK, Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble

"GAME. SET. MATCH.

Has American Tennis Pro Matt Stanton finally found his match in uptight hotel employee Layla Jones? Find out in this deliciously naughty novella - the second book in the Do Not Disturb Series!"

So here is the deal- 

This one is just another romance novella, like many others written before and after. 

Plot-wise, it does not stand as unique. 

Fun-wise, it's good, but once I finished it I moved on without a single though. 

I can say now, 2 months after I read it, that I hardly remember reading it. it did not affect me at any way. 

Maybe I'm harsh. Maybe not. 

I love romance books and novels very much, and I expect them to invoke some sort of feelings from me. Be it 'it was bloody aewful' or 'I freakking loved it'. Here? No such luck. All I can say is that it's okay. 

So why 3 stars? simply because I'm on the fence here. Sometimes I give 3 stars because a book had equally  frustrated me and delighted me. Here it's simply because I felt nothing though the quality is good. 

One thing I loved about this book? The writing. I find it really hard to read a book in the third person. It tends to annoy me. Not here. 

Which actually says alot. 

to summerise: Good writing, Nice sex, Normal story. 

*Review copy was kindly provided by HarperImpulse through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

Root over :P

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