Review: The Girl Who Played with Fire

The second book in the Millennium trilogy picks up a year after Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist pulled off their various coups. Lisbeth has been traveling, but suddenly a dangerous thug seems to be trailing her. Through a strange course of events, Lisbeth is wanted by the police for murder.

I enjoyed this second installment in the trilogy significantly more than the first one. This book deals more with Lisbeth than with Mikael, and she is by far the more interesting character. Mikael, after all, is a man who liked going to prison because he found it "restful." This book delves into some of the issues of Lisbeth's past, especially a devastating event that is mysteriously absent from her social services file.

This book is absolutely bursting with suspense, and this was a book I literally couldn't stop reading. I was desperate to see how all of the pieces fit together. Who is the mysterious giant? What happened in Lisbeth's past? Finishing this book made me want to start the next one immediately.

Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played with Fire (Vintage, 2010) ISBN: 030745455X 

Review: In Search of the Rose Notes

This retrospective novel follows Nora and her childhood friend, Charlotte, as they revisit the unsolved disappearance of their babysitter, Rose. As children Nora and Charlotte were fascinated by their teenage babysitter. Rose had all the cache of adolescence, but one day on her way home from Charlotte's house she disappeared.

In the wake of the disappearance Nora and Charlotte try all sorts of paranormal methods to divine Rose's location. Much of this centers on their fascination with the Time-Life series of books on the supernatural, the ones that were constantly advertised on television in the early-1990s. Nora is disturbed by their forays into the supernatural, but Charlotte is older, wealthier, and bossier, so they continue.

As adults Charlotte is still annoying. I couldn't figure out why Nora was so willing to spend time with her and share her secrets. It's understandable as children, but it made little sense as adults. We do ultimately discover what happened to Rose, but not before coming to the conclusion that Charlotte really needs to go away.

Emily Arsenault, In Search of the Rose Notes (William Morrow, 2011) ISBN: 0062012320 

Review: Pretty

Bebe is a recovering drug addict mourning the death of her boyfriend. In the space of a year Bebe's life has gone from looking towards a promising future to marking time in a rehab facility and slacking her way through cosmetology school.

While the book is really about Bebe's efforts to come to terms with her boyfriend's death in an accident that left her with significant physical scars too, I found Bebe's efforts to recover from drug addiction more interesting. I am not especially interested in the music industry, and Bebe's boyfriend, Aaron, was a musician. The parts of the book that look at life before the accident seemed to be wound up in music industry stuff that simply wasn't very interesting to a reader who was not similarly invested.

I had previously read Lauren's memoir, Some Girls, and I can say that I definitely preferred her non-fiction to her fiction. I never managed to care all that much about the characters in this book. Bebe, and particularly Aaron, bored me.

Jillian Lauren, Pretty (Plume, 2011) ISBN: 0452297346 

Review: Dry

This is Burroughs's memoir of getting sober, of giving up alcohol and learning to live with alcoholism. Treatment comes to Burroughs when he is given an ultimatum- go to treatment or lose his job. And the job is a significant source of the addiction. Burroughs worked in advertising, an industry that he portrays as high-ego, high-stress, alcohol-soaked, and drug-addicted.

As with anyone else, Burroughs finds sobriety to be a difficult process. His efforts to stay dry are complicated by the fact that one of his close friends is dying, and one of his more obnoxious colleagues continues to try and tempt him to drink.

The book offers a gritty look at the day-to-day process of sobriety. This is not a book about rehab, it's a book about what happens after rehab. There's definitely suspense laced throughout this book- will Augusten fall off the wagon or won't he? This book also offers a rather interesting look at the over-the-top world of New York advertising. If you didn't already find advertising loathsome, you probably will after reading this book.

Augusten Burroughs, Dry (Picador, 2004) ISBN: 0312423799

Review: The Dressmaker of Khair Khana

The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan made educated and independent women prisoners in their own households. Aside from grave human rights abuses, the Taliban also created an immediate practical problem for thousands of women who could no longer work to support their families. One Kabul woman, Kamela Sediqui, tacked the problem by creating her own sewing business. When the Taliban came to power Kamela Sediqui was a student who traveled independently around Kabul and who was looking forward to a career. But Taliban occupation led Kamela's parents to flee to the countryside, and left the Sediqui sisters to try and support the family from the confines of their home. Kamela lacked sewing skills, but she saw a need for stylish women's clothes that fit within Taliban restrictions. This small enterprise grew into a veritable workshop that employed numerous girls in the neighborhood. This is certainly an inspiring story. Kamela's business was fraught with danger. She and her employees constantly risked being caught by the Taliban. I learned quite a bit about Kabul before the rise of the Taliban, and it made the regime's corruption all the more striking.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana (Harper, 2011) ISBN: 

0061732370

Review: You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know

Heather Sellers has a rare neurological condition that leaves her unable to recognize faces. This is her memoir of trying to live an adult life with this disorder. I expected that the memoir would begin with Heather having a diagnosis, but that is not the case. For most of her adult life Sellers had no idea why she couldn't recognize people, and she had to try and compensate. Much of the memoir chronicles Heather's search for a diagnosis. This book is also a story about childhood. Sellers grew up with mentally ill and negligent parents. Her parents had little time for Heather's problems; they were consumed by their own. This helps to explain how Sellers could grow into adulthood unaware that she had a neurological problem. I learned a great deal from this book. I had never heard of this particular disorder, prosopagnosia. Indeed, it is rare. In a world in which everyone seems to claim that they have problems recognizing faces, it is hard to recognize, and get recognition, for such a disorder. It is also difficult to get a diagnosis. Really, there's enough material for two memoirs here: one on childhood, and one on face-blindness. The jumping back and forth from childhood to adulthood was sometimes distracting. Like many other children of troubled parents Heather is still searching for their approval and love as an adult, which leads to problems with attachment and commitment. The best example of this is Sellers's unwillingness to share a home with her husband. Sometimes I found myself feeling the most empathy for Heather's husband. He seems to have put up with quite a bit, both in regard to his wife's commitment issues, and with his troublesome in-laws. This is not necessarily the best memoir I have ever read, but it does tackle interesting and rare subject matter, and I have certainly developed a new appreciation of how difficult it must be not to recognize others' faces.

Heather Sellers, You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know (Riverhead, 2010) ISBN: 

1594487731