• Affiliates

    If you're gonna shop anyway, I'd really appreciate it if you'd click through my links to help support the growing needs of ballet slippers, art supplies, and soccer shorts. :)

  • Add to Technorati Favorites
  • Mom Blogs
  • Widget_logo
  • -------------------------------
  • You are visitor number

    • 150,298
  • free counters

Book Review: The Forgotten Garden

I read The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton for my book club and I have to say HANDS DOWN, one of the best mysteries I’ve read in a long time – if ever.

The first 3 chapter cover so many decades that it leaves your head spinning, but it sets it up for how the entire book reads. Each chapter is a different decade, told from a different character’s point of view. And it wasn’t always the same 3 characters, just one of the ones from that decade.

There are a few spots where I thought I had it all figured out, but then realized that there were other possible answers…answers that also made sense.

While reading, I found that I didn’t really relate to Nell (even though the whole story pretty much revolves around finding out who she is). I liked the story lines about Cassandra (two generations below Nell) and Eliza and Rose (a generation above Nell) – even though the story lines revolved around Nell anyway.

I loved that one of the characters is an author and you get to read a few of her stories. And it really does seem to change “authors” when you read them; they’re written totally different than the rest of the book.

I HIGHLY recommend reading this book!!

There’s a wonderful interview with Ms. Morton on Amazon that sheds some light on where she gets her ideas, as well as some insight to her as a person.

Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Cross-posted on my My Opinion Matters blog.

I just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Overall, I enjoyed the book. I have to say that it took about 50 – 100 pages to really get into it though. HOLY SLOW. Thank goodness at least 3 different strangers walked by me while  I was reading and asked how I liked it…and recommended that I keep reading because it is worth it. They were RIGHT!

I think the biggest problem for me is that the “wrapper story” (more on that in a bit) is not in my area of interest: Finances. And while the characters needed building and there needed to be the “wrapper story” for that…I didn’t care as much about that part of the book as the “real” story.

The other problem that I had is that it’s set in a foreign country (Sweden) with many places that I’d never heard of and had a hard time pronouncing (in my head). And yes, I’ve heard of Sweden! It also means that many of the names were Swedish, so I also had a hard time pronouncing those (in my head). Think: Harry Potter and when you realized that Hermione is pronounced Her-My-Oh-Nee (or even Her-My-Nee if said quickly) …except that I have no such realization here. LOL

What’s a wrapper story, you ask? Well, it’s the first and last part of the book that only has a little bit to do with the meat (and the middle) of the book. Sure, there are characters who play parts in both stories (otherwise, it’d be two books, right?), and the wrapper one is necessary to set up why the middle part happens…

The middle story totally sucked me in. I love a great mystery, and this one was wonderful. I’m usually fairly good at predicting story lines, and this one got me – a few times!

I enjoyed reading about the main characters (and I’m actually looking forward to the sequel!)