Weekend Book Review | Because She Loves Me

Author Mark Edwards returns following his previous number 1 best-seller The Magpies. I hadn't read that but had heard good things so I was very pleased to receive a preview copy of Because She Loves Me from NetGalley to try. 

This is a tense psychological thriller about a young British man, Andrew who at the beginning of the book is in recovery from surgery for a detached retina. He's had a pretty tough time of it and is tired of having to cope on his own; his parents died in a car crash in his teens, his sister is disabled from that accident, he has no girlfriend or housemate and is overall feeling a bit sorry for himself (and rightly so). So when he meets the beautiful and clever Charlie during a hospital appointment and is instantly smitten, he begins to think his luck is changing. They get together shortly afterwards and things start to move very quickly with Charlie telling him she loves him and talk of her moving in with him after only a week. While Andrew briefly worries that things are moving too fast, he is already obsessed with her and so when weird things start happening, he can somehow keep managing to turn a blind eye (not an intentional pun). 

But then both he and his friends begin to be troubled by really unfortunate incidents; accidents, troubles with the law, even mysterious deaths. Mostly his friends are all female and it looks very much like the work of an extremely jealous girlfriend. As the book progresses you know it's building up to something much worse and undoubtedly a twist in the tale. Mostly it feels like we're waiting for the somewhat gullible Andrew to piece it all together and I will say that I couldn't wait to find out how it was going to end. It is a total cliche but I found it hard to put it down. 

And now on to the slightly more negative; I felt at times that some of the storyline was overly complicated, the twist was a bit unbelievable to me, almost like it was included to cause a shock rather than to make any actual sense in the context of the rest of the book. I mean, it feels really unlikely that anyone could have figured it out because it seemed so improbable. 

Also, a character from a previous book of his who had no relevance whatsoever to this book was mentioned three of four times throughout the novel and it felt like it was wedged in there for the sake of it. I found it confusing when I was reading it until I happened upon the description at the end about the author and his previous work- otherwise it would have made no sense. 

Lastly, I felt like the explanation by two of the characters to each other at the end of the book going through everything that had happened and what it all meant was almost a bit too Scooby Doo or Murder She Wrote for my liking. If the characters in a thriller/mystery have to go through the entire storyline to explain it to each other (and the reader) then perhaps it was too complicated to start with. 

In general though, this was a good thriller just probably not my preferred style of writing.

This is out on the 2nd of September if you'd like to add it to your to-be-read list!

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L'Oreal Elvive Fibrology Thickness Booster | Review

I bought and used the Fibrology Thickness Booster up ages ago but wasn't particularly overawed. Luckily I got it half price at the time but didn't pick up any of the rest of the range, which may have been a mistake; I'll get to that later. So the idea is that this is a serum type of formula that comes in this tube with what looks like a handy "mixing lid"; you add it to your conditioner as an extra boost to help thicken your hair. 

Firstly, while that lid seems like a great idea for mixing the serum into your conditioner, it's actually a bit awkward to use. You squirt the serum into your hand and then struggle to get the lid back on, while trying to add conditioner into your hand and not spill the serum everywhere. Gah! Not as much of a time saver as I expected although instead of whinging like me, you could just apply this to the hair on it's own and then add conditioner over that. 

Only after I had started using it did I realise that suggested use is with the conditioner from the same range; I thought I could just work away and add it to my own conditioner that I was using at the time to give a volume boost but no, they expect you to buy a second product from the range to make the first product work better…eh, what now? That seems a bit much to me and had I realised that was the idea I probably wouldn't have bothered- I find that concept of trying to squeeze a bit of extra money out of their customers a bit icky to be honest. Surely the conditioner should work on it's own without needing an extra product to make it work better?

It also didn't make a huge difference to the actual volume of my hair, which makes me wonder if using the rest of the range would have led to better results, regardless of how annoyed I'd have been to have to buy two products when one on it's own should do the job.

While it's supposed to leave hair looking and feeling thicker with every wash for a cumulative effect (using revolutionary ingredient Filloxane apparently *sceptical face*), I only noticed the slightest of change on the first couple of washes and after continuous use until it was empty I can't say it made a huge difference to my naturally fine hair. 

This may well be just me as I've seen other more positive reviews; my hair tends to be reluctant to respond to a lot of products designed to increase volume at the best of times. Available from Boots for €7.99 for 30mls, they currently have a 3 for 2 offer on if you're interested in trying it out for yourself.

Have you tried anything from the Fibrology range? Did you fare any better than me?

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The Date Rape Drug Detecting Nail Polish..Thoughts?

