The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Picking up where The Girl Who Played with Fire left off, Larsson’s third novel blows it right out of the water.  A gravely injured Lisbeth Salander slowly recuperates in hospital while Mikael Blomkvist searches for the truth behind a government conspiracy buried within Sweden’s Security Police.  A small, elite group of SIS officers formed a secret agency in the 60s to deal with spies and stumbled across the Russian defector Alexander Zalachenko.  Zalachenko, who worked for Russia’s GRU (similar to KGB) sold information in return for absolute immunity, including freedom to commit crimes against the citizens of Sweden.  As a result Zalachenko’s daughter, Lisbeth Salander, was grossly denied her civil rights and locked up in a psychiatric hospital at the age of twelve for fear she would leak the truth of Zalachenko’s existence.  Now in her 20s and still a ward of the state, Lisbeth faces re-incarceration in a mental ward by those who still protect Zalachenko and must fight to regain her life and freedom.

 

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is the very best of spy novels, with so many intricate twists and turns and revelations, it will keep you turning the pages until the very end.  Larsson is a master storyteller who has polished off his trilogy with his best writing yet. 

 

Till next time, happy reading,

L J

 

 

TBR = 4

WPL = 9

L Reads New CanLit for February

Jeff Lemeire’s graphic novel trilogy, Essex County, is true down home reading.  Lemeire’s hometown of Woodslee ON, located in the heart of Essex County, is the backdrop for this tale of rural family life.

 

In Tales from the Farm, young Lester lives with his uncle Ken on a farm in Essex County, ON.  His mother has recently died and he does not know who is father is.  Lester spends his days feeding the chickens, reading comic books and playing down at the creek.  He is befriended by Jimmy LeBeuf, a one-time NHL hockey player who took a hit in his first major league game and is now “a little slow” as a result.  Jimmy runs the local Esso and is kind to Lester when he badly needs a friend.

 

Ghost Stories is the tale of two brothers who share a dream to move to the big city (Toronto) and play major league hockey.  Vince has all the talent, but yearns for quite days on the farm with his best girl Beth.  Lou busts out his knee in the minor leagues, falls for his brothers girlfriend, and lives out a lonely existence as a TTC driver in Toronto. 

 

Rounding out the trilogy is The Country Nurse, a woman who makes house calls to the neighbouring farmers, repairs family rifts and has her own unique ancestry. 

 

Lemeire’s Essex County trilogy is a beautifully written and illustrated graphic novel filled with community, family, grief and reconciliation.  Jeff Lemeire writes for every kid who grew up in rural Ontario.  Essex County is truly a delight.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L J

 

Update on the WPL vs TBR challenge

 

Well gentle readers, it appears I have a conundrum to solve.  The Essex County trilogy was published in three separate volumes, and I had to sign each of them out from the library individually.  So, would you count this as one (1) WPL book or three (3)?  The librarian in me says three, since they were individually catalogued and barcoded.  But man, that really skews my stats!!  I’m now four TBRs behind.  Boo. L 

 

TBR = 4

WPL = 8

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson knocked another one out of the ball park with his second novel and follow-up to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Kiss-ass girl power is back in the form of Lisbeth Salander, who finds herself framed for a triple murder.  Her lurid past dragged out in the press, her few friends targeted and beaten by very bad criminals, who can she turn to for help?  Friend and journalist Mikael Blomkvist staunchly defends Lisbeth’s innocence and will not rest until the truth and real killer are discovered. 

 

Once again Larsson draws you in to his wonderfully written web of plot twists and turns that will keep you captivated to the very end, and leave you wanting more.  I am now dying to read the third book, yet so very sad it’s his last one.  (For those unaware, Stieg Larsson died shortly after handing in three complete novels to his publisher).

 

I do have one criticism of Larsson’s work, and I’m left to wonder, had he lived through the editing process, would the flaws have been polished before the books were printed?  The first two books have started off incredibly slowly for me, but once I got past the first 50 – 100 pages, the story completely grabbed me and didn’t shake me loose until the final page was turned.  As I don’t normally read books of this genre, I found the reading went easier after first watching the movies, and even knowing how they ended, I was nonetheless completely enthralled with the books, so much so that I literally couldn’t put them down until finished. 

