Adi Boten was just one of the many people I met through this forum, but for some reason, she’s the only one whose story I remember from those days. I say “her” but don’t remember entirely what gender she/he was. However, considering the forum we both frequented had an eye-straining background colour of #FF66FF (later a more subdued #663399), I shall presume Adi was a girl.

I don’t fully remember what Adi was short for, if anything. I have a strong feeling her name was Adelle, as the name “Adelle,” exact spelling, keeps popping into my head. Then again, it could have been something completely different. I will never know.

Here’s what I remember of her. Adi was either in her late teens or early twenties. She was Israeli and in university, training to be a doctor (I think). She was just like my other friends in that we’d discuss friends and family, TV shows, music, and gossip about celebrities. But there was a difference. I started talking to her just as the 2003 Gaza-Israel conflict kicked off, and she just so happened to be living in an area where lots of fighting was going on – obviously, she told me the exact area, but I’ve forgotten since then.  She’d occasionally tell me about the deaths, bombings, and how she felt about the situations. Checking up on good old Wikipedia today, her accounts match up perfectly to the times she mentioned them to me. Of course, she could have been repeating a story on the news, but these were very specific things that I can still recall even to this day.

She, my first, best internet friend, gave me a firsthand account of history as it was happening, a firsthand account of the Gaza-Israel conflict from the eyes of a young person.

I lost my computer and internet connection some time after I first started talking to her. It was to be expected; my Windows 95 machine lasted longer than I ever could have hoped. When I finally got a new computer and internet access again a year later, all my MSN Messenger contacts and all the email addresses of my friends from that forum were inexplicably deleted from my Hotmail account. Back then, I guess MSN were really strict on purging due to inactivity. That, or they had really shitty databases at the time, because now, MSN forgets nothing. I just logged into an email account I hadn’t been on since 2008, and everything was still there, ready and waiting should I ever decide to come back.

Anyway, all my sent and received emails and all my contacts were gone. And, to top it all off, so was my forum. I think the people who ran it finally saw that it wasn’t the safe haven for kids they’d originally planned it to be, and replaced it with some weird treasure hunt type thing aimed at attracting even younger kids that wasn’t popular at all. Shortly afterwards, probably through lack of merchandise sales, the brand failed and the entire website was pulled offline. After all, the forum was the sole reason I continued to bug my family into buying these products, long after I lost interest in the designs they were selling.
But I digress. The closure of my forum happened before I got back online, so what hurts me the most is that I never got the chance to say goodbye to any of the people I’d met through there, Adi especially. I’ve always had an excellent memory when it comes to website addresses and emails, so I attempted to add her email address and a bunch of others I remembered at the time back to MSN, but to no avail. Emails bounced, and many of the accounts were either inactive and had stopped IMing completely.

All these years later, the email I still know off by heart, adi_boten@hotmail.com, no longer exists. Emails sent to it bounce permanently, and I’m left wondering why. I want to know if she ever finished her studies, where she’s living now, or whether she’s settled down and had a family. All the little mysteries in life.

I like to think she’d be impressed at how much I’ve changed over the years – after all, if a fully grown person can put up with and (actually like conversing with) your annoying self when you’re a kid, then they’re probably worth having around when you mature and aren’t so annoying.

I know there’s a chance that she might not have been real, or even if her name was actually Adi Boten. I will never know how much of what she told me was true or whether my brain has filled in the gaps over the years, or whether it was a story the person behind her was making up as they went along.

Nevertheless, I will remember her forever.

It’s been 10 years now. If you ever talked to Adi through adi_boten@hotmail.com, are a friend of Adi, or on the off-chance you ARE Adi (SQUEE!), please contact me. I’d love to hear from you, whether it’s sharing memories of our mutual friend, telling me that my memory’s whack and she can’t have told me any of these things, or simply just a hello and an update on what she’s doing now. For me, the time I knew her is like a story that’s only been half told, and I’d like some sort of ending, and closure if you will.

So, I’m currently in a SRS BSNS workplace, stealing their Wi-Fi, making futile attempts to hide what I’m reading on my massive laptop screen because, well, let’s just say I’d rather be caught reading 50 Shades of Grey in public. Oh, the things I do for bad literature.

Chapter 3

We leave Rammi and Tavon and whoever else is important to this story for a while, and get to meet someone who is obviously the bad guy of this story. His name is (Master) Alrick, LOLZ, and Chapter 3 begins with him sexually harassing some poor girl called Janna, who wisely runs away before this Alrick guy coerces her into sleeping with him. But Alrick’s not disappointed for long, as some other girl called Celeste that he’s already taken up the ass walks in immediately after and tells him she wants to be fucked. Alrick starts fantasising.

