But I have kept up with my reading. As usual the gift card I got for Christmas didn't even last a full week in my wallet. I promptly went to Borders and roamed the aisles for about an hour trying to decide which books where worthy of my gift card. I finally settled on one that I've been wondering about for a while and one I've come across in a magazine as a suggestion.
Let's first review the Happiness Project. It was coming up on the New Year, a good time for reflection and new attitudes. I saw several reviews in a couple magazines about this book and then did a bit more reviews searching on Amazon. There were mixed feelings on the book, some thought it was genius, others thought it was to simple and obvious. I tend to agree with the latter. It's not that the book wasn't a quick read, but it wasn't something that was going to rock my world and make me think how can I be more happy. I think most of you who know me would already agree I'm a happy person (some would say too happy), but hey there is always room for improvement and there are always aspects of my life I would wish to improve. I looked at this book as an inspiration to make me come up with my own list and find ways to be "happier". Now the book is a quick easy read, maybe because sometimes I found myself skipping ahead avoiding the pages filled from her blog. If I wanted to see what was on her blog and what people responded to I would just read her blog and not buy a book. She divided the book into 12 Chapters, one for each month of the year with a new set of goals to becoming happier. Most of these goals seemed fairly obvious and actually quite boring. Example: First Chapter January - Boost Energy. Her goals to do this go to sleep earlier, exercise better, toss, restore, organize, tackle a nagging task and act more energetic. Hummm, that seems simple enough and not something I should pay $19.99 for.
I think this book might be more useful to someone who is maybe say a mother of young children and working who need to find time to step back and take care of themselves. But for me I found the ideas nothing new, but the overall message was good. I mean who doesn't want to be happier?
Ok, next book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've seen this book more than I can count in Borders and have been drawn to it, but since I try not to read a lot of fiction unless it's been recommended or passed on by someone else. But I figured this was a gift card to me to buy something I probably wouldn't normally buy myself so I figured why not, it's gotten a lot of good hype and looks interesting. If I'm going to read fiction it's usually a mystery book (I guess that is the same with TV shows; Lost, CSI, Law & Order seeing a pattern here...)Before even getting into the book I read that the author Stieg Larson had passed away shortly after finishing the 3rd novel in the series (oh I LOVE series), so this intrigues me even more.
The book starts a bit slow with a lot of information regarding Swedish money. Now I don't really know why it does, but once you get passed it the book picks up pace. It quickly jumps back and forth between two characters who will eventually get intertwined in the story. Now I won't give away anything in the book itself in terms of the story, but I stayed up many nights pass my usual hour read in bed to see what would happen in the next chapter. Then somewhere along the second half of the book it takes a very dark turn I wasn't expecting. I know mysteries usually are very dark at some point, but this book took it to a different level. All the sudden I felt a bit like I was seeing the movie Hard Candy in my head while I read (now if you haven't seen the movie, it's a very, very dark, sick movie with quite the twist).
After this one particular chapter it's obvious this isn't your normal hunt down a killer from the past story. It had some really good twist in the book, but it was sort of hard to get pass all the incest, torture, rape and murder of young girls. In the end I felt a little dirty for even finishing the book. It's definitely one that stays with you after you put it down, especially if you are trying to go to sleep right after it. But I think the thing that disturbed me most was the brief excerpt to the next book in the series, The Girl Who Plays With Fire. Again it opens with the kidnap and torture of a young girl of 13. Now I see where he is trying to create this character Lisabeth Salander, but I'm not sure I want to read another book with the rape, torture and murder of young girls.
So reader be warned and I'll be spending my next gift card on a couple of lighter subjects that I picked out while searching for these books: Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and the Recipe Club.