 

I highly recommend both The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its follow-up The Girl Who Played With Fire as they were excellent, but unless you normally read books of this ilk, watch the movies first, it will enhance your reading enjoyment to no end.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L J

 

 

 

TBR = 4

WPL = 5

Listen up, you wanker!

Yup, you read that right.  I have spent the week immersed in Dawn French’s A Tiny Bit Marvellous, and now I can pepper my speech with the best of British slang.  It’s a total cock-up!  So, you twatty wonk, here’s what I think about this book:

 

First, it’s not minging, in case you were worried. Second, it didn’t quite blow me away as I had hoped.  Dawn French is a British comedienne who has worked alongside Jennifer Saunders (of Absolutely Fabulous) in the hit show Saunders & French and has many TV, theatre and film credits to her name.  She’s bloody hilarious and I expected much of the book, especially since, when I picked it up at the library and read the first couple of lines I nearly laughed out loud.  Unfortunately, the rest of the book didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

 

The novel is written in a series of journal entries by three different people.  There is Mo, nearing her 50^th birthday, married and the mother of two teenagers: Dora aged 17 and Oscar aged 15.  While dad is basically the supportive glue that keeps this dysfunctional family together, he only gets one chapter or journal entry to give voice to his character.  The rest of the book is taken up by Mo and the kids.

 

Dora is a typical teenager, finishing up high school and unsure what she wants for the future.  She suffers from the usual teenage angst: poor self image, boy trouble and a love-hate relationship with the ole Mater.

 

Oscar, christened Peter, believes he is channeling the spirit of Oscar Wilde, and insists everyone call him Oscar.  He is enchanting, fashion conscious and very definitely gay.  His story is a real treat to read.

 

Mo, a child psychologist, is going through a mid-life crises while attempting to deal with her daughter’s tantrums, her son’s peculiarities, and the interest of a much younger male colleague at work.

 

The book is an interesting read, filled with wonderfully quirky British characters, but it never really seems to build or go anywhere.  Other than the rather weak family conflict there is really no actual story going on.  It was just a series of stream of consciousness jottings by three distinctly unique characters.  Plus a lot of British slang.  So A Tiny Bit Marvellous turned out to be a tiny bit disappointing for me. 

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L :)

 

TBR = 4

WPL =4

L Returns to the TBR Bookcase

Tomson Highway’s beautifully written novel Kiss of the Fur Queen is delightfully bizarre and mystical, tender and heartbreaking.  It begins in 1951, when caribou hunter Andrew Okimasis wins the World Championship Dog Derby, is kissed by the Fur Queen, arrives home in triumph and nine months later welcomes baby boy Champion (Jeremiah) Okimasis.  Two years later, the caribou hunter’s wife gives birth to their twelfth child, Gabriel.  The young Cree brothers grow up on Mistik Lake in Northern Manitoba, where at the age of seven, children are flown south to Birch Lake Residential School, run by the Jesuits.  Anyone aware of Canadian history will know sexual abuse was rampant at these schools.  Tomson Highway himself was born on an Indian reserve and sent to a Residential school.  He knows firsthand what went on there.  His book does not sugarcoat this knowledge.

 

Jeremiah and Gabriel are two incredibly gifted boys.  Jeremiah’s musical talent leads him to a career as the first Indian pianist while Gabriel dances his way to cities around the world.  Both must deal with the abuses suffered at the Residential School in their own unique ways.  Jeremiah by suppressing it, which leads to a life half-lived, drowning in alcohol, and Gabriel by embracing his sexual proclivities which leads to disease.  Neither is able to overcome the past, but for Jeremiah, after years of struggle, there is hope in catharsis through his art.

