Book Review - Coconut Unlimited

This book is one of my 99p Kindle sale success stories (unfortunately it has gone up in price now), which I am very glad of considering how awful the last book I read was.

The story focuses on Amit, as he looks back on his teenage years in the early 90's, trying to make it in a rap band with his two asian friends.

Amit goes to a private school where all the other students are white, so obviously he is instantly considered an outsider and clings to the other two asian children in the school.

In order to try and fit in more, and to get all the girls they decide to form a rap band. They call themselves Coconut Unlimited because coconut is his sisters nickname for him (brown on the outside, white on the inside).

The story follows them from the forming of the band all the way to their first gig, with lots of teenage hormones, underage drinking, a bit of bullying and the occasional bit of weed.

This book is very relatable, and quite cringeworthy, it is a bit like the book equivalent of The Inbetweeners, nerdy guys trying to get all the girls and failing.

I had a huge smile on my face most of the time when reading this, just because there are so many parts of the story that will remind you of experiences you had as a teenager.

It's also very charming and at times a little sad, you just want to shake Amit and tell him what he is doing wrong, despite the fact that you know you would've probably made the same mistake.

This book was a joy to read, and I think anyone could pick it up and relate to it and enjoy it so I give this book 4.5/5. 

I got my copy from amazon.

Book Review - A Vicky Hill Exclusive

Let me start off by saying, I have always had great success when buying 99p books from the Amazon Kindle sales. This was my first failure.

The book is about a girl, Vicky Hill, who is living in the very rural town of Gipping, where the biggest scandal is that Mrs Peters got caught cheating on the bingo, that is until Vicky stumbles upon a death that happens to be suspicious.

I love a good old murder mystery, give me a bit of Agatha Christie any day, but sorry Hannah Dennison, you are no Christie.

I mentioned the world stumbled earlier, I feel like that is exactly how this mystery gets solved, Vicky literally stumbles from clue to clue as she always gets them wrong and comes up with bizarre theories that are just stupid.

Vicky as a character is one you never warm up to, and actually I wanted to slap her round the face by the end of it. 

She wants to be an investigative journalist, but she is stupid, at the start it comes across as being naive so you forgive her slightly, but no, making the same mistake time after time makes you annoyed at her and you realise that she isn't all that bright.

She also thinks quite highly of herself, always thinking that the people she meets fancy her, which often leads to her overlooking vital things that the character has said.

She also has this weird obsession with her virginity, yes she is a virgin. I'm not even sure why this is bought up in the book, maybe Dennison was going for the shocking angle, but it neither shocked nor added anything to the book, well it did, every time she bought it up (which was a lot) I got annoyed as it was so unnecessary, and obviously Vicky the character is so self obsessed she thinks everyone is out to sleep with her, be it man or woman. 

So on top of an annoying main character, and a awful plot, the book isn't very well written at all. 

Dennison introduces way too many characters so its quite hard to keep up, and Vicky's constant theories that are all wrong also make it hard to actually know what is going on.

Also, I would like to point out that at one point in the book, Vicky tells her friend who is going out with her first cousin that it is ok and people who look down on it are old fashioned, erm no it's not alright love, pretty sure its illegal too...

I felt so let down by this book because it had all the properties of a book I would love, a female main character, a murder and a mystery and set in England, but unfortunately this book just falls flat on its face. It's quite a short book, but it took me about 3 weeks to read, which is how you know it was awful, I refuse to not finish a book though.

If, despite all my warnings you still want to get this book you can from amazon, where they have the cheek to sell it at full price for £4.65

I give this book 1/5

Book Review - Before I go to Sleep

This book was first recommended to me by my aunt, she was raving about it but I ignored her as we don't always have similar tastes in books.
I then saw it reviewed in the Heat magazine book section. I really like their reviews and have found a couple of great reads through them. They spoke highly of the book and really recommended it, so with that as encouragement I decided to download it onto my kindle.
So what did I think of it?

The book itself is a diary written by a woman who can retain information throughout the day, but when she goes to sleep at night she forgets everything.
As someone who has lived with a relative with alzheimer's, the subject of the book really hit a nerve. I couldn't imagine not waking up every morning and not knowing where I am, who the people around me are and not remembering huge chunks of my life.
The book is actually a thriller, which is another reason why I picked it up, I love a good book full of mystery and suspense, something this book quite easily creates because where she forgets her memory you often get the feeling that there is more going on then what she is told.
I have to warn you though that if you are tempted to pick up this book it is incredibly slow paced, as you can imagine having to read this women's diary as she rediscovers everything every day can become a bit tedious.
The book doesn't really get going until half way through, but the last quarter of the book is when it gets  to the point when you don't want to put it down.
Although the first part of the story is slow paced, it doesn't feel too much of a chore to read as the book is so well written and the subject matter is interesting enough to keep you going to make you want to find out more.
It also has a great ending, finishing at just the right point, well in my opinion anyway.

I would definitely recommend this as a read as its so interesting, and when the thriller aspect kicks in it does get nice and tense, just be warned it takes a while for this book to get going.

Score - 4/5.