The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz

“I will be the hunter not the hunted.” – Lisbeth

Following on from the last book in the series, Lisbeth is still trying to track her sister’s movements while staying hidden herself. She ends up in Russia and has managed to hack in to cameras around Camilla’s house. Meanwhile back in Sweden Mikael is working on his story about the stock market crash. But he’s bored and uninspired, he can’t find an answer to his questions so he decides to take a break. But because he Mikael Blomkvist, he gets dragged into a mystery anyway. A homeless man died but a doctor who had seen the man often suspects fowl play. The man kept to himself and as far as she could tell there was no reason to murder him.

I realised how much I had missed Lisbeth and Mikael when I started reading this. They’re both so determined and intelligent yet chaotic, I forgot how fascinating they are. Lisbeth hasn’t told anyone where she is or what she’s up to, she works well on her own but Mikael is really worried about her, he’s searching for signs of her everywhere.

“He was fed up with it. He was tired of the news in general, tired of all the depressing political developments around the world.” – what a mood!

I felt like we’re back at what this series does best, we have a mystery, it’s possibly political but none of the pieces fit together. Lisbeth and Mikael make a brilliant team even though they’re not together. The jumps from one character to the next are seamless, it’s not confusing or difficult to follow and it keeps a nice pace to the book. It becomes incredibly tense and dramatic as the story goes on.

I like how a few times the story touched on the damaging effects the media can have. The hate campaign towards Johannes and Catrin’s dealings with negative reactions to her journalism. Social media has become this terrifying place where horrible people can sit safely behind a screen and tear down others for fun. It needs to stop.

I am so sad that this is the last book in the series, I will miss Lisbeth and Mikael a lot! The tension and action towards the end is so dramatic, I couldn’t put the book down. The whole series has shone a light on how dangerous our world is, there are secret threats everywhere when it comes to governments and spies. How much can we really trust our leaders? My bet is not at all! But there are still good people like Lisbeth and Mikael, Bublanski and Sonja who give us hope.

End of the Decade – My Favourite Books from the Past Ten Years!

It is so strange to think we are at the end of the 2010s, it’s been a pretty dodgy decade in many respects but I have read some fantastic books! Most of the books weren’t published in the last 10 years but it’s when I discovered them.

1. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

The fullness and complexity of these books and the characters has kept me coming back to it, I’ve read the first three books a few times already. The more you read it the more in depth you see the story. I am so happy I’ve found ASOIAF, even if it does make me cry a lot!

2. Dominion by C.J Sansom

The book is set in the 1950s in Britain except the Nazis have taken over, we never fought them. It is one of the most terrifying and genius books I’ve ever read. It felt so real, I was so distressed! Our main character works for the government and is unhappy with the changes taking place so he joins the freedom movement lead by Winston Churchill. He feeds them important files but then he gets involved with protecting a Jewish scientist who has been locked in an asylum. If the Nazis find out where he is, the world is doomed. I strongly recommend this book, it’s incredible.

3. The Millennium series by Stieg Larsson and David Lagercrantz

This series is so brilliant and dark, it’s terrifying at moments but it always comes back to the characters and how genius they are. Lisbeth who has had to fight her whole life against truly evil people who are still out to get her and Mikael who thrives on exposing conspiracies, which has got him into trouble a few times.

4. The Book Thief by Markus Zukos

Just genius, narrated by Death as he tells us about his run-ins with Liesel as she discovers her love of reading. Her foster father teaches her to read, soon she is stealing books from Nazi book burnings. Liesel lives in Germany during WWII and her world is made more dangerous when her foster family hide a Jewish man in their cellar. This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I’d never read a book that centred around the innocent German people during WWII before and this was written superbly.

5. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins

These books have so many important themes about corruption and controlling governments and its such a chilling premise, children fighting to the death for the entertainment of the elite. As a reader it made me have a good look at our own media and how toxic it can be. Aside from that the characters are real and flawed and I love them.

6. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

This book is one of my favourites ever! It’s like my dream book with past lives/WWII but it’s better than anything I could have imagined. We follow Ursula through her life from birth to her many different deaths. In each life different choices are made. It’s such a magical book and so different from everything I had read from Kate Atkinson before, I’m so glad I found it!

7. The Long Earth series by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Sci-fi heaven, one day on Earth, hundreds of children disappeared at once, they moved to a parallel world with a devise that had gone viral on the internet. Soon adults realised what was happening and humanity was changed forever. Humanity spread out into the connected worlds where we made new homes for ourselves. In my favourite book of the series, scientists found a way to reach Mars and found its own string of parallels.

8. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

This book is about Esther Greenwood’s struggle with mental health, Esther has moved to New York to try and be a journalist but soon finds herself breaking down. It is so powerful and such an important book, I’m very glad I read it.

9. The Power by Naomi Alderman

Just epic! Through some strange evolution young girls suddenly gain the power to channel electricity through their hands. They can shock others, hurt them and kill them. They can also release the gift in older women. A shift is happening, no longer are men more powerful. The book follows different young women and one young man on their journeys through this fascinating time. But is life better under woman’s rule or are all humans inherently corrupt?

10. The Clockmaker’s Daughter by Kate Morton

I love this book so much! I read it this summer and fell in love with it. It’s a story about time and how precious stories are. How houses can hold memories forever but not always in a bad way, Birchwood Manor is a place of safety and comfort.

There we are, bring on the 2020s and all the books they will bring!

Top Five Tuesday – Unputdownable Reads

A new Top Five Tuesday, the prompts are created by Bionic Book Worm. I’m not usually one to rush a book, I’ve never read a book in one sitting. I prefer taking a step back and thinking about the story and what’s going on with the characters. But there are books that I’m always itching to pick back up even if I’ve just put them down!

1. The Millennium series by Stieg Larsson & David Lagercrantz

I couldn’t choose just one of these books, they are all addictive. Each book has a mystery to be solved, quite often it’s connected to Lisbeth Salander our resident badass. The journalists at Millennium magazine are usually hunting down a story as well. There’s always a lot going on and they’re just fantastic.

2. The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

One of my favourite books of all time, it’s set in the early 2000s, the 80s and early 1900s. Cassandra’s grandmother Nell has recently passed away. Nell has left all of her property to Cassandra, including a cottage in rural England. Cassandra is confused, they live in Australia and as far as she knew Nell never had any interest in England or it’s countryside. She goes to investigate why her grandmother would have brought the rundown cottage. She follows in Nell’s footsteps. We also meet Eliza, a young poor child living in London with her brother, their parents are dead and they have to work all hours of the day to afford food and shelter. I remember when I first read this I just desperately wanted to know what happened to Eliza and how Nell and Cassandra were connected to her. It’s such a beautiful book and all Kate Morton’s have the same gripping nature.

3. A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

Will a week go by when I don’t mention this series in one of my posts?! No because I love it that much! With all the twists and turns in this story, the shady characters and unexpected deaths, I never want to step away from these books. Ever…you’ll have to pry them out of my cold, dead hands! (I’m feeling very dramatic today) Also the way George writes it from different points of view, if you get to the end of a character’s chapter and want to find out what happens next, you’ve got to read another few chapters to get back to them, genius if not slightly cruel.

4. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

This is my favourite Hunger Games book and it is so intense. It’s split in two the first half is Katniss and Peeta on their victory tour of Panem and training for the Quarter Quell. The second half is in the Capital, the tributes training, fighting, making allies and finally entering the arena. The arