This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Kate Appleton
"I don’t need the perfect guy. I don’t need candlelight or roses. Honestly, I don’t even need a real bed…" Ellie Kolstakis is a twenty-one-year-old virgin. She’s not religious. She’s not waiting for marriage. She’s not even holding on for The One. Ellie’s just unlucky. But with her final year of university coming to an end, she’s determined to shed her V-plates, once and for all. And she’s ready to try anything – from submitting to her domineering Greek mother’s matchmaking skills to embracing the world of nether-waxing trends (no-one wants a ‘Hitler’) and even YouTube tutorials on how to give a ‘blow gift’ (it should never be a job). After all, what has she got to lose? Well, besides the obvious.
This is not a book for adults largely because it’s simplistic and really quite irritatingly written and that’s not just the central character Ellie. I admit this book would be amusing and somewhat educational in only the extremely overt sense of the word to the readers who have left behind the days of ‘Angus Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging,’ however, it’s not well placed in the hands of those over the age of consent. I admire what Radhika is attempting with her writing, in a way I guess it’s a method of sex education attempting to engage young adults in a different way as opposed to the awkward chat that you’re treated to during a gym class at high school.
Unfortunately I’m no longer of that age and need to review this from my aged perspective. I was immensely irritated and found myself flicking through the pages in fact positively skimming them. Ellie is every cliché in the women’s fiction arsenal. She has low self-esteem, stunning friends and encounters every mishap going including the horror of being a virgin. The adjectives vomited out across the pages and were attributed to every thought, feeling and vocalisation which was not only tiring but really unnecessary. A hint of light relief comes in her gay best friend Paul, who she only realise he is a gay after he kisses her which obviously means she has turned him.I didn’t enjoy it, in fact I barely forced myself to get to the end of reading it such was the drivel that was in front of my eyes. That is the review of someone in their mid-20’s. I am sure someone who is 16 years old would love it and find it useful and amusing and everything that Radhika wished, but I am no longer the teenage I once was.
2/10