Book Review | Book Chatter

The Girl Who Played With Fire
By Stieg Larsson
Knopf Doubleday
June 2009
512pp

The blurb from the publisher:

The electrifying follow-up to the phenomenal best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and this time it is Lisbeth Salander, the troubled, wise-beyond-her-years genius hacker, who is the focus and fierce heart of the story.

Mikael Blomkvist—crusading journalist and publisher of the magazine Millennium—has decided to publish a story exposing an extensive sex trafficking operation between Eastern Europe and Sweden, implicating well-known and highly placed members of Swedish society, business, and government.

On the eve of publication, the two reporters responsible for the story are brutally murdered. But perhaps more shocking for Blomkvist: the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to Lisbeth Salander.

The Short of It:

After reading The Girl Who Played with Fire you’ll need a nice manicure as it’s quite a nail biter! Tense at times with a very quick pace, this one will keep you on your toes.

The Rest of It:

This is book #2 in the Millennium series and after reading and reviewing The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I knew I had to pick this one up quickly and that’s exactly what I did. Those that love the character of Lisbeth Salander will be happy to know that book #2 focuses on her and her story but when two journalists are murdered and Lisbeth is the prime suspect, she goes missing for quite a while and in fact, is not in a large portion of the book! I know! Scandalous!

As law enforcement gathers the evidence, Mikael Blomkvist and his staff at Millennium, try to put their own case together to find the real killer. As they conduct their investigation, additional details surface and the reader is given a very private glimpse into Salandar’s life. To be honest with you, I found myself frustrated with this portion of the story. I wanted to know what happened but it seemed as if so much time was spent on the forensic stuff. Yeah, I know that you sort of have to do that to solve a case but in the mean time, Salander is missing and you just want to know where she is and if she did it.

I was also slightly annoyed with the whole Giant thing. There is a Giant. A big, huge guy that is impervious to pain. It reminded me of that movie from the late 70’s, Foul Play. You know the one. It has Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn (good movie by the way). In that movie, she references a dwarf and she is given the warning “beware of the dwarf.” This was sort of like that. BEWARE OF THE GIANT LISBETH! I tired of the Giant.

We also get to know Mikael Blomkvist a little better but he is still the man with all the women! How he manages to bed these women and then remain friends with them afterward is beyond me. In real life I wouldn’t think too highly of someone like him, but for some reason he comes across as ‘okay’ in the novel, sort of an “Everyman” character which is really sad if you think about it.

However, even though I had some nit-picky moments with this one, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. It took off right out of the gate and kept going and it didn’t disappoint in the end. It all came together and left me feeling completely wrung-out and incredibly anxious for the next book. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest is not available here in the U.S. but you can get it from The Book Depository and they have free shipping worldwide! However, they are now out of stock on the paperback so I will have to check back later.

Source: Purchased

The Return
By Victoria Hislop
HarperCollins
October 2009
404pp

The blurb from the publisher:

Sonia knows nothing of Granada’s shocking past, but ordering a simple cup of coffee in a quiet café will lead her into the extraordinary tale of a family’s fight to survive the horror of the Spanish Civil War.

Seventy years earlier, in the Ramírez family’s café, Concha and Pablo’s children relish an atmosphere of hope. Antonio is a serious young teacher, Ignacio a flamboyant matador, and Emilio a skilled musician. Their sister, Mercedes, is a spirited girl whose sole passion is dancing, until she meets Javier and an obsessive love affair begins. But Spain is a country in turmoil. In the heat of civil war, everyone must take a side and choose whether to submit, to fight, or to attempt escape.

The Short of It:

Passionate, lyrical and teeming with life…The Return is a love story like no other.

The Rest of It:

I fell in love with this book! I picked it up and had absolutely no idea what to expect when I opened its cover. What I found inside was a beautiful story about love and a heated battle to protect one’s country. This is a story within a story and alternates between Sonia’s story, which takes place in 2001 and the story of the Ramirez family that takes place between 1931-1936 and includes the Spanish Civil War.

The story opens with Sonia and her close friend Maggie’s trip to Granada. There, they enjoy the local color and Sonia realizes that her love of dancing is really a thirst that cannot be quenched. Sonia also realizes that her marriage is falling apart yet she isn’t quite ready to admit it. She wanders into a café and meets Miguel, a kind waiter that begins to tell her about Granada and the history of the Ramirez family. Upon her return home, Sonia enrolls in a dance class. A dance class that her husband James sees as an intrusion upon their marriage. He lets his relationship with a bottle dictate what happens next and before you know it, Sonia is headed back to Grenada to visit her friend Maggie who has decided to live there permanently.

Upon her return to Spain, Sonia’s love of dance continues to grow. The fiery passion of flamenco pulls her in and she gives into the rhythmic stomping of feet and the clapping of hands. As the music falls upon her, and her feet take over, she finds her true self and begins to truly appreciate the culture around her. As she sorts through her thoughts, she goes back to the café to see Miguel and to learn more about the Ramirez family. Miguel is a natural storyteller, and regales Sonia with the story of Mercedes and her family. What she discovers changes her life forever.

I highly recommend this book! Victoria Hislop takes a period of history that I knew very little about and creates a sweeping tale that’s left quite an impression on me. So much so, that I have been reading up on the Spanish Civil War. It’s THAT kind of book! Once it ends, you want the adventure to continue. This would make a wonderful book club selection and actually with Christmas around the corner a copy of this book along with a flamenco CD would be a great gift idea.