Elixir

So I read this book because it had an awesome trailer. Sounds crazy, but that's why. Plus, it was on the New York Times bestseller list, and I was interested to see how well a popstar turned author could write with the help of a ghostwriter, of course.

Not very well, was my answer. Not very well at all.

There were numerous problems with this book, and I'm not even going to start on the actual writing. This might contain minor spoilers. 

Clea was your stereotypical rich/snotty girl who all the guys adore. When she decided that she wanted to go gallivanting around the world looking for her father, her friend Rayna decided she wanted to come along, too. But no. Clea said that Rayna couldn't go 'because she had school,' yet Clea herself was of age where she had to go to school, too. It was things like these that, on their own, wouldn't have mattered much. But put all together, they formed one really unlikeable, unrelatable, and totally cardboard character.

Sage was the romantic interest in the story. He, like Clea, was as flat personality-wise as a pancake. Clea sees him in her photographs she takes. Then she starts to dream about him. When she actually meets him, they wait a few days before having sex in the car. And this all happened in the span of one week. Seriously, Clea. First you're convinced this guy is stalking you and then you're doing it with him in a car just a few short days afterward. Some of it, of course, was Rayna's fault. She told Clea to just 'go with it, don't stop to think.' And so Clea, like a puppet, just went with it and didn't stop to think.

The plot was a mush of cliches that I'm not even going to get into; you've seen how much I dislike this book. I rate it a 2/10.

If I decide to read the sequel, it will only be for a lesson: how not to write a book.

Hilary, please stick to singing and save the New York Times bestseller list for books that really deserve it.