The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson ****

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Publisher's Description:

Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman. Larsson died in 2004, shortly after handing in the manuscripts for what will be his legacy. 100,000 first printing. (Sept.)
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I didn't think I'd like this book, so it sat on my bookshelf for about six months before I picked it up. I was very pleasantly surprised. Overall, I think it was a good book. I enjoyed it, and I will most definitely pick up the second (and probably third) book in the series.

I struggled with some of the Swedish names and locations, and often found myself having to pause to figure out which name a "B" character or "H" location was. However, I think that comment can be taken as both a criticism and a compliment. Criticism, because I'm usually a lazy reader. I don't usually want to have to work too hard to keep everything straight as I read. On the flip side, the story was more than good enough too make up for the vocabulary. Reading was very slow going for me, but there were multiple times when I picked it up that an hour would fly by without my notice as I read. I think that says a lot.

I think that it's worth saying that I was on page 250 before the story was past the setup stage and (to me) really kicked in. Again, though, for an 850 page book, I don't think that's unreasonable... especially since I hear that the next two books continue with the story so smoothly, that they could almost have been published as one big (huge) book instead of three.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett *****

My timing isn't very good for starting this reading blog. Summer is my time for gardening and being outside, so I don't read nearly as much. However, right now I'm working on The Help.

The Help

Publisher's Description:

Be prepared to meet three unforgettable women:

Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.

Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.

Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.

Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.

In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women--mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends--view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

I'm not even half way through, but so far it's a really good book. I don't normally like books that are narrated by multiple characters (I find myself getting confused about whose point of view I'm following) but in this case it's working out pretty well. It's easy to become engaged with each of the main characters, as they tell the story of what it's like to be an African-American in the early 1960's, or one of the few Caucasians who recognizes them as individuals with needs, wants and feelings of their own.

I probably shouldn't rate this book until I finish it, but so far I'd say that it's a really good read.

July 9th update:
I finally finished this book, and it was one of the best books I've ever read. I found the story to be touching, disturbing and funny all at once; and I loved the characters. I ended up staying up too late for a few nights, because I had trouble putting it down.

Definitely at 5 star book.