Desire slammed into Alrick like a fist. He’d fuck Celeste’s virgin cunt and then ream Janna’s virgin ass! His cock bucked like a wild thing and his balls burned for release.

Um. No. Just… No! I do not want to imagine dicks bucking like anything, let alone as if they had minds of their own, completely separate from their owners!

But as we’re not even past the first page yet, it soon becomes clear that Ms. (Mrs?) Ross is playing a game of “How Much Can You Gross Out Rammi in a Book Chapter?” In this universe, these Veil Keeper girls have “mystic shields,” that protect their virginity. How? By zapping every dick that gets close to their private parts. Yes, these girls walk around with fucking tasers strapped to their genitals.

The mystic shield reinforced a Veil Keeper’s hymen during the first two years of training. Through trial and error, Alrick had discovered what he could and could not do with these mystically guarded virgins. Generally their clits were unaffected, but occasionally the shield was powerful enough to protect even that delightful little nub.

It gets worse. This Celeste girl walks in to tell Alrick that she’s passed her final exam, so her mystic shield has been deactivated, and he can penetrate her at last, which leads to the following passage:

If she were lying about her mystic shield, he’d whip her. He’d ventured too near her core three weeks before and her shield engaged. The blisters on his cock had finally healed—it was not an experience he cared to repeat.

Parting her folds with one hand, he eased his middle finger into her cunt. Tight, hot, wet. No stinging pain, no searing intensity.

There is nothing that can accurately describe my reaction upon reading “the blisters on his cock had finally healed.” The mental imagery… DO NOT WANT DO NOT WANT DO NOT WANT TO READ THIS EVER EVER AGAIN. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. JUST NOPE.

But of course, since we’re only a few pages in now, every sentence appears to be more horrifying than the last one. They’re interrupted by another guy called Brodi, and instead of doing what any normal couple in the throes of passion would do when caught, i.e. cover up, Alrick asks Brodi to join them, like he’s inviting him for high tea at Buckingham Palace instead of asking him to start a threesome.

I honestly have no words to accurately describe how terrible everything is from this moment on, so I’m just going to pull a bunch of quotes from the book and you can read them while I go and throw up in the nearest corner.

“You will pleasure Brodi with your mouth until I tell you to stop.”
“But, Master Alrick—”
“You will do as I say or we both leave. Make your decision now.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

With his fingers still wet from her pussy, Alrick impaled her ass. She cried out and he chuckled, closing his mouth around her swollen clit. Her anal passage squeezed him so hard he feared she’d bruise his fingers.

Brodi pulled out of her mouth, his cock gleaming in the candlelight. Alrick felt his own cock jerk at the sight.

…Wait, what?

He coated his cock with her cream and pressed against her entrance. “You’re very wet, but you’re also tight. This may sting a little.” Grasping her hips, he thrust to the hilt in one forceful lunge. She screamed, back arching off the altar. Alrick stiffened, afraid he’d hurt her badly, then felt the deep pulsations ripple around his cock.

And, we end on one last piece of bullshit for you, courtesy of Aubrey Ross here.

If he hadn’t felt her hymen tear, he would have doubted her virginity.

EDIT: JUST REALISED I’M MISSING A MASSIVE CHUNK OF THIS CHAPTER. CHECK BACK IN A COUPLE OF DAYS FOR MORE CRAP.

Everyone at the moment thinks Tavon is a murderer as he’s accused of killing two people called Kayrin and Larot, but because this is romance and erotica with a guaranteed happy ending, we know he isn’t really.

I should really stop stalling by writing long paragraphs of text, but I’m just trying to put off my impending doom for as long as I can…

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 opens on Tavon on Dimension 939-3, Earth, teaching future Life Keepers how to drive. How… Twee. Or rather, he’s showing off that he can drive and they can’t yet. Maybe it makes him feel more masculine?

“Driving lessons will have to wait until you’ve mastered some of the rudimentary skills of being a Life Keeper.”

How… Condescending. In this world they can make clothes and traps and other stuff appear out of fairy dust that comes from their palms (called “iede,” for some reason). I THINK THEY CAN HANDLE CARS.

He’s waiting for some Veil Keeper to fetch them and take them back home, so he clearly doesn’t know at this moment that he’s wanted for murder, or I bet he’d be running for the hills right now.

Blah blah blah, some argument with a trainee called Maling that I don’t care about enough to write about, blah, then Tavon senses that someone is watching them. No prizes for guessing who.

