Dear modern guilty pleasure YA books, why does the third book always suck?  Seriously.  What the fuck is up with that?

 

Okay, so first of all a brief summary.  Chloe is a "typical" (we'll come back to this) teenager who finds out her biological mother and she herself is a cat person known as the Mai.  Tada!  Told you it would be brief.

 

So, while book 1 and 2 were full of entertainment value.  I had to regularly pretend that Chloe was 18 or 20.  There was just waaaaay too much sex for me to be comfortable reading it in a "she's 16," sort of way.  It was sort of pedophiliac in a few scenes, the one outside a club still makes me cringe just thinking about it.  I know 16 year olds have a lot of hormones and most of them (so it seems) are not virgins, but goddamn, I don't need to read about it in graphic detail.  I'm 27 - it made me uncomfortable and I'm regularly a horny fuck. I'm no prude, I swear.  Sex is part of life, and therefore should be a part of literature, but goddamn, this just made me squirm and not in a fun way.

 

And the third book.  Can we just say anti-climactic?  It built and built and built and built until it broke ... and then it just ended.

...I say "ish" because I'm at work and don't actually have the book at hand. 

 

After finishing the second book out of three included in this novel, I'm surprisingly finding myself enjoying this book.   I hate all the (teen pretentious asshole) characters, the plot is ridiculous and dragged out forever ... And yet I cannot wait to get home from work and read the third book!

 

It's like junk food for my brain.  I have better books I plan to read next. 

“Uprowadzona” to świetna rozrywka. Akcja trzyma w napięciu do ostatniej strony” – to jest napisane na odwrocie okładki drugiej części przygód pięknej kocicy Chloe King. Świetna rozrywka? Akcja? Napięcie? Chyba czytałam coś innego.

“-Co tam się właściwie stało?
-Nie mam pojęcia. Prochy? woja gangów? Psychopatyczna wersja berka?”

Chloe to dość nietypowa nastolatka. Posiada dziewięć żyć i niezwykłe umiejętności jak na tak młodą osobę. Po wygranej walce z tajemniczym Łowcą na moście Golden Gate trafia do kryjówki starożytnej rasy kocich wojowników, w której już nic jej nie grozi. Ale czy aby na pewno? Kiedy wybucha wojna między członkami Stada i Bractwa Dziesiątego Ostrza, Chloe traci życie po raz drugi, ale jak się później okaże, niestety nie po raz ostatni…/empik.com

“Richard – zdrobniale Dick – był ulubieńcem Rezzy, lecz prawie wszyscy nazywali go Dickless. CHociaż faktycznie był pozbawiony jaj, robił wszystko by któregoś dnia stanąć na czele Bractwa.”

W pierwszej części się zakochałam głównie właśnie ze względu na Chloe, która wydała mi się zagubioną w swoim świecie nastolatką, jednak wyszczekaną i pewną siebie. Do tego piękną. W tej części Chloe jest zupełnie inna. Pozostaje wyszczekanie i pewność siebie, ale dodatkowo pojawia się płytkość tej postaci jak i jej głupota, typowa “głupota blondynki”. Została przedstawiona jako nie rozumna dziewczyna, która dąży tylko do tego by chłopaki ja uwielbiali. Co ja czytam? Książkę dla 12-latki? Do tego Alek, który w pierwszej części był idealny, w tej stał się kompletnie niedojrzałym mały chłopczykiem, któy podelga tylko i wyłącznie swoim kaprysom. Za to świetne są charaktery Amy i Paula, których kiedy spotkałam w którymś rozdziale dziękowała Bogu, za chwilę wytchnienia od Chloe!

“Przez chwilę wyobrażała sobie, że tak właśnie wygląda studenckie życie: pracowity dzień na uczelni, randka w świetlicy i pożyczanie kadzidełka od amatora trawki zza ściany, by usunąć z pokoju zapach chińszczyzny i nie podpaść kolegom weganom.”

Cała fabuła zaczyna się w momencie w któym przerwaliśmy nasze spotkanie z Chloe w pierwszej części. Znajduje się ona u Mai i tak dalej. Jednak nie rozumiem całej tej otoczki – chronić Chloe, której i tak nie chronią. Do tego Bractwo Dziesiątego Ostrza, ok, nazwa spoko, wszystko ładnie składnie, ale do jasnej lub ciemnej cholery, dlaczego tak schematycznie? Czemu wszystko jest schematyczne w tej książce i tak bardzo nierealistyczne? Dlaczego autorka osadza Chloe w świecie, który niby jest nasz, niby to ten świat w którym żyjemy, a jednak poajwiają się absurdalne sytuacje zaczerpnięte z filmów i komiksów. Kilka razy, przeżyję, ale cała ksiażka się an tym opierająca to dla mnie za dużo. Uwielbiam komiksy, naprawdę, ale nie gdy dotyczą Chloe King.

“Gdyby musiała, bez problemu mogłaby żyć z dala od miasta, pośród drzew. Tak własnie dzieci wyobrażają sobie wolność.”

Styl i język to nie jest jakaś wielkie wycieczka intelektualna, są to protste zdania, napisane wielką czcionką jak książki dla dzieci, więc chyba każdy się doczyta. Dialogi są do przeżycia, gdyby nie fakt, że są zaczerpnięte z amerykańskich hollywoodkich filmów. Opisy są dobre.

“-Przywódca Stada ma dziewięć żyć. Potrzeba dziewięciu ostrzy żeby go zabić. Dziesiąte jest dla członka Bractwa jeśli mu się nie uda.”