*TRIGGER WARNING- DISCUSSES SEXUAL ASSAULT & VICTIM BLAMING*

While scrolling through my twitter feed over the last couple of days I've seen some interesting discussions over the newly invented "Undercover Colours" nail polish, created by an all male team of American University students and designed to detect commonly used date rape drugs; Rohypnol, Xanax and GHB. Being marketed as "the first fashion company empowering women to prevent sexual assault", the idea behind it is that you swirl your finger in your drink and if one of these drugs are present, your nail polish will change colour. 

image source

I have conflicted feelings towards this. When I first heard about it I immediately thought, "Ooh, clever!" but that was quickly followed by several misgivings. 

Firstly, this feels like yet another opportunity to put the onus on women individually to "not get raped". Similar to other "advice", such as telling women to dress a certain way/limit alcohol intake/not walk home alone etc, which is undoubtedly meant to be helpful, it again somehow makes the victim complicit in the attack, which is not only wrong but non-sensical. No other crime is treated in this way; it's become a cliche to say it now but it still stands- you don't see victims of robbery in court being cross-examined and asked to account for what they were wearing when the crime took place. To put it further into perspective, male victims of rape are rarely asked to explain what they were wearing because it's not seen as relevant. 

Well the same should be true for female victims yet this culture of blaming them persists. 

Looking after and taking general care of your own wellbeing are obviously important, I'm not suggesting that we should intentionally put ourselves in clearly dangerous situations and this could definitely be helpful in assessing if certain situations are dangerous or not but my fear with this polish is that rather than "what were you wearing at the time" being the question posed, it'll be "oh so you say you were drugged and raped…why weren't you wearing your nail polish at the time?"

It's just yet another way for society to fail women; instead of addressing why men rape, with a product like this we're still focusing on what women can do to prevent their own sexual assaults. 

The fact that there are people putting time, energy and money into developing this (and products like this- special colour changing straws were a thing recently too but never worked in the end) feels like modernising the chastity belt; we haven't come that far if the spotlight is still on women to sort it out rather than on men to stop assaulting people. I guess it just annoys me that we're having this conversation at all. Is prevention really better than cure? If the "illness" has been ongoing since the beginning of time and is still as prevalent as ever then I would argue that no, prevention alone definitely is not better than cure.

One more problem I have is that alcohol by itself is more commonly used than what is typically thought of as a date rape drug such as Rohypnol etc. This nail polish may actually only help in a minimum amount of cases but will do nothing where excessive quantities of alcohol are used to alter someones level of consciousness- which is sadly more likely to be the MO of a potential rapist. There's also a lot of doubt that this even works that well for detecting the drugs that it does claim to work on- at the moment it produces a worrying number of false positives and negatives, which could lead to either accusing innocent people of drugging you when they haven't, or worse, it could lure potential victims into a false sense of security if the polish is non-reactive.

To lastly go back to my original feeling of "clever!", I can definitely see one area where this could be well received; former victims of assault may feel more assured by this and if it helps someone then that's fantastic. 

Overall though, I'm going to retain my reservations on this one. 

Please let me know in the comments what you think. I know this is a highly emotive topic and if I've upset anyone I sincerely apologise. I feel it's important to look at things like this with an inquisitive eye rather than just accept them at face value but feel free to skip this altogether too if you'd prefer, normal service will resume tomorrow!

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Current Wishlist, Otherwise Known As I Want ALL The Things.

This isn't specific to the month or changing seasons, it's just a random list of things I want that have been on my mind lately going around in a kind of continuous loop of "buy us Chloe, go on, you know you want to. You may not be able to afford us but having us will somehow keep you warm at night" etc. 

I should probably get that seen to actually. 

I still can't decide whether this yellow coat from Warehouse (HERE) is a bit too fisherman's friend. I mean, it's actually called "fisherman's parka" and there is a worry it could be too costumey. Would I run the risk of looking like a Cabot Cove extra from Murder She Wrote? That said, I love yellow and feel like this would be nice and cheery for wearing out for walks on the gloomier Winter days ahead. No? Have I lost my mind? I don't even know anymore!

No. 2 there is also from Warehouse (HERE) and is a rather fab pair of pink leather brogues. They come in a more neutral shade also but something about the colour and style of these are drawing me to them. I've always liked brogues but they tend to look a bit clown-like on you unless you have tiny feet so these may be a bit hit or miss. Cute though.