And so, after a scene where everyone throws their iede fairy dust into the air, the inevitable “guy is struck by woman’s beauty” moment happens, and I’m already bored.

The Shadow Keeper ended up on her hands and knees. Despite the Shadow Keeper’s short, spiky hair, the sleek black leather garments revealed lushly feminine curves.

My Bob Dylan-obsessed English teacher would have had a field day with this quote. The submissive position, the leather uniform associated with BDSM, the fact that the relationship between these two characters at the moment revolves around one trying to gain control over the other… Someone needs to srsly write an academic essay on this for their English course. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Of course, it seems “Rammi” wouldn’t be “Rammi” without a case of the “too soons.” By that, I mean inappropriate thoughts of people when first meeting them. Thankfully, Rammi’s nipples haven’t hardened yet, but Tavon is already mentally fucking Rammi. Hey, you win some, you lose some.

Tavon crouched before the struggling Shadow Keeper. His hands itched to explore every swell and hollow outlined so temptingly by her uniform. Her raised her head and felt surrounded by her liquid-silver gaze.

OH, COME ON. The people in this world really need to seek medical help about keeping it in their pants, and not having instant sexual fantasies about a person you’re meeting for the first time.

As for “liquid-silver gaze,” I am thoroughly sick of the “liquid [insert precious metal here to describe a normal colour] eyes” trope. I will tase the next person I personally know to use some variation of “liquid-silver gaze” or “liquid topaz eyes” (blerg, Twilight) in their writing.

All in all, this wasn’t such a bad chapter – all that’s happened is that Tavon’s finally met fictional Rammi, my poor literary counterpart.

Maybe it’s because there’s minimal dialogue, which Aubrey Ross seems to be extremely poor at, maybe it’s because the plot’s actually moved forward in this chapter, or maybe it’s just because everything she writes from now is gold dust compared to the horrifying prologue.

Also, it might interest you to note that I’ve just started Chapter 3, and it’s full of such mindfuckery (not in a good way) that I might have to retract my previous statement about nothing being as bad as the prologue. However, my thoughts on it are going to have to wait until I get back from Myanmar at the end of this week – yes, I need a holiday to recover from this bullshit.

As usual, please subscribe to my RSS feed if you want to know when I post new reviews of this book, and of course, laugh at my frustration and suffering through the normal means.

…I know, you can feel my sarcasm, can’t you? Anyway, I’ve put this off for long enough, so, without further ado, it’s time for us to read Chapter 1.

Chapter 1

The timeline has moved forward 15 years from the event of the prologue, and Rammi (who shares my hair colour, goddammit) is now a Death Keeper. I hope this means she kills people for a living, but I’m not going to be surprised if the reality is much more disappointing. She’s in a very boring meeting about something, involving a ton of characters arguing and whose names I’m not going to even bother trying to remember. Then, just as shit starts to get real, this sentence appears in the middle of the page:

A stunningly beautiful woman, the High Priestess had always made Rammi uncomfortable. Beauty as a whole held no appeal for Rammi.

She dealt in reality, justice and death.

What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is fictional Rammi butt-ugly? Do the beautiful people in this world not care about reality, justice, or DEATH? Why is this random collection of words supposed to mean anything?

It soon becomes apparent that Tilden Delmont, the Death Master, Rammi’s boss and presumably the father of the hero we haven’t met yet, Tavon, is mad. Why is Tilden Delmont mad, if anyone still cares?
He’s mad because his son, Tavon, is accused of murdering some couple with weird names, Kayrin and Larot, who are, in all likelihood, related to one of the people arguing in this meeting.

Fictional Rammi, of course, is assigned to retrieve Tavon from wherever he is – after all, this forms the basis of the entire plot of the book – which again leads to some more hilarious attempts at writing.

“How much force is acceptable if I must subdue him? Search and destroy is more my style.”

It may be just the after-effects of having to suffer through 50 Shades of Grey, but that just hints at foreshadowing of an abusive relationship where the male has all the control…
I DUNNO. Why am I even trying to analyse the wet dreams of some surburban housewife, anyway? Basically, Rammi’s dialogue sucks monkey balls.

After mentally fapping over the High Priestess’s beauty again, she complains that she’s an assassin (yay, so she does get to kill people!), and makes more terrible dialogue that is meant to serve as some sort of vaguely thrilling cliffhanger for us. It fails.

She spoke the words for him. “I will learn what drove him to murder. Then I will end his life.”

And thus concludes Chapter 1. Not as horrible as the prologue, I must admit, but that’s probably because she didn’t get fucking raped this time.

