Good (and not-so-much) Reads

I won't blog about trials. What an immensely boring subject. Instead, I'll do...book reviews! :D

No synopsises though. I don't like spoiling surprises, read the book yourselves. :P

[Books courtesy of the SMK Taman S.E.A. English Department.] And the titles are...

                

The Wedding Girl by Madeleine Wickham

I've never been a big fan of chick lit and I think this book only reinstated that further. Yes, it was light and airy. VERY light and airy. Just like air. I swallowed the thing in four hours straight.

While I think the story had a few remotely interesting twists, it was frustrating from page one. (How I managed to be interested enough to finish it in a few hours beats me, too.) Maybe some people like all those little details, maybe it helps them see things in their head better. I had to read that page thrice before I could visualize anything. By the end of the book, I still didn't feel like I understood any of the characters - any of them. I didn't understand them, I didn't understand their motives, I couldn't connect on any level to them. They seemed far too...shallow. Except maybe Alexander. He was interesting. ;)

The end where all the explanation happens wasn't fleshed out enough and it felt way too abrupt. But maybe this is just the way the genre is. If so, I won't be picking up a Sophie Kinsella any time soon.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The title internationally-acclaimed best-seller should mean something, right? Not what I thought at first. Never judge a book by its title or its prestige.

But then again, I think The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo deserves every bit of praise it gets.

Sick stuff. :D

In both the awesome and disgusting way.

I mean, I've read my fair share of incest-filled, S&M-packed novels, but this one really takes the cake - in a good way. The late Stieg Larsson is undoubtedly a mastermind; who on earth could come up with such a horribly twisted, epically gruesome plot? Unlike The Wedding Girl, I could get under the skin of every character as the book progressed and I loved it. The graphic bits were so tastefully written too - even if they creeped me out and (spoiler alert!) I didn't dare open Leviticus after that. (Please tell me people don't really translate the Bible like that in real life.) Sidney Sheldon's Doomsday Conspiracy may have been pretty good, but the ending killed it. This one didn't come close to disappointing.

Part of my brain is open-mouthed with shock that I'm actually going to wait until after SPM to ask Meredith and Esther for the sequels.

It's so sick, you have to read it.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is priced at RM20/= at the MPH Warehouse Sale this Thursday to Sunday at the MPH Warehouse at Section 13. For a further discount, bring a copy of the Star2 page with a number of special titles listed (including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) that came out yesterday and you can get a further discount of RM5 on the book! :D

(But don't read it in the middle of trials like I did. You'll get very distracted.)