3 & 4 are really the same bag so I wouldn't be getting both but I can't decide which I love more. You can find them both HERE in the bag section on Accessorize. I've actually seen the camera bag in real life and almost bought it until himself told me flat out that a) I would never wear it and b) it would go with nothing. Like a damn fool I listened to him and now I have non-buyers remorse. It's actually ridiculously cute in real life but in fairness to him there is the fear that you could look like you're a small child who really wants a camera but is being placated by being given a fake one instead, lest she'd break a real one. So there's that. The cassette bag is also beyond adorable. Look at it there- first of all, I come from a generation that actually had to use tapes so this would be more nicely nostalgic for me rather than ironic, as I'm sure it is for the youth of today *shakes cane*. 

Secondly, if there's anything I love it's 80's hits and thirdly, I can't resist anything vaguely kitsch and that has it in spades. 

I'll probably carry on ruminating over it but do let me know which one you prefer!

You may have spotted that the entire Charlotte Tilbury (make up artist extraordinaire) collection has landed in Brown Thomas Dublin and I'm feverish with the need to get my grubby paws on EVERYTHING. Yes, I said everything. The eyeshadow palettes, blushers, contour set, lipsticks, foundation, my god they just all look incredible. I've been trying out a sample of the magic cream (review HERE) and based on that I have high expectations for everything else. Plus, look at that packaging. Swoon.

What's that? "Be cool honey bunny"? No, I think decidedly not. In fact I think I'll get overly excited instead because that there on the right is the latest collection from Urban Decay based on one of the coolest films ever, Pulp Fiction. Obviously the focus is on Mrs Mia Wallace (who I love so much I dressed up as her earlier this year for a 90's themed party) so I'm going to be all over that eyeshadow palette and red lipstick. I already own and love Chanel's Rouge Noir so the nail polish holds no lure for me and I'm not one for a glittery eyeliner so I actually have already justified the purchase of just the two pieces I want. I mean, they're just too cool not to get them. 

Lastly, on to books because god knows, there's always a book wish list on the go with me. I'm a big fan of Irish author Tana French, I've read all of her books to date and can't wait to get my hands on her latest, which has yet to be released. The Secret Place is her fifth novel focusing on the fictional Dublin murder squad (they're all stand alone books though so you don't have to have read the other four to read this one) and this time the detectives are investigating a cold case of a murdered teenager after a photo of him with the caption "I know who killed him" mysteriously shows up on a notice board in a boarding school for girls. Intrigued? Me too! It's out September the 2nd.

Not that kind of girl is a collection of personal essays from creator/producer, writer, actress and all round cool feminist Lena Dunham about what she's learnt so far from life. It's received some great pre-release reviews and as a big fan of Girls and Dunham in general, I really can't wait for this to come out; in fact it feels like I've been waiting all year for it so let's hope I haven't built it up too much for myself! It's out September 30th.

I also really like Colm Toibin and his new novel, Nora Webster looks like it may well be in-keeping with his previous excellent form. The book is about Nora, widowed at only forty with four children. On her own in a stiflingly small community in Wexford, she struggles not to drown in her own sorrow but being strong willed begins to find solace in an old love; singing. Toibin tends to write really beautiful prose and I love the old Ireland settings of his books and engaging female characters. This one is out on October the 7th.

And that's the lot…for the moment at least.

Any of these making your own wish list? What have you currently got your eye on? Come, share in the comments and we can all commiserate with each other/enable to purchase!

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Cornwall & Devon

There's been a definite chill in the air the last few days and I've had to start using my quilt again so before we bid farewell to Summer for another year, I'm going to do some holiday reminiscing. A couple of months ago now we went on a driving holiday around Cornwall and Devon (I recently did a post on the fashion museum in Bath that was part of that trip, you can read about that HERE). This is an absolutely stunning part of the world; beautiful coastal scenery, moors, lush green countryside and fresh clean air. Also, much ice cream and cornish Ale. It was gorgeously sunny and warm the whole time we were there, we were very lucky indeed!  

I'm just going to bombard you with photos here cause the place kind of speaks for itself. 

That's what I'm looking at in the first picture!

Dartmoor

Heat wave on St Ives beach with my kindle and a Pimms. Good times.

This is the Minnock Theatre, it's built into the coast at pretty much the very bottom of the country. We went to see a production of Sleeping beauty, which was surprisingly entertaining, although the surroundings certainly helped!

The play at dusk.

Cycling tour!

ALL the deliciousness.

We finished up in Bristol, which is a very cool city. We managed to spot a few real life Banksy's (woohoo!) and did all the touristy things including the SS Great Britain (big mad ship, way too many photo of that to put up here!).

Sun setting in the main square in Bristol. Lovely.

We also visited the Eden Project, which is worthy of it's own post so I'm going to leave that out of here for the moment!

Not to sound too much like a hairdresser but been anywhere nice on your holidays recently?!

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