Let me start by saying that although E.L.James captured an explendid beginning in The Mister, but I thought it also felt short for the following reasons:
*It was intense and interesting, but it felt too rushed. Alessia running away from whoever was after her, there weren’t many details described on how she really escaped or what she was escaping from..
*Kept repeating herself a lot, instead of going into details of what was really going on. For example, go go go , run run run, go go go don’t stop. I would of liked to see her giving herself a better pep talk when trying to escape.
*Prologue keeps going from third person to first, which to me it should have been just told from Alessia’s point of view, she was the one experiencing the trauma.
Then, the story takes off with Maxim sleeping with his deceased brother’s wife, which I thought was tacky, since that’s his best friend and his brother had just passed away. I can understand the need for comfort on Caroline’s part, but he should have known better than to go there…To make matters worse, Maxim is your typical manwhore that sleeps with woman after woman.
The story between Maxim and Alessia had no development in my opinion, the one thing that attracted them to one another was music. Alessia has a passion for playing the piano, and Maxim is a guy who DJs and composes music on his piano. He also seemed so unsure of what he really wants in life. He did not want the Earl title, yet he had no other passion or drive other than just music, photography, sleeping with women, and living off his trust fund. Alessia has a passion for the piano, but she wants to be an English teacher? I thought this made no sense! She never expressed any passion throughout the book about wanting to be an English teacher. Both characters were going in circles.
Lets not forget, the fact that E.L.James becomes very famous and known for her Fifty Shades of Grey series where Christian Grey plays the piano. For her to publish a book where both characters are passionate about the piano, it seemed so uncreative on her part in my opinion. I would of liked to see her write about something different. I won’t deny that I enjoyed reading all the scenes with Alessia playing the piano, I found those very captivating and easy to enjoy, Yet i cannot help but feel that E.L.James should have chosen something different to write about.
The language barrier didn't fit with the story at all… there were times where Alessia did not understand words or knew how to say the words like psychology or synesthesia, yet she knew how to use decadent in a sentence?
Being someone that has had to learn the English language as a kid, when learning a new language, you never focus on words that are out of reach, your main focus is on how to communicate with others first.
Overall I give her a 3 star on this book. I love E.L.James’ past work, and I feel terrible giving this rating, but I just could not get into the storyline of the book, I felt Alessia’s and Maxim’s characters did not know what they both wanted from life except each other. There was no character depth at all, their looks and the passion for music seemed to be the one thing that drove them to one another. Which made me as the reader wonder… is it lust?
What i did like about the story and what made it interesting for me, was the way Alessia grew up, because that kind of sexism still exists in many countries today. Also, her being trafficked was interesting as well as being kidnapped by her fiancee. This part of the story actually had my attention and I wanted to read more and more as it neared the end.