Subscribe to the RSS feed so you know when I read Chapter 2, which immediately begins with the words “Master Tavon,” so we know the plot’s getting serious. Well, as serious as it can get before the inevitable sexytimes happen.

My limited Google research into “Rammi” has shown me that this is the fifth book in a series all about some mysterious supernatural world where’s there’s some shit about Light Keepers and Death Keepers and Shadow Keepers, none of which I know anything about. I’m just thankful there aren’t any vampires involved.

After I ignore the following reader advisory (because I am not reading four potentially terrible books to get to this one), let’s begin!

Reader Advisory: While the romance between Tavon and Rammi is a standalone story, the background story is best enjoyed when the books in this series are read in sequential order.

Hah, you wish.

Prologue

This is where we meet the mysterious Rammi Severn. JSYK, I’m so happy her last name bears no similarity to mine, or I would have flipped some serious shit and/or have been too grossed out to continue. She’s floating about in water for some reason, and seems to have the power of making her clothes appear and disappear at will because of “iede,” some word the author thought was magical-sounding. I will admit, that power’s pretty cool.

After that though, shit starts to get freaky. The slightest mention of male company has caused, and I quote, the following reaction:

Her nipples hardened against the sheer fabric of her underdress.

All because some guy called Gaverel has said “Did you miss me?” to her. I don’t know what weird world that that Rammi lives in, but this Rammi, i.e. me, would think it was a cause for concern if her nipples hardened every time her boyfriend said hi to her.

Anyway, Gaverel is butthurt because Tavon, the guy mentioned in the blurb and the obvious hero of the book that we have yet to meet, got given the Life Keeper job instead of him. Much is made of the fact that Tavon is the Death Master’s son and that Rammi is the Shadow Keeper’s sister, even though I still have no idea what any of these are. Because Gaverel’s so butthurt, he wants sex!

BUT… In this world apparently they need some liquid (Solid? Gas? Pretend I care) called “Pim Noctar” given to them by the elders to turn them into bonded mates… FOR LIFE. Without this mysterious”Pim Noctar,” it’s not going to be a ‘true bonding.’ This sounds more like two dogs getting it on rather than actual people, but ah well.

Despite all of this, Rammi is eventually coerced into sexytimes with this:

His cock rose long and proud from its golden nest of hair, his heavy balls promising virility.

Rammi, as your real-life counterpart, NO. Just… No.

Of course, predictably, the second she starts to show some restraint and common sense and realise that she doesn’t have to have sex when she doesn’t want to, she gets beaten down. Literally.
To sum up: RAMMI GETS FUCKING RAPED BY HER BOYFRIEND BECAUSE HE’S BUTTHURT ABOUT NOT GETTING A JOB.

After being raped, she finally fights back, doing something with the powers she supposedly has that causes Gaverel to collapse and almost die (good, the arsehole deserves it). The one good thing in this entire prologue, I reckon.

But of course, she doesn’t kill him fully, and because of what she’s done she has to become a Death Keeper. CONSEQUENCES WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.

So, from what I’ve read of this so far, fictional Rammi gets aroused way too quickly at even the hint of male company hinting she’s desperate for sex, attempts to kill guys that rape her (don’t mess with this chick), and is being punished for self-defence. This whole scene plays out like an author’s warning that premarital sex is bad and you deserve to be punished for partaking in it. Sigh. It’s only the prologue, and already there’s way too much misogynistic, privileged crap.

I hate this already.

Join me next time as I delve into Chapter 1 and wonder why I thought reading this was a good idea in the first place.

Rammi out.

Yes, you read that correctly.

I was googling myself last night to see if anything dodgy popped up, and indeed it did. Aubrey Ross, who appears to write paranormal romance and erotica, published a book last year called Rammi. Unsurprisingly, the protagonist is called, er, Rammi.

Paranormal romance and erotica is one of my least favourite genres. It’s hard enough to write a decent sex scene without throwing a bunch of supernatural beings in there too. So, I didn’t know what to think of this… At least, until I saw the blurb.

When Tavon, a passionate Life Keeper, is accused of a senseless murder, Rammi, the Mystic dimension’s most ruthless Death Keeper, is sent to assassinate him. Tavon is determined to prove his innocence, but the sexy assassin is just as determined to complete her mission.

Seeing no alternative, Tavon takes Rammi captive and drags her along as he attempts to uncover the truth. He has never met a woman so captivating and he burns to peel away her icy reserve. They clash and argue, releasing their mutual frustration in volatile bouts of passion. But neither is prepared for the staggering desire that ignites with their first kiss.

