Review "The Mister" - E L James (Ro/En)

Recunosc că am citit cu o plăcere vinovată seria Fifty Shades of Grey. Sunt o romantică incurabilă și dincolo de calitățile sau defectele scrierii lui E L James, am ales să mă bucur de povestea dintre pagini. Poate chiar modul ei clișeic și siropos e cel care m-a captivat, nu știu; însă decât să îmi schimb părerea cu o recitire a volumelor din serie, mai bine mă las în continuare păcălită și citesc noul roman semnat E L James.

„The Mister” a fost o curiozitate prea mare, poate tocmai din cauza numelui de pe copertă și implicit prezentarea frumoasă a cărții. Ce altă strategie mai bună decât asta? Dar chiar și așa o poveste de dragoste este pur și simplu prea ispititoare și pentru că nu m-am mai pierdut de ceva vreme într-un cadru asemănător, m-am afundat în lectură. „The Mister” e o lamă cu două tăișuri, căci linia dintre like și dislike este fină, iar romanul este un pachet de impresii confuze.

Autoarea a centrat acțiunea în peisajele Angliei - Londra și rusticul Cornwall - și ale Albaniei. Combinația este una fermecătoare dar și presărată cu imagini tulburătoare. Ideea cărții lasă loc misterului și suspansului, însă construcția dă liber unei nerăbdări și frustrări. Iubirea ce se va lega între Maxim Trevelyan și Alessia Demachi este instantă, acea vrajă care te leagă la cap și îți bântuie visele. Maxim este un cuceritor, care nu a fost nevoit să muncească o zi din viața lui datorită statutului familiei, însă odată cu moartea fratelui mai mare, responsabilitățile îi revin lui și este noul conte de Trevethick. Alessia a îndurat clipe de groază și o călătorie din Albania la Londra care îi provoacă vise negre. Nu se lasă doborâtă însă și lucrează ca menajeră, îngrijindu-se și de apartamentul lui Maxim. Cât timp stăpânul casei este plecat, își bucură sufletul cântând la pianul ce domină sufrageria și se îmbată cu gânduri despre bărbatul frumos.

O poveste ușor desprinsă din Cinderella, Alessia și Maxim sunt acele personaje cărora viața le este schimbată de dragoste. Însă ca de fiecare dată, bula lor de fericire este spartă de evenimente neașteptate care o pun în pericol în principal pe Alessia. Traiul și gândirea părinților ei au modelat-o diferit față de Maxim, iar aventura ei în Anglia se poate încheia oricând tragic. Ca un cavaler pe cal alb, Maxim va înfrunta pe oricine îi stă în cale pentru a o avea pe Alessia cu el, dar vor reuși să aibă parte de finalul fericit?

E L James s-a jucat cu multe elemente de suspans, dar de cele mai multe ori starea mi-am construit-o singură, pentru că din variantele pe care le întrevedeam nu s-a formulat niciuna întocmai sau dacă s-a instalat un șoc, acesta a fost slab în intensitate. Este împletit poate prea mult mister și puțin ales să fie dezvăluit, în timp ce punctul culminant este prea blând. Sunt momente de cotitură care par a se fi terminat înainte de a fi început cu adevărat, iar acțiunea e grăbită sau uneori prea lentă.

Nu spun că nu m-am bucurat de intriga care îmbină surpriză, pasiune, erotism - deși nu foarte febril, căci s-a integrat bine într-o poveste care nu are mesaje ascunse și e lectura potrivită pentru o zi lipsită de alte activități. O încadrez în lista plăcerilor vinovate și chiar dacă mă așteptam în unele momente la mai mult, „The Mister” nu e o dezamăgire totală; mi-a înseninat chipul și lipit câteva zâmbete, deci nu e lucru de neglijat. Și cine știe, poate E L James mai are și alte surprize (dacă alegeți să citiți cartea, veți afla la finalul ei de ce).

O lectură de ⭐⭐⭐☆ (3,5/5)

Description

London, 2019. Life has been easy for Maxim Trevelyan. With his good looks, aristocratic connections, and money, he’s never had to work and he’s rarely slept alone. But all that changes when tragedy strikes and Maxim inherits his family’s noble title, wealth, and estates, and all the responsibility that entails. It’s a role he’s not prepared for and one that he struggles to face.

But his biggest challenge is fighting his desire for an unexpected, enigmatic young woman who’s recently arrived in England, possessing little more than a dangerous and troublesome past.  Reticent, beautiful, and musically gifted, she’s an alluring mystery, and Maxim’s longing for her deepens into a passion that he’s never experienced and dares not name. Just who is Alessia Demachi? Can Maxim protect her from the malevolence that threatens her? And what will she do when she learns that he’s been hiding secrets of his own?

From the heart of London through wild, rural Cornwall to the bleak, forbidding beauty of the Balkans, The Mister is a roller-coaster ride of danger and desire that leaves the reader breathless to the very last page.

(Goodreads)

Let the debate begin.

