Title: Thoughtless
Author: S.C. Stephens
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: November 6, 2012
Pages: 544 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: author website
For almost two years
now, Kiera's boyfriend, Denny, has been everything she's ever wanted:
loving, tender and endlessly devoted to her. When they head off to a new
city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at
a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen
obligation forces the happy couple apart.
Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source – a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he's purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes...and none of them will ever be the same.
The only good I got out of reading Thoughtless is that I now have the ability to horrify people with how a beer bottle was shoved in a woman's vagina before page 30.
To sum up Thoughtless in a nutshell: It is 544 pages of lifeless, badly written, plotless schmoop dripping with enough melodrama to kill an elephant. I tried so hard to look at this the way fans of the novel and Simon & Schuster (whose imprint Gallery Books picked up this trilogy after the first two books were self-published) did, but the appeal is not there. This novel should not have seen the light of day, much less been given a publishing deal.
You know that character who is always like, "Oh my gosh, why is this super-hot guy paying attention to me? I'm so plain, even though there are at least four guys with some level of interest in me and people are constantly grabbing my butt!" That's Kiera.
She's also the blushing virgin sans the virginity. I can understand the quoted story above making her blush, but the simple word "penis" after she's been having sex with her boyfriend of two years for a good while? It's ridiculous! Her immaturity, shown by such actions, become more obvious when considering she changed schools solely to move to Seattle with her boyfriend (and has no problem admitting it), being a selfish child by demanding Kellan do this or that even though they're not together and she's cheating on her boyfriend all the time with him, and so much more that I can't recount it all without losing my temper again.
Kellan and Kiera disgust me and I would like to hurt them both. End of story. Infidelity is one of my huge no-nos and that made it impossible to root for them the way I was supposed to. Their scenes, rather than getting me hot or making me like them like they're supposed to, made me reach for my trash can and force me to take a break in order to preserve my sanity. Other people may be able to get around the infidelity, but I can't. I have no interest in reading about these two selfish, childish people and all their drama as they hurt their best friend (Kellan) and boyfriend (Kiera) with their actions. This novel has no plot unless this counts and these two characters are not interesting or tolerable enough to carry the entire book.
Honestly, they are so bad that I could not finish reading this novel. I read over 300 pages of the disgusting schmoop, flipped to the last chapter, and promptly felt nauseated again as a happily-ever-after was confirmed. My two reasons for giving it a rating and not just calling it a DNF:
1) I've read over half the novel and that is my cut-off for ratings. I don't rate if I read less than half, but I do if I read more than half.
2) I missed absolutely nothing by skipping 200 or so pages to get to the end. To me, that's the equivalent of reading the entire book in misery.
If a girl is interested in Kellan, she is written as an insipid (Kiera's word from page 10 of the ARC, not mine) mess who can't stop herself from drooling over him. Some of them are drunken and.or ugly too, just to add to it. The only females in the story who aren't badly portrayed are Kiera's sister (who starts out as the same drooling-over-Kellan mess and stays that way for a while) and women who are uninterested in Kellan, such as Kiera's co-worker Jenny.
I saw recently where an author turned in a 24k novella and the 55 ellipses she used total were considered too many. In a single fifteen-page chapter, Thoughtless used 74 ellipses, only 11 of which were used to transition flashbacks. This novel doubtlessly has nothing on Fifty Shades of Gray, the ultimate ellipses abuser, but this novel used them far too often. That one chapter was the only one in which I had the patience to count, but they are everywhere in this novel. Don't abuse the ellipses, people! Just don't!
That's just one example of lazy writing, and there are many more, but a worse crime with the writing: a lack of passion. Ben Stein's monotone voice narrated this in my head because there is absolutely no passion in Kiera's voice. Even when she's getting it on with Kellan or her boyfriend, it seems like she's just going through the motions while she narrates. That does not make for good, interesting reading. There are highlights everywhere in my e-galley of passages that were especially badly written, horrifying, or tasteless.
In addition to badly written, it's badly researched. When Denny has to fly to Tuscon for his job early in the novel, Kiera and Kellan somehow stay with him right up until he boards the flight. Uh, no. That's not how it works. It's well-known now that in major airports across the United States, no civilians are allowed to go any further than the entrance to security without a plane ticket. When people without tickets make it past security, it makes the national news and the TSA gets ripped a new one.
The stated target range of New Adult novels is ages 14-35. Are you kidding me? No fourteen-year-old should be reading this book! The descriptions of sex in this novel are on the same level as the kind I've seen in urban fantasy novels aimed at adults. I'm starting to wonder if this genre is by and large and excuse for people to aim sex at teenagers without someone getting up in arms about it. Sex in a YA novel? Oh my gosh, ban that book! The children must not see it! Sex in New Adult? No one cares. -rolls eyes-
I'm the ideal target audience for this book and I've got an iron stomach for all things terrible and bookish, but even I can't deal with Thoughtless. If it turns out Easy was an exception and the average New Adult novel is like Thoughtless, I'm jumping ship.
0 stars!
What am I reading next?: Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse
Author: S.C. Stephens
Publisher: Gallery Books
Release Date: November 6, 2012
Pages: 544 pages (paperback)
How I Got the Book: ARC from the publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase/Pre-order: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository
Promotional Materials and More: author website
For almost two years
now, Kiera's boyfriend, Denny, has been everything she's ever wanted:
loving, tender and endlessly devoted to her. When they head off to a new
city to start their lives together, Denny at his dream job and Kiera at
a top-notch university, everything seems perfect. Then an unforeseen
obligation forces the happy couple apart.Feeling lonely, confused, and in need of comfort, Kiera turns to an unexpected source – a local rock star named Kellan Kyle. At first, he's purely a friend that she can lean on, but as her loneliness grows, so does their relationship. And then one night everything changes...and none of them will ever be the same.