At this point, I knew I had to read it, even if it was only to laugh awkwardly at my fictional self getting it on (hey, at least someone’s getting some). After posting about it on Facebook and sharing the (bloody hilarious) excerpt available online, Wayne (Bunnyhero) kindly bought it for me.

So, I figure I’ll make sure his $5 doesn’t go to waste. I’m going to review this book, Mark Reads-style, chapter by torturous chapter. Starting tomorrow… Ish. I’ve just started reading the prologue and… OMG WTF IS THIS I AM SO NOT PREPARED AAARGH.

Unlike the Botox-ridden celebrities who are only trying to delay the inevitable, fictional characters really do stop aging as and when the author tells them to. Especially in children’s books, when nothing really bad ever happens to any of them, the bastards. They get to be forever young AND get rewarded at the end.
When I was younger, I was totally into reading the classics, a habit which I wish I’d taken with me as I got older. I wish I could say that that was because I was oh-so-sophisticated, but in reality, there was a bargain bookstore on the high street of the London borough I pretty much grew up in, specialising in copies of books whose copyrights had long expired, or ones that the general public had forgotten existed. I soon realised that my pitiful pocket money could get me a lot more in this store than in a sweet shop or in the Waterstone’s up the road. I continued to make weekly visits to this bargain bookstore until 2001, when my high street was hit by an IRA bomb, taking my beloved shop with it.

My reading used to revolve around two classic authors: E. Nesbit and Susan Coolidge. I’d spend hours upon hours (to the detriment of my eyesight, some would say) imagining myself in scenarios set in an old-fashioned London, or in a small village on the outskirts of an American town. It’s been over 200 years since the Five Children and It series and the Katy Did series were written, but the characters in them haven’t aged a day since I turned the last page. I’ve even outgrown the majority of them.

There’s just something extremely depressing about growing older than the characters in your books. These wretched fictional characters remain blissfully unaware of how lucky they are, frolicking in that fantasy world I wish to go back and inhabit so much.

When I finally got around to picking up books actually written in a recent century, I was in for a surprise. Gone were the bonnets and india rubber hot water bottles (sorry Katy), and in were the many Jacqueline Wilson tales of woe, diaries of reluctant princesses with pop culture references I had a hard time understanding, and lastly, wonderful stories of an angel who time-travelled into different eras of history. For some reason, something completely thrilled me about the latter, and I completely devoured what I had of the series in one go. I wanted more of these angel books immediately, but none were forthcoming.

Herein lies the problem. I’m a very impatient person. I could read series upon series of books that were completed hundreds of years ago, knowing that the sequels were sitting on the shelves waiting for me to take them home. But with books written in the present day, it will sometimes be years – even decades – before the entire story is finished. Whilst I was waiting for authors to finish writing books I loved (especially keeping an eye out for Annie Dalton and ‘my’ angel stories), I grew up, not being able to stop the aging process as a fictional character would. I began to get different interests, meet new people, and read less and less every day. It was the same for pretty much all my peers.
Former childhood fictional ‘friends,’ both classic and present day, were soon banished to that cupboard where my grandmother suspected something slightly mouldy was growing, or shipped abroad for storage and promptly forgotten about.

When I did remember the many books I never finished, it was already at the stage where it was embarrassing to be reading books aimed at children. I didn’t even bother trying to find the other books I had hoped to read when I was younger, writing them off as lost causes. There was only one exception to this. I really did love those angel books, and decided to hunt them down to see how the story had finally ended. Imagine my horror when I realised they were now out of print (and the public library had copies of every one except the last one, GRR).

So, I did the unthinkable. I found the email address of the author, Annie Dalton, and shot off an email about how much I really did love her angel books, and asked how the rest of the story ended. Imagine my surprise and delight when she told me she’d send me the rest of the books for free. A couple of weeks later, they arrived, and I was so so happy to be able to finish the series once and for all.

Reading the books, it was like a long-term relationship coming to an end. I’d held on so long, but I just wasn’t the same person any more. I was now irritated by Dalton’s repetition of words such as “burbled,” “huskily” and “OMIGOSH,” the replacement of the word “very” with “très” (I’m not kidding), and Mel’s – the main character – obsession with clothes. What would have charmed me as a kid now annoyed me. It was like Dalton was trying to hard to appeal to her target audience, the tween I once was. Ah well.
BUT (and this is a very big “but”), the adventures were still made of the same stuff I’d grown up loving, the research was very nicely done, and the characters were still the same ones I remembered from previous books – Mel Beeby hadn’t aged a day since the last time I’d read her. I was the one who had changed.

Although I may be older than Mel Beeby will ever be, I will always remember how these books developed my love of history (only faded when I had to take exams for History and actually REVISE), and how, most importantly, she, and the rest of the other books I used to read, shaped my childhood for the better.

Big mistake.

This is the worst series of books I have ever read.

I know, I bash the Twilight series a lot, but even that, dare I say it, is better than this.

The heroine of these books is Becky Bloomwood, a shallow, vapid excuse of a woman who is obsessed with shopping, and is aghast at the idea that she should wear her clothes more than once. She’s a supposedly successful financial journalist at the beginning, who, despite being an airhead, supposedly knows everything, but still remains oh-so-modest.

That’s the other really weird thing. God knows how – but I know the answers to all the questions. I know about mortgages, and I know about life assurance, and I know about pensions. I know this stuff! A few minutes ago, Kenneth from St Austell asked what the annual contribution limit for an ISA is – and I answered £5,000 without even thinking about it. It’s almost as if some part of my mind has carefully been storing every single bit of information I’ve ever written in Successful Saving, and now, when I need it, it’s all there. Ask me anything! Ask me… The rules on capital gains tax for home owners. Go on, ask me.

I want to ask her to go away. For added emphasis, Becky appears to be entirely based on Kinsella herself (ex-financial journalist), so she can live her unfulfilled dreams through her characters. The books are peppered with a stream of ‘hilarious’ replies to the timewasting letters Becky’s sent out to people such as asking for overdraft extensions and applying for a title, most of which only serve to make me think how someone could possibly be that stupid. Her character also goes off into these weird little fantasies about how if she does something, people will call her “the Girl With the Denny and George Scarf/the Girl with the Angel Bag/the Girl in the Vespa Helmet/the Girl Who Teaches Her Child in Harvey Nicks… ” People should call her The Girl Who Has Too Many First World Problems.

Her best friend is Suze, who, at the beginning of the series is living in a swanky flat with Becky bought for her by her parents, just so happens to have a title (as you do), and any new business venture she tries is instantly successful because of her connections. And the guy she ends up getting hitched to gives her even more money and connections.

How can they have heard about her? I’m thinking. I mean, she only started making frames four days ago!
“No, silly!” she says, and laughs. “I phoned up Lally. Have you met Lally?” I shake my head. “Well, she’s fashion editor of Vogue now, and she spoke to Perdy, who’s the interiors editor, and Perdy phoned me back – and when I told her what my frames were like, she just went wild.”

For added measure, here’s some choice quotes from the books about Suze.

The amazing thing is, Suze only started making frames a few months ago – but already, she’s supplying four shops in London, and they’re doing really well! She’s been in loads of magazines, and everything. Which isn’t surprising, because her frames are so cool.

“And my father once bought a whole island without telling my mother… And then he forgot about it, too. And he only remembered when he got this letter out of the blue inviting him to roll the pig in the barrel.”

Suze’s room is light and airy and overlooks the garden. I say ‘garden’. It’s about 12,000 acres, with lawns running down from the back of the house to a clump of cedar trees and a lake, which Suze nearly drowned in once when she was three. There’s also a walled rose garden to the left, all flower beds and gravel paths and hedges…

Doesn’t it make you want to be sick? I’m sure people like this do exist in real life, but it’s like Kinsella was reading up on “Fictional Rich Perfect Best Friends for Dummies,” and this was the result.

Then there’s Mr. Perfect, Luke Brandon. He’s supposedly a multimillionaire (in fact, the only two people to try and date Becky in the series just so happen to have tons of money in the bank), is the son of a wealthy socialite, but chooses to nobly ignore his parents’ money and stand on his own two feet by running a successful PR company – excuse me while I gag. Chick-lit and fictional successful PR companies go together like bread and butter. He also has mother issues, which of course involve him relying on Becky to get him through. His company is also saved by Becky at some point, and is forced to grovel and apologise for not listening to her afterwards. Becky is amazing! >.>

Throughout this series, Becky changes careers, moves to New York, gets married, finds a sister, and has a baby. All whilst spending unlimited amounts of money (yes, sure, there are mentions of an overdraft, but isn’t her husband a millionaire?), and pulling off the organisation of many, many parties. Kinsella’s prose during these events is just a series of “And then this happened. Then this. THEN this.” Becky has the worst case of special snowflake syndrome I’ve seen in a while.

“I know, I suppose. But… I thought I was making a difference. I really thought I’d achieved something.” I heave a morose sigh. “And it was all for nothing.”
“For nothing?” says Luke, incredulous. “Becky… Just take a look at what you’ve done.” He gestures at the throng. “Look at all these people. I’ve heard how you transformed the campaign. Not to mention the village… and this party you’re throwing… You should be proud of yourself. Hurricane Becky, they’re calling you.”

It’s the most incredible, blow-your-mind party. It just is. I mean, I know I helped organize it and everything, so I shouldn’t boast. I should be all modest and self-deprecating and say, ‘Oh, it was OK, I suppose,’ or ‘As parties go, it wasn’t bad,’ and shrug and change the subject and talk about the weather. But too bad, I’m not going to, I’m going to tell you the truth. Which is that it’s the most out-of-this-world party and everyone’s said so, even people who go to loads of parties like the Right Reverend St John Gardner-Stone, who turns out to be a total sweetie with a good line in knock-knock jokes.

I guess the main problem about this series for me is how much classism it reeks of. The characters don’t read anything other than the Telegraph, Times or Daily World (a nice moniker for the Daily Fail), some of them have titles and/or know the royal family, they complain about the NHS and always go private (there’s something about that in one of the books but I’m raging so much I don’t want to look it up), and they consider anything that isn’t Waitrose or M&S for food a sin.

I’ll leave you with this supposedly ‘hilarious’ scene about visiting a pound shop.

I’ve never actually been to a pound shop, but they’ve got to be good. I mean, everything only costs a quid, for a start.

Fuck.

There’s a pound shop to our right and a 99p shop opposite. For a moment we survey both in doubtful silence.
“Which one shall we go to?” ventures Janice at last. “The 99p shop is slightly cheaper, obviously…” She peters out.

My.

“I have certain standards, Janice,’ she says with quiet dignity, like a general saying he’ll dress for dinner even though bombs are dropping all around him. ‘I don’t think we need to sink to the 99p shop quite yet.”
“OK,” whispers Janice nervously.
“I’m not ashamed to be seen here,” adds Mum. “Why should I be ashamed? This is our new way of life, and we’re all just going to have to get used to it. If your father says we have to exist on turnip jam, then so be it.”

Life.

“Your father will just have to adjust his taste buds to suit his wallet!’ she says, clattering another one in. ‘Maybe nutrition is something we can’t afford any more! Maybe vitamins are only for the super-rich!”

There is NOTHING shameful about going to the pound shop. It’s just another shop on the high street, where they are able to produce things more cheaply, buy them from other retailers or import them in from foreign markets (good old Wikipedia). And it’s not just poorly-paid people who shop there, as the book seems to claim. So suck on that, Kinsella.

“Excuse me,” she says politely. “How much is this item?”
The sales girl shoots her a look of ineffable contempt. “Pahnd.”
“And this?” She gestures at a garden hose.
“Pahnd. Everyfink’s a pahnd. Pahnd shop, innit?”

The upper-class woman speaking politely to the lowly sales assistant, who obviously has no manners because she’s in the POUND SHOP? Give me a break.

The sad thing is, I’ve actually heard good stuff about Kinsella/Wickham’s other work, as far as chick-lit goes. I’ll appreciate that she doesn’t try to write sex scenes (because me analysing them would be awkward), although in Becky Bloomwood’s world, they’d obviously be perfect. I can’t bear to touch any of her other books after being put through this tripe.

I am angry. I am angry that some people reading these books will think they are a good representation of British culture, I am angry that these pieces of crap have sold so well, and, most of all, I’m angry at myself for buying the books and watching the movie. I could rant more about how it glamorises debts, credit cards and excessive spending, but at this rate, I could write an entire novel on how much this series sucks.

[17/12/2011 18:58:59] Louise: hey how do you feel about michael buble?
[17/12/2011 20:02:43] Rammi: Apathetic.
[17/12/2011 20:03:00] Rammi: But if you buy me his album I will kick you in the face.

Which led to this:

17 December at 20:12 – Rammi: …Louise just asked me how I felt about Michael Bublé.
17 December at 20:13 – Rammi: I made it clear to her that I’d kick her in the face if she bought me that.
17 December at 20:13 – Sinéad: LOL
17 December at 20:14 – Sinéad: had no idea you were THAT strongly opposed to THE BUBBLY
17 December at 20:14 – Sinéad: (does he have a nickname or something? I just made that up)
17 December at 20:14 – Rammi: OMG YOU BOTH NEED TO BE TASERED.

Which made me realise I have a lot of irrational hatred for “the bubbly” (ugh). There’s no reason to hate him; he’s a successful musician whose songs make women all over the world swoon. I still do, though. Here are the reasons why.

1. His songs – the ones released as singles, anyway – suffer from the Stephenie Meyer effect. The resounding theme is “OMG, YOU’RE THE PERFECT GIRL FOR ME” sometimes with an added “but Y U NO with me? *sadface*” He cleverly uses lots of “you”s so the people listening to him can easily put themselves in Bella’s, um, I mean, the subject’s shoes, and believe he’s singing a song to them personally. This probably accounts for 99% of people saying they love him (and 87% of all statistics are made up, but what of it)? “I just haven’t met YOU yet,” “I’m just too far, from where YOU are, I’ve gotta go home,” “YOU’RE every line, YOU’RE every word, YOU’RE everything,” and, er… These are the only Bublé songs I’ve downloaded, for some reason (the fact that I even bothered to download them shocks me already). Nicely played, Mr. Bublé. Nicely played.
2. I used to listen to a lot of Magic 105.4. If you haven’t listened to this radio station before, they play a mix of golden oldies and easy listening pop from the current charts. Now, back when Bublé had just released his first album, someone at the radio station really got into his song. Every day, without fail, wedged in between Marvin Gaye’s I Heard it Through the Grapevine and something ridiculous by Aretha Franklin, I’d hear someone crooning, “Let me go hooooooooommmmeeee….” Seriously, mate, if you’re going to whine so much about it, JUST GO HOME AND STFU.
3. Bublé feels like a robot dreamt up by movie execs for soundtracks. The worst example of this I’ve seen is in The Wedding Date. It’s a nice short romcom, but THERE ARE THREE BUBLÉ SONGS IN THE SOUNDTRACK ALONE. THREE! I was watching this over Christmas, and the only thought running through my head was, “Did Bublé sponsor this film or something?” Grr.
4. He does something weird with his mouth when he sings. It leads to hilarity such as Russian Unicorn, which is the only reason this is so low down in the list.
5. He’s so smooth it hurts. The voice, the suits, the dishevelled hair, that lost puppy dog stare… COME ON.
6. LOOK AT HIS WIFE. Now, I’m as straight as they come, but you can’t deny it: that woman is HOT.
7. He has that ambiguous hair colour that is ginger in some lights, but refuses to EMBRACE THE GINGER.
8. He’s written a fake song for 30 Rock. I love that show so much, and if any other musician had done it, I’d be thinking, “Wow, this guy is awesome/writes great songs/has a good sense of humour.” But, since it’s Bublé… Goddammit.
9. Update, 5:17PM: As if to prove point 3, I just got to the end of a Christmas movie (don’t ask, it just popped up randomly on Hulu and I was bored), and right before the credits rolled, a mystery Bublé song about Christmas played. Yes, I now recognise his voice anywhere. AARGH. I can’t believe he managed to Bublé-bomb me.
10. HE RECENTLY RELEASED AN ALBUM OF CHRISTMAS COVERS. That should be enough reason for you to hate him.

…If you read this a few hours ago, then yes, I have added to the list of reasons why I hate “the bubbly.” I guess the point of this was to tell you to refrain from buying me anything of Michael Bublé’s for my birthday/Christmas/Valentine’s Day/any holiday, ever.

The question I want to ask of this is: WHYYYYYYYYYY?

I mean, merchandise bought from your travels is great – it boosts the country’s economy, gives you a souvenir that will last until you break it in some stupid manner, and is PROOF YOU WENT THERE. As the daughter of a former tour operator, I like to consider myself fairly well-travelled, and have many knick-knacks from my trips around the globe.

However, out of all the people I’ve seen wearing these goodies, I can be certain that at least half of them have never stepped foot in the location they’re so freely advertising. Several high street shops are currently selling items that proclaim the beautiful happy happy joy joy joyfulness of faraway places such as Paris and New York, with images covered in tacky filters and bad fonts. What I don’t understand is why people would willingly buy merchandise inscribed with the names of places they’ve never ever been to in their lives.

For me, souvenirs tell stories. If I see someone wearing a T-shirt or carrying a pen, for example, advertising a place I’ve visited, I will usually strike up a conversation and ask them about their experience of it, comparing and contrasting with my experiences. Even hearing secondhand tales of friends who brought these people back these souvenirs is interesting. It just really grates on me to hear, “I’ve never been to [place] before, but I saw this [item] in [shop] and bought it.”

Why would you do such a thing? Do you buy it just for the pretty colours, or to lie about visiting? Do you really love the place you’ve never been, or does it fill your preconceived notion about said place? One thing I’ve learned over the past few months is that a location everyone hypes up so much is never as good in reality. Yes, Paris may be considered romantic to some, but if you’ve never been there before, it just makes you look like a massive tool.

I feel like there’s something I’m missing. Please enlighten me.