The Stephen King Book Haul

I have an addiction to buying books which I thought I'd try and squash by making it my New Year's resolution to STOP BUYING BOOKS! First and foremost... have not stuck to that resolution but am still making a conscious effort to slow down (lol). I bought "The Woman in Black" (this was essential... I promise......) and "Of Mice and Men" (also essential....) which I kinda made allowances for as (a) I've already read both of these and (b) both purchases were in preparation for watching an adaptation (film in the case of "The Woman in Black" and play in the case of "Of Mice and Men"...)

But yeah, I also decided that if my dad feels compelled to buy a bunch of dirt cheap second hand books for me in the name of charity then who am I to stop him?

Oh dear...

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[BOOK REVIEW] "The Girl Who Played With Fire" by Stieg Larsson

rating: *****

I'm finding it difficult to put into words how I feel about this book. I mean, it's the second in the Millennium trilogy and follows on from where "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" left off. Now, after the first book's tediously slow start, I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and especially the character of Lisbeth Salander (who doesn't?) so I was in two minds before starting the second book as it had a lot to live up to.

In a nutshell, this book was so much better than the first. I actually find it a bit hard to believe that the first book gets so much attention while "The Girl Who Played With Fire" rarely gets a mention. It's just incredibly. The first book took its time getting the plot in motion whereas this one jumps right in at the deep end and I was hooked from start to finish. I'm honestly finding it difficult to pin point anything that I didn't like about it (I mean, apart from the usual not being able to pronounce all the Swedish names but that's hardly a fault when the book was originally published in Swedish and set in Sweden).

Again, we follow Mikael Blomkvist, this time after he's published his earth-shattering book about  Wennerström when he gets approached by a journalist called Dag Svensson who has been working on a book about sex trafficking in Sweden. Just before the book is due to be published, Svensson and his girlfriend are found shot dead in their apartment and Salander's fingerprints are on the weapon. The book thereafter primarily focuses on the police hunt for Salander and it's just brilliant. Plus, it ends on such a cliffhanger that it left me itching to read the third.

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[BOOK REVIEW] "The Woman In Black" by Susan Hill

NB: This post has pretty much been lifted straight from my old blog. I'm posting it here as this is now my book blog :)

rating: *****

At the start of this year, I made a resolution to stop buying books as I have a ludicrous number of unread books gathering dust in my room. Well... I kinda went and failed that by purchasing my very own copy of The Woman In Black by Susan Hill. I originally read this donkeys ago in secondary school where we also got to watch the film adaptation from the eighties. I vaguely remember the film being a little on the silly side (the part that really stands out in my memory is the woman in black flying through Arthur's window with a manic grin on her face... this never happens in the book and whoever decided it should happen in the film should be slapped) but I absolutely loved the book. So much so that years later when I saw that the play was coming to Edinburgh, I rounded up some friends and convinced them it would be good. You have no idea how sceptical people can be of going to see a horror on stage ("But it won't be scary!").

But there we go. It's a short book, my edition has bang on 200 pages, but it certainly packs a decent punch! In some ways, it's quite a typical ghost story; the woman in black is always kind of floating around at a distance so our protagonist can't quite decide if she's dangerous or not. A lot of the spinetingling is due to Susan Hill's writing which I found to be absolutely fantastic despite the fact that I needed the Dictionary.com app glued to my hand. At least I learnt a lot of new words!

One of my favourite aspects of this book has got to be the setting: Eel Marsh House is isolated, impressive, daunting and you get a real sense of coldness at the thought of having to spend the night there. I also love the fact that the villagers of Crython Gifford exhibit traits typical of a little farming village with their apparent suspicious attitude towards the house and the woman in black.

It's true that not much happens but I personally liked this about the tale as it added to the suspense. The only negative thing I will say about this book is the stupidly long sentences as I would get lost half way and have to restart.

The main reason why I read this book was in order to refresh my memory for the new movie starring Daniel Radcliffe. Since finishing the book, I watched the film and was sadly disappointed. Good for the scares though.

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[BOOK REVIEW] "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson

NB: This has basically been lifted from my other blog. I've decided to repost it here as this is now my book blog :)

rating: ****/*

Despite being an avid bookworm, my mother isn't the easiest person to please when it comes to books and I have often told her that I've never met anyone as cynical as her. That's why, when she thrust her copy of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in my hands instructing me to read it ASAP, I knew it must be good. Of course, everyone else in the whole world seemed to think the same thing and I had several other books to read last year before I could get around to this one. I took so long (have I mentioned I'm an incredibly slow reader?) that I got instructed to lend the copy to my sister. Almost a year later, I can now finally exclaim that I have read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The book tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist hired by an elderly business man to investigate the disappearance of his great-niece Harriet from over forty years ago. Blomkvist then ropes in the help of one exceptionally strange individual by the name of Lisbeth Salander. While the investigation into Harriet's disappearance is interesting, the star is without a doubt, Salander and I thought it was a shame that she wasn't focused on as much as Mikael.

If it wasn't for the atrociously slow start to the book (200 frikkin pages before anything interesting happened!), I would gladly assign 5 shining stars. However, 200 pages is a helluva lot to wade through but I still give this book a respectable 4/5.

Be warned though, there are some seriously brutal sex scenes that explain why the original Swedish title is Men Who Hate Women.

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New Booktuber on the Block!

Alright gang, here's the drill. 

I've gone and started a YouTube channel to accompany this bloggarama so feel free to check that out. My first video is just an introduction to who the heck I am and a daft explanation as to what I intend to do... mainly upload videos about books :) 

There is a whole community of "booktubers" on YouTube and I've finally decided to get in on the action and create one for myself! 

www.youtube.com/thebookfox

Hello! My name is The Book Fox

Hi!

And welcome to my new blog, The Book Fox. My name is Claire, I'm currently 24 years old and I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. I love reading but after only managing to complete a pathetic 14 books last year, I've decided to try my hardest to wade my way through the mountain of unread books that are gradually gathering dust in my bedroom.

This blog will document my attempt at the notorious 50 book challenge. I read all sorts of books and aim to review each and every one of them; the good, the bad and the down right awful!

So, if you like reading, and reading about reading, then stick around! There's a lot more to come

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