The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

SUMMARY:

"Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch - and there's always a catch - is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you really don't want to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo."

MY REVIEW: 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has a well-designed plot with many surprises and a perfectly satisfying, even though predictable, ending.  This book demands a lot from the reader, such as dealing with some financial Jargon.  This book also demands a bit of patience on the reader side.  This is not a book which catapults you through the story.  Instead, you are taken step by step through Blomkvist and Salanders journey and are given a bit of background information on the two of them.  The book consists of credible characters, no one who was too out there to be believable. The story has all you can ask from a mystery; fraud in big business, old family secrets, a small town, internet-masterminds and political corruptness. I liked to watch Mikael Blomkvist from the first page until the end.  I also liked his friends, enemies, colleagues, lovers and relatives, but the one I liked most was Lisbeth. A little bit more than a little bit crazy, underrated by nearly everyone, arcane but also pragmatic, the avenger. Finally, I liked the evil characters.  They were not trite, disgusting and primitive, but their malignity had style, background and warranty, the sophisticated evil, which is the worst.  These characters caused some emotional drainage on my part!  The Swedish title is, “Men Who Hate Women”.  In my opinion this title fits much better!  As a woman, there were several parts of this book that were hard for me to read.  However, it is sadly realistic.  Overall, I loved this book and I can’t wait to get into the next of the series.   

Max By James Patterson

SUMMARY:

"Max and the flock have traded in Antarctica's sub-zero temperatures for sunny Los Angeles, where they're taking over the skies with their hair-raising air show. But far below, a deadly assassin watches their every move, waiting for the perfect moment to send them plummeting to earth." "Suddenly, the flock learns that millions of fish are dying off Hawaii's coast and that someone - or something - is destroying hundreds of ships. When they are confronted with the most frightening ecological catastrophe yet, they have no choice but to go deep into the murky waters. Now, nowhere is safe." While Max and her team comb the depths of the ocean, a powerful enemy tracks them. He has his own plans for the flock and will stop at nothing until they're under his control. Can the flock protect themselves from the approaching army - and save the world from utter destruction?"

My Review:

Sadly, I was disappointed in this book.  I love the Maximum Ride series and I love all the action and fighting and mad scientist stuff and I didn't get any of that in this book.  None at all.  Although I am all about eco-friendliness, I don't think that it is fitting for this series and this book is all about saving the planet and radiation sickness ect.  What saved this book (slightly) for me was Max and Fangs romance which was predictable, but still.   I don't even know what to say other than that I am seriously disappointed and I hope that the next one fits better with the series.

After You by Julie Buxbaum

SUMMARY:

"When tragedy strikes across the ocean, Ellie Lerner drops everything—her marriage, her job, her life in the Boston suburbs—to travel to London and pick up the pieces of her best friend Lucy’s life. While Lucy’s husband, Greg, retreats into himself, his and Lucy’s eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, has simply stopped speaking. Desperate to help Sophie, Ellie turns to a book that gave her comfort as a child, The Secret Garden. As its story of hurt, magic, and healing blooms around them, so, too, do Lucy’s secrets—some big, some small. Peeling back the layers of her friend’s life, Ellie is forced to confront her own as well: the marriage she left behind, the loss she’d hoped to escape. And suddenly Ellie’s carefully constructed existence is spinning out of control in a chain of events that will transform her life—and the lives of those around her—forever."

REVIEW:

I LOVED this book! I thought it was well written and really quick to suck you in; I read this book in a total of two days! The characters were all well crafted, and I felt like I really got to know them all.  I especially fell in love with Lucy's daughter Sophie, a bookworm whose thirst for knowledge has left her socially isolated.  I also love her little friend, Inderpal who is as thirsty for knowledge as she is.  The story was very moving to me, especially having lost a very close friend; it is very relate-able. A lot of the reactions to Lucy's death were realistic, and were reactions to death that I have seen firsthand.   The author wrote it so realistically that I could feel what the characters were feeling, which I loved.  I didn't really like who Lucy turned out to be, though.  It just goes to show that you never really know people as well as you think you do. It really made me think about my relationships with my friends and what each of us may decide to tell each other or keep secret.