Novel Nerds *

Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Genre: Crime/ Thriller

My rating: 5*

My summary:  A disgraced journalist is called in to privately investigate the unsolved disappearance of Harriet Vanger. She’s been missing for fourty years and everyone but her old uncle Henrik Vanger has given up hope of ever finding out what happened to her. The journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, has to delve into the Vanger family’s history; a powerful old family with a lot to hide. He can’t do it all alone though and brings in a highly skilled but dangerous researcher to aid his investigation. As Blomkvist gets closer to the truth, it seems the killer will do anything to stop him from uncovering what really happened fourty years ago and what has been going on for decades.

My review:

I don’t even know where to begin. This was so amazing, amazing, amazing!!!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a series of three- the following two I have yet to read- by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. The beauty of these books are the fact that they are pretty much in the form that Larsson handed the manuscripts over to the publishing company who bought the books but Larsson sadly died before the editing process began. Truthfully, for me, I don’t think much needed work because this was such a brilliant novel! It’s completely insane but all the more better for it.

I haven’t read such a good crime/thriller novel in a while. It took me a few chapters to get into the story but once I was, I found myself as engrossed as Mikael Blomkvist was in trying to figure out what had happened to the vanished Harriet Vanger from the 60’s. This book kept me hooked and on my toes; all my suspicions on the one responsible for Harriet’s disappearance were totally wrong. The Vanger family itself have some seriously disgusting secrets. It’s insane what humans are capable of.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is Lisbeth Salander who is so bad-ass, awesome, antisocial and frightening. She can be seen as slightly nuts but I thought her character was brilliant. The thing about this book was that the characters were really well developed and had a lot more to them. Often, we get pretty pictures of characters and ideas of what people should be like. But when you delve beneath the surface, the truth is far from it.

Anybody itching for a great crime novel should definitely read this! The suspense will keep you glued to the pages. Not only is it interesting with its unpredictable twists and turns but it’s entertaining right to the end. This was just such a great read!

Book Review: Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson

‘As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me …’ Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love - all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may only be telling you half the story. Welcome to Christine’s life.

Before I Go To Sleep is narrated by Christine Lucas. She awakes every morning to find she has no memories past her childhood sometimes her early twenties if she’s lucky. She gets the help of a doctor and starts writing a journal to help her remember things. Fortunately it does help but she begins to discover horrible truths about her life which leads to disastrous consequences. 

*WARNING* CONTAINS SPOILERS

I found myself getting slightly frustrated whilst reading this, I was actually tempted to skip to the end quite a few times. It didn’t help that the author Steve kind of gives away the ending. “Don’t trust Ben” I mean WTF! How about adding that to the middle or something?! I love reading suspense/crime/mystery novels for the guess work and you get to come up with your own assumptions.

However, I liked the premise of the book and that the narrator is Christine because it made the book very interesting, especially because she believes what Ben tells her and has to rediscover everything again and again everyday. I did get slightly annoyed when she would doubt her own memories and let Ben and Dr Nash tell her she was making them up. I found all the parts about psychology and neuroscience interesting mainly because I understood what Dr Nash was talking about. At the mention of episodic memory, fMRI, etc I got excited, being a psychology undergrad and all.

I loved the ending! It was the best part, finding out everything that happened and all the action was brilliant; even though I’d guessed as much way before. 

So i’ve mentioned this in a post earlier but this “NOT THE END” business at the end of the book. What does this mean? Will there be a sequel? If so do you think Mike is still alive? Also this is being made into a film so I’m excited to watch it when it does eventually come out. I wonder who they’ll pick for Christine. Who would you like to play her?

I’ve rated this book 4/5. If you liked this book you should read Sister by Rosamund Lupton and Room by Emma Donoghue.