Review:
The only good I got out of reading Thoughtless is that I now have the ability to horrify people with how a beer bottle was shoved in a woman's vagina before page 30.
"...this girl, damn, she had the best rack I've ever seen." The bassist paused to make a crude gesture with his hands, as if the guys would need that statement clarified. "And the shortest skirt too. Everybody around us was completely wasted, so I ducked under the table and shoved that skirt as high as it would go. Then I grabbed my beer bottle and stuck--" (ARC p. 28)I think it's clear where he was going. Anyone else want to consider the possibility that he did this without the woman's consent or when she was too drunk to give consent? Hello there, rape. Besides, everyone knows proper etiquette is to wait at least 50 pages before inflicting that kind of mental scarring on a reader. Common courtesy and all that. I thought this was New Adult, not adult erotica!
To sum up Thoughtless in a nutshell: It is 544 pages of lifeless, badly written, plotless schmoop dripping with enough melodrama to kill an elephant. I tried so hard to look at this the way fans of the novel and Simon & Schuster (whose imprint Gallery Books picked up this trilogy after the first two books were self-published) did, but the appeal is not there. This novel should not have seen the light of day, much less been given a publishing deal.
You know that character who is always like, "Oh my gosh, why is this super-hot guy paying attention to me? I'm so plain, even though there are at least four guys with some level of interest in me and people are constantly grabbing my butt!" That's Kiera.
She's also the blushing virgin sans the virginity. I can understand the quoted story above making her blush, but the simple word "penis" after she's been having sex with her boyfriend of two years for a good while? It's ridiculous! Her immaturity, shown by such actions, become more obvious when considering she changed schools solely to move to Seattle with her boyfriend (and has no problem admitting it), being a selfish child by demanding Kellan do this or that even though they're not together and she's cheating on her boyfriend all the time with him, and so much more that I can't recount it all without losing my temper again.
Kellan and Kiera disgust me and I would like to hurt them both. End of story. Infidelity is one of my huge no-nos and that made it impossible to root for them the way I was supposed to. Their scenes, rather than getting me hot or making me like them like they're supposed to, made me reach for my trash can and force me to take a break in order to preserve my sanity. Other people may be able to get around the infidelity, but I can't. I have no interest in reading about these two selfish, childish people and all their drama as they hurt their best friend (Kellan) and boyfriend (Kiera) with their actions. This novel has no plot unless this counts and these two characters are not interesting or tolerable enough to carry the entire book.
Honestly, they are so bad that I could not finish reading this novel. I read over 300 pages of the disgusting schmoop, flipped to the last chapter, and promptly felt nauseated again as a happily-ever-after was confirmed. My two reasons for giving it a rating and not just calling it a DNF:
1) I've read over half the novel and that is my cut-off for ratings. I don't rate if I read less than half, but I do if I read more than half.
2) I missed absolutely nothing by skipping 200 or so pages to get to the end. To me, that's the equivalent of reading the entire book in misery.
If a girl is interested in Kellan, she is written as an insipid (Kiera's word from page 10 of the ARC, not mine) mess who can't stop herself from drooling over him. Some of them are drunken and.or ugly too, just to add to it. The only females in the story who aren't badly portrayed are Kiera's sister (who starts out as the same drooling-over-Kellan mess and stays that way for a while) and women who are uninterested in Kellan, such as Kiera's co-worker Jenny.
I saw recently where an author turned in a 24k novella and the 55 ellipses she used total were considered too many. In a single fifteen-page chapter, Thoughtless used 74 ellipses, only 11 of which were used to transition flashbacks. This novel doubtlessly has nothing on Fifty Shades of Gray, the ultimate ellipses abuser, but this novel used them far too often. That one chapter was the only one in which I had the patience to count, but they are everywhere in this novel. Don't abuse the ellipses, people! Just don't!
That's just one example of lazy writing, and there are many more, but a worse crime with the writing: a lack of passion. Ben Stein's monotone voice narrated this in my head because there is absolutely no passion in Kiera's voice. Even when she's getting it on with Kellan or her boyfriend, it seems like she's just going through the motions while she narrates. That does not make for good, interesting reading. There are highlights everywhere in my e-galley of passages that were especially badly written, horrifying, or tasteless.
In addition to badly written, it's badly researched. When Denny has to fly to Tuscon for his job early in the novel, Kiera and Kellan somehow stay with him right up until he boards the flight. Uh, no. That's not how it works. It's well-known now that in major airports across the United States, no civilians are allowed to go any further than the entrance to security without a plane ticket. When people without tickets make it past security, it makes the national news and the TSA gets ripped a new one.
The stated target range of New Adult novels is ages 14-35. Are you kidding me? No fourteen-year-old should be reading this book! The descriptions of sex in this novel are on the same level as the kind I've seen in urban fantasy novels aimed at adults. I'm starting to wonder if this genre is by and large and excuse for people to aim sex at teenagers without someone getting up in arms about it. Sex in a YA novel? Oh my gosh, ban that book! The children must not see it! Sex in New Adult? No one cares. -rolls eyes-
I'm the ideal target audience for this book and I've got an iron stomach for all things terrible and bookish, but even I can't deal with Thoughtless. If it turns out Easy was an exception and the average New Adult novel is like Thoughtless, I'm jumping ship.
0 stars!
What am I reading next?: Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse
