Saturday, June 20, 2015

Review Slap Stack! The Hellions of High Street Series *Hellions not Harlots, although that would also make a catchy name...

Disclaimer *Review Slap is my personal opinion, I have received no compensation whatsoever in posting this review. Also title of post may fudge the actual title in discussion.*

 Scandalously Yours (Book 1)
 Sinfully Yours (Book 2)
 Passionately Yours (Book 3)
 by Cara Elliott
 On sale now
 Adult romance


  The Sloane sisters are a family of Polite Society. They attend balls and are pressured to marry up by their mother like most young women their age. These sister's each bare a secret that could not only ruin their reputation, but also the family name; each of them write and publish themselves with a man's name! (Le gasp!) Each book focuses on each sister in turn and follows her exploits on trying to lead a perfect life in the 1800s England while trying to be true to herself, and whatnot, but also hide the self that's real. Then they all try to not feel sexy urges, too. Cause you know if you want to kiss a dude your a total slut by 17th century English standards.

cover(s)




The Bad- If you have read one book of the series, you really have read them all. The only difference would be the character names. I read these books back to back and man I was feeling deja vu. It was cut and paste the same! It's like the author had a check list that she kept following while writing the series.

1) Sloane sister meets a guy that is higher up in English society and gets on her nerves yet cannot help but be attracted to him. Check
2) Dude pov shows that he is also equally annoyed by Sloane sister but whenever he thinks of her his pants get a little tight. Check
3) Guy finds out that the heroine is really the uber popular Society Issue Critic/Racy Romance Novelist/Poetry writer. Check
4) While succumbing to their passions the guy notices how pink the inside of the girls ear is and that's hot. Check
5) Offers to marry girl right after they bang cause he ruined her. Only to be rejected by girl for making such an offer. (Even though it's the 1800s and back then that's a good deal for a chick.) Check.
6) Some plot happens where there's running to catch the bad guy. Check
7) And they get hitched. Checky Check flipin' CHECK!

Whew! So I guess you have read the series if you read the checklist; your welcome.

  Now this is where I am gonna get serious. Throughout the series the sisters all recount how their late father documented various cultures and thus they had a 'different' upbringing, thus explaining their undercover careers that no normal lady would pursue.

  The reader learns things like how their father studied primitive cultures by visiting the tribes-people of Crete. This sentence sums up the series in this topic. I could go into more detail but that would make this review very long, and these books are simply not worth the time.

  Keywords: Primitive, culture, tribes-people and Crete

  Now let me precede in ripping it apart. I have graduated college with a BA in Anthropology. So I have based my academic career in studying culture's, human/primate behavior, forensic's and much more!

Primitive:
 That being said I do hope that the author was trying to make the main heroine's come off as snobby racist English girls because that's how it come out to me. First off, no culture should be considered 'primitive' for reasons being, when one thinks of the word 'primitive' you tend think 'simple' and/or 'dumb'. This is insulting because you wouldn't walk out of your air conditioned house, go up to a camp ground and tell people who are camping that they are 'primitive'. You would not also say to them, "You are so stupid, you could be sleeping in an air-conditioned house but instead you are sleeping outside like a pig."
 This is exactly what you are saying when you call another person's way of life 'primitive'. There are tribes in existence at this very moment. They are not stupid people. The environment they live in either calls for that particular lifestyle or it just works for them. It would not be economical to have cars in the middle of a desert with no roads would it? Or what about the Amish? It's not because they don't know better, it's just that's how they choose to live.



Tribes-people:
 In the first book, Scandalously Yours the main character says something to the effect of,  'the tribes people half were related to half of the island' (NOT a direct quote!). Let's define tribe- a group of nomads (travelers, never 'settle') numbering 20-50 people. I don't believe the author knows what a tribe is because if these people where in fact a tribe, they wouldn't be related to half the island. Unless there were two tribes. One would wonder, why would one be a nomad on an island? Well it's possible, it would depend on how big the island is. After all nomads go where the food is, so to speak. So how big is this island?

Crete:
  Well I will tell you! It's much smaller than Japan! Wanna guess where Crete is? Remember the setting is 1800s Europe! So where would 'primitive' people be? Africa of course!~

Wrong! :) Crete is an island off of Greece!

Whaaaaaa?! Greece? But there's like people there that are so not 'primitive'..........
Yes ladies and gentlemen Crete is the biggest island off Greece and has been considered the place where all the smart peeps go. In fact Crete has been regarded as the 'place to be' for over thousands of years! Ottoman empire- idea started in Crete. Venice, Italy lifestyle = Crete. Greece universities = CRETE.

 So I'm sure ya'll are thinking, 'But wait, if it's the 1800s wouldn't there NOT be any tribes in Greece? I mean their not known for tribes or 'primitive' culture. Also weren't the Brits heavily influenced by Greece?'

  And the answer is YES!
This makes no sense! I think I could have maybe looked over the author writing the norm ignorance of culture's had she not made it Crete. I mean it's really hard to get into the story when you have such a gaping plot hole.......

I mean come on Cara Elliott! You could have googled 'Crete' and been like 'Oh snap, I guess this the one place NOT to set a fictional primitive culture!'.  



The Good- Yeah that ship has sailed, then swallowed up by the plot hole.....



The Book- So if you only have a grasp of culture from from the 1800s, NEVER google things and are looking for a cut and paste read that screams "give me your money for little of my effort!" then The Hellions of High Street series is for you! :D



You may buy the whole series at your local Wal-Mart for $8 a pop!
So what are you waiting for? Go out and buy them all today!
Happy Reading!