Leah
Written on Dec 21, 2013
Sarra Manning is a very popular author, with many, many Young Adult novels to her name including the fantastic Nobody’s Girl which I read a couple of years back and thoroughly enjoyed and, for the past few years, she’s also been writing Chick Lit novels. In fact, I have two of them on my to-be-read shelf, which I just haven’t quite been able to get around to. So I was quite pleased to receive a copy of her newest novel It Felt Like A Kiss, to review. It sounded great, I adore the cover, it’s super cute, with stars and a London background and pinks and blues, and the best bit is it’s even prettier in real life, and I couldn’t wait to get started and see what all the fuss was about!
Ellie Cohen is having a bit of a bad time with her boyfriends – her friends Lola and Tess tell her that she only goes after the “lame ducks”, men who need fixing, and who after being duly fixed, then decide to go on to better and brighter things than Elle, much to her consternation. She loves her job at the art gallery, and her life is going well, until she dumps Richey, her latest in a long-line of loser boyfriends for his not-too-secret drug habit. Richey doesn’t take the break-up very well and goes to the newspapers with tales of Ellie’s parentage, her Dad is none other than one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, not that he bothers with her or acknowledges her or her mum, Ari. Ellie’s life implodes on itself as she’s besieged by photographers and journalists, and threatened with the sack from her job, so David Gold riding in to save the day should be a blessing, if he wasn’t her father’s lawyer, who already thinks he knows her before he’s even met her. Sparks are about to fly…
People becoming famous via their parents is the easiest way to fame nowadays, so I was super excited to see how Ellie’s life changed once she became semi-famous, and I quite liked the fact that Ellie didn’t want it at all, it put a very different spin on things; normally, everyone just wants to be famous, and doesn’t care how it happens, as long as it happens, so Ellie putting the kibosh on it all was really interesting, like seeing it from the other side. It did, I have to admit, take me a while to get into the novel. The beginning is quite slow, as we get to know Ellie, who seems very much to be a fixer-upper, not realising that the succession of men in her life are worse with each new one. It did, however, lead to a very awesome opening conversation between Ellie and her flatmates/best friends Tess and Lola, but after that it sort of fell a bit flat, up until the big reveal. I felt it should have happened 50 pages sooner, because after that the novel really picked up the pace immensely and because infinitely more interesting as Ellie tried to avoid embarrassing herself any more than necessary when paparazzi are stalking you 24/7.
As soon as David Gold came into proceedings, I was hooked and couldn’t wait to read more. His and Ellie’s relationship is a fantastic aside to everything happening in Ellie’s life, and caused great enjoyment for me. They were totally into each other from the word go, not that either of them knew it. I really loved Ellie, she was a wonderful character, and I just felt so bad from her because she was getting it in the ear from all ends, except from her mum Ari, who by the way, sounds like the most awesome mum ever! An earlier Manning character makes a re-appearance, though if Vaughn’s attitude in It Felt Like A Kiss is anything how he appears in Unsticky, I will never be able to read the book because he was AWFUL. I was literally gritting my teeth every time he appeared, because more often than not, he would shout and threaten the sack. As well as Ellie’s story, we also got to learn the background between Ari and Ellie’s father, which was a nice way to break up the story, with a couple of pages here and there between the novel. I wasn’t a massive fan of Ellie’s father, he seemed like quite an awful character, and I was sort of glad he wasn’t around to see Ellie grow up as he didn’t deserve to be. I really enjoyed It Felt Like A Kiss, and I’m quite pleased this was my first Sarra Manning novel, although I am looking forward to going back and reading her other books. This was wonderful, with an ending that couldn’t have been written any better…
Ellie Cohen is having a bit of a bad time with her boyfriends – her friends Lola and Tess tell her that she only goes after the “lame ducks”, men who need fixing, and who after being duly fixed, then decide to go on to better and brighter things than Elle, much to her consternation. She loves her job at the art gallery, and her life is going well, until she dumps Richey, her latest in a long-line of loser boyfriends for his not-too-secret drug habit. Richey doesn’t take the break-up very well and goes to the newspapers with tales of Ellie’s parentage, her Dad is none other than one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, not that he bothers with her or acknowledges her or her mum, Ari. Ellie’s life implodes on itself as she’s besieged by photographers and journalists, and threatened with the sack from her job, so David Gold riding in to save the day should be a blessing, if he wasn’t her father’s lawyer, who already thinks he knows her before he’s even met her. Sparks are about to fly…
People becoming famous via their parents is the easiest way to fame nowadays, so I was super excited to see how Ellie’s life changed once she became semi-famous, and I quite liked the fact that Ellie didn’t want it at all, it put a very different spin on things; normally, everyone just wants to be famous, and doesn’t care how it happens, as long as it happens, so Ellie putting the kibosh on it all was really interesting, like seeing it from the other side. It did, I have to admit, take me a while to get into the novel. The beginning is quite slow, as we get to know Ellie, who seems very much to be a fixer-upper, not realising that the succession of men in her life are worse with each new one. It did, however, lead to a very awesome opening conversation between Ellie and her flatmates/best friends Tess and Lola, but after that it sort of fell a bit flat, up until the big reveal. I felt it should have happened 50 pages sooner, because after that the novel really picked up the pace immensely and because infinitely more interesting as Ellie tried to avoid embarrassing herself any more than necessary when paparazzi are stalking you 24/7.
As soon as David Gold came into proceedings, I was hooked and couldn’t wait to read more. His and Ellie’s relationship is a fantastic aside to everything happening in Ellie’s life, and caused great enjoyment for me. They were totally into each other from the word go, not that either of them knew it. I really loved Ellie, she was a wonderful character, and I just felt so bad from her because she was getting it in the ear from all ends, except from her mum Ari, who by the way, sounds like the most awesome mum ever! An earlier Manning character makes a re-appearance, though if Vaughn’s attitude in It Felt Like A Kiss is anything how he appears in Unsticky, I will never be able to read the book because he was AWFUL. I was literally gritting my teeth every time he appeared, because more often than not, he would shout and threaten the sack. As well as Ellie’s story, we also got to learn the background between Ari and Ellie’s father, which was a nice way to break up the story, with a couple of pages here and there between the novel. I wasn’t a massive fan of Ellie’s father, he seemed like quite an awful character, and I was sort of glad he wasn’t around to see Ellie grow up as he didn’t deserve to be. I really enjoyed It Felt Like A Kiss, and I’m quite pleased this was my first Sarra Manning novel, although I am looking forward to going back and reading her other books. This was wonderful, with an ending that couldn’t have been written any better…