Reasumując: Co ja widziałam w pierwszej części? Nie wiem. Naprawdę staram się do tego dojść ale mi nie wychodzi. Drugi tom to kompletna tandeta, dla bezrozumnych lal(bez obrazy), albo dla max 12 letniej dziewczynki, która poszukuje baśni o Kopicuszki. Przepraszam bardzo, zawiodłam się(i to jak), jestem przerażona jak można zepsuć tak dobry pomysł, jak można wszystko spłycić i spłaszczyć w teraźniejszym świecie. A wiecie co mnie jeszcze bardziej przeraża? Że to się sprzedaje. Daje 2/6, nie często daje niskie oceny, ale jak już daję to są uzasadnione. Chociaż przyznam – czytało się nieźle.

I kind of...went off the rails here. *ducks head* I didn't realize I was disappointed by so many books.

 

Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone: I just expected so much of this book. But, as most of you know, reading graphic sexual content makes me uncomfortable, and this book had a lot of it. I didn't like it. And on top of that, the plot itself was just generally disappointing. There was no suspense, no real connection between Amelia and the main character (whose name I don't even remember anymore), and it was just boring.

 

Clockwork Princess: Wow, how do I even begin to describe my disappointment? I mean, honestly.

Tessa ends up with them BOTH?! What the heck kind of decision is that? You know, she should have just married Jem. As the Wessa shipper I am, that would have been far less disturbing than marrying Will, waiting until he was dead and cold in the ground, and THEN MARRYING JEM, TOO. Plus, should we even TALK about the Wessa sex? TWO HOURS AFTER JEM "DIED"?! I MEAN REALLY. GRIEF SEX? THAT WAS OUR BIG MOMENT? AFTER ALL THAT MOANING AND GROANING ABOUT HOW "PROPER" TESSA IS AND HOW WILL WON'T BETRAY JEM'S MEMORY BY GETTING WITH TESSA AFTER HE DIED, WOW GUYS, YOU MADE IT TWO HOURS, SHOULD I GIVE YOU A SLOW CLAP?

(spoiler show)

I mean, what the HECK?! Nope. Not okay. Seriously? That's ridiculous. And weird. And strange. AND JUST NOT OKAY. (To both things.)

 

 

Crewel: With that cover, how could I *not* want this to be amazing? But it was just poorly written and developed, and then that scene and I still cringe whenever I think about it. But mostly I hated Adelice.

 

Dead Poets Society: I can't even with this one. Here's my review. I don't have the emotional capacity to go into this book ever, ever, EVER again.

 

If I Stay: After the way everyone told me how much they cried, how emotional, how powerful this book was, I just...didn't see it. The timelines and crazy flashbacks confused me, everything both happened way too fast and moved much too slowly, and I thought Mia was an idiot, I thought her parents were idiots, and it was "nice" to see all the usual Oregon stereotypes in full swing. /sarcasm

 

It's Kind of a Funny Story: This is kind of supposed to be the "it" book, isn't it? It's like this, TFioS, and Perks that are those books you always hear about, that EVERYONE should read. And this just...wasn't good. I mean, honestly. The writing was poor (considering it was written in a week, I'm not surprised), the characters were dull, I hated Greg, and the whole moral of the story? Don't go off your meds. Greg didn't need a week in the psych ward to figure that out, he just needed to tell his therapist he stopped taking his meds and they would have told him not to do that. *Nothing* else in his life changed from being in the psych ward. Except he met whatsherface. That's it.

 

Mockingjay: "I know, I know! Here's this climax, and everything is HOPELESS, and then we'll blow up you-know-you and Katniss will WATCH and then she'll pass out AND THE REVOLUTION WE'VE BEEN WORKING TOWARD THIS ENTIRE SERIES WILL TAKE PLACE WHILE SHE'S UNCONSCIOUS. Also, she'll default to Peeta because Gale won't have her. GOOD PLAN."

 

The Nine Lives of Chloe King: I loved this show. Like, loved. My mom and I would watch it together, which sounds really dorky, but the shipping wars in our family room got pretty intense. And when I realized the show was based off a book series, I flipped out and bought the omnibus. But this is like...the most poorly written, bizarre, downright weird thing I have ever read. I'm still not sure if I just hallucinated most of what I remember of the book. But I made a few other friends read it, too, and I'm not the only one. It was just...skjcrsevnrjdtrhnjdrbt. Considering I read it to get closure after that fail of a series finale, I was so disappointed. I do not accept that Chloe and Brian got together. And I really, really (really!) don't accept that Alek and...*shudder* Amy got together. Ew. No. No. And the plot, I CAN'T.

 

Tris & Izzie: I'm an Arthurian fangirl. YA + Arthurian = spazzmatic, freaking out, bouncing off the walls Thalia. And I thought this was contemporary romance. But...it was very magical. And made no sense. And the word "magic" was said like, two hundred times in the whole book, and the whole thing was because of a dumb love potion (or "philtre", which is a word I never want to hear again because of how many times it was used here), and the whole "her dad spoke to her fro the past" thing was just...strange. My friends and I who read this sometimes look into the distance and say things to our future children now.

3.5 stars So I have a dilemma I really liked this, but some parts of it were just not believable and it kinda bugged me for a bit but then I was enjoying the overall story so was able to let it go. What I had a hard time buying into were aspects of Chloe's relationship with Noah and Flynn, specifically how they went from "hello we want you and will have you" to then be "we are your Dom's" with no discussion about it whatsoever...I don't (personally) know anything really about the BDSM "lifestyle" other than what I have read in these books, but that aspect of their relationship just did not ring true to me....don't get me wrong, it was HOT and all but that aside it just did not seem right which is why it is a 3.5 instead of a 4 or 4.5. The rest of the story and secondary characters were great and who the real "bad guy" was kinda came out of left field (did not see that one coming),and I like a book that I can't figure out until the end.So now I am wondering which of Chloe's girlfriends is going to hook up next with one of Noah's & Flynn's friends...I look forward to the second book in the series.