I admit, guilty as charged, I pretty much loved Fifty Shades of Grey. Maybe because it was one of the first series of its kind that I’ve read or because I’m just such a hopeless romantic, I don’t know. What’s to say is that E L James, with all her writing flaws or skills, succeeded in more ways than one to intrigue the reader. The trilogy will forever make some waves, but the story in its depth has many scenes that still vibrate in my mind, and not because of the BDSM approach, or the sex, those are no longer a surprise and I’ve encountered better genre books, but because of the characters that, beyond my understanding, managed to fascinate me, and the super cliché story that actually did surprise and thrill me. Maybe now, after a long list of books added to my experience, similar or not with Fifty Shades of Grey, another read will reveal many eye-roll and are-you-kidding-me moments, but I’m not going to spoil my one of many guilty pleasures, so what I did is hop on another E L James hot, naughty, thrilling book.

The Mister came with a high dose of curiosity and intrigue, because one obviously cannot resist when this author’s name stands on this pretty cover. And this is an excellent marketing strategy. Aside those, the promise of a love story is just too tantalizing for me and because it has been some time since I’ve lost myself in a story such as this, I fell hard into it. But the feelings can be deceiving and it’s a fine line between like and dislike, and The Mister is a confusing package.

E L James places the action in London and all is dandy until the key characters and plot elements start to fuse together a story that jumps through a lot of scenes fueled with a mystery that in the end shows itself frustrating and not helpful, maybe a bit too complicated and scarcely revealed. The writing was supposed to keep you in suspense, and all the tidbits from the characters’ lives reason to keep reading until the moment of truth. But that’s just it, that beautiful suspense I mostly built it up myself with thoughts of some shocking turn of events, because the author chose to leave me hanging most of the story and when the action needed that boom, she laid it embarrassingly gently. Although the composition is lacking here and there, the love story did put a silly smile on my face, because I’m that cheesy and a Cinderella-like love story makes me joyful. Knowing how the author’s previous story evolved, The Mister seemed sometimes rushed or too slow, and I’m not going to tell anything about the ending and the feel that it left behind, but there was a lot of information without a visible link, like too many puzzle pieces that had no fitting place but tricking you to believe something. It seemed to me that E L James wanted to play with my patience and devotion and handed me one book with many secrets.

To start with the plot place setting, it’s both enthralling and brutal. The landscapes change from noisy London, to rural Cornwall, to a trip to Albania. The combination is an interesting one, feeling the different vibes – the chilly weather of England versus the bone-chilling living, mentality and tradition of Albanian people (that to be said written in the author’s vision). Maxim Trevelyan is a playboy, charming women left and right, not a night spent alone in his bed. His family legacy and upbringing let him work not a day in his life, but still he enjoyed some modeling, photography, music and DJ-ing from time to time. That is until his older brother dies and his attributions are now Maxim’s responsibility. He is the new Earl of Trevethick. Maxim’s brother fatal accident was a shock for the family, yet posing some turbulent thoughts. Add to that the grieving widow, Caroline, who is also Maxim’s best friend, one romp in the sheets between them two that can’t be excused by grief, and a daily (cleaner, maid) that haunts Maxim’s dreams.

Alessia Demachi, try as she may, can’t take her eyes off the handsome man that is the Mister for whom she works. She cleans his beautiful apartment, irons his clothes and when he leaves, plays the piano that dominates the living-room. When the Mister takes notice of her, conflicting feelings burn her. She wants him, but her shyness is more than that, a fear that doesn’t let her loose. She came to London, enduring a horrific travel from her home in Albania, to have a better life, to escape, but will she?

This is one example of insta-love, that spell that plays with your mind and changes you. Maxim is spellbound by Alessia’s innocence and talent and beauty. When danger comes knocking at his door, he is her knight in shining armor, so to speak, and he whisks her away to safety, not understanding himself why going to all this trouble for his daily. Spending time together at one of his houses in Cornwall, things get heated, love blooms, stories are told but as some secrets are revealed and dealt with, some are still looming like a bad omen. Their happy bubble is about to be burst though, as it’s to be expected, but will Maxim be able to rescue Alessia once more, face her Albanian old ways of life without insulting her family and live happily ever after together?

I wish that E L James played the Earl card more, twist some elements of historical romance in between; I don’t know how, but since I’m quite fascinated with that genre and she made her character a Lord, invited me in the land of mansions and whatnot, the story could’ve been more dynamic and not centered only on discovering one’s sexuality, as in the chapters when Maxim and Alessia are cooped up at Cornwall, all they do is talk, eat, make love and sleep. The scenes are not overly erotic; they are cute, sweet, kind of funny. The story revolves mostly around Alessia’s life and her journey to and fro through Europe shadowed by danger. The suspense is present, but the buildup is slow, leading to impatience. Not to say that when the time comes for the action to take a turn for the unpredictable, the scenes aren’t a surprise, because the author plants some violent situations and abusive behaviors. What those scenes lack, is momentum; they end before the show starts, or so it seemed to me.

All in all I stuck to the story and I enjoyed it, not loved it; but it grows on you once you accept that is just a book that has no hidden messages and it’s fit for a relaxing reading day. It put a silly smile on my face and for that I chose to ignore all the less positive parts. E L James is not an extraordinary writer, but The Mister makes a pretty writing. It has its moments of surprise, thrill, passion, joy and fear, it keeps you guessing and maybe eager for more.