 

Worse than the sexual abuse, though, seems to be the loss of culture, of language, of religion that alienates these boys from both their own people and the white man’s world.  The Cree in Northern Manitoba have been forced to embrace Roman Catholicism and their myths and shamans deemed evil, never to be spoken of.  At the Residential School, Cree is forbidden, and so the boys struggle to walk in both worlds, never truly fitting in.  It’s a horrific account of the alienation of an entire generation of native peoples, with consequences that continue to trickle down through the years.

 

Kiss of the Fur Queen in an enchanting book filled with myth, sorcery, heartbreak and the essence of humanity.  It is a book I wholeheartedly recommend.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L :)

 

TBR = 4

WPL = 3

L Reads a Page-Turner

I must be one of the last people in the known universe to finally read Stieg Larsson’s acclaimed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Everywhere I go, people are talking about this book and the movie.  Some months ago I watched the movie and blogged about it.  I found the movie riveting and immensely enjoyable.  It was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. 

 

Having now finally gotten around to reading the book, I can confidently say the same about it.  OMFG this book is a totally awesome read!!!  Seriously if you haven’t read this book, put down the book you’re currently reading and go out and get it.  It won’t disappoint! 

 

As I progressed through the story, I was fascinated to discover how close the movie was to the book but despite already knowing the denouement, I simply could not put the book down.  Larsson has an easy way with words that will draw you in and keep you enthralled as the story progresses from one revelation to another and just when you think you’ve reached the end, he’s got another surprise in store in the next chapter.

 

The characters are intriguing and fascinatingly portrayed and the story of the 30+ year old disappearance of sixteen year old Harriet Vanger is wonderfully complex and never tiring.  Having turned the final page, I am left wanting more.  More Larsson, and even more Lisbeth Salander, a most intriguing heroine with a dark, mysterious past I can only hope is further revealed in the next two books.

 

If you like crime novels and mystery novels you will love The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  It completely lives up to the hype.

 

Till next time, happy reading!

L :)

 

TBR = 3

WPL = 3

Beatrice & Virgil

Henry, following upon the success of his first novel, attempts to sell the idea of a “flip book.”  Not the cartoon-kind, in which each page has a cartoon drawn slightly differently than the page before so that when you flip the pages of the book, it appears to be in motion (a horse galloping for example).  Henry’s flip book will consist of a novel on one side and an essay on the other, both addressing the same subject matter and when you reach the centre of the book, and thereby the end of the novel, the essay will be written upside down, so that you will have to “flip” the book in order to read it.  A novel idea if you’ll pardon the pun.

 

Henry wants to re-imagine the Holocaust.  He wants to write about the Holocaust only represent it differently and when his sales pitch falls on deaf ears, Henry has a crisis of faith, moves out of the country and gives up writing entirely. 

 

Though Henry now spends his days taking music lessons and learning new languages, his pivotal, critically acclaimed first book is still impacting people’s lives and these readers write to him, care of his publisher, who diligently forwards on the mail.  Henry faithfully reads and responds to each letter.  One day, in the mail is an envelope containing pages of an unpublished play about two characters discussing a pear: Beatrice and Virgil.  The playwright, who lives in the same city, encloses a brief note asking for Henry’s help.  Henry decides to hand deliver his response and this is how he comes to meet Henry the taxidermist and playwright.  Together they form an unusual alliance, meeting irregularly to discuss the play and as Henry becomes more and more involved in the taxidermist’s drama, he realizes the playwright has accomplished what he himself failed with his second novel: “he was representing the Holocaust differently.”

 

Pieces of the play are interspersed throughout the novel, and reveal a horror that only Holocaust literature can.  Beatrice and Virgil are a donkey and howler monkey and the play is told from the perspective of the animals, imagining they are being tortured and killed just as sadistically as the Jews during the Holocaust (or the Horrors as Virgil calls it).

 

A truly riveting novel that is not for the faint of heart, Yann Martel, author of the critically acclaimed Life of Pi, has created another masterpiece with Beatrice & Virgil.  This is a book that will linger, long after the final page has been turned.

 

Till next time, happy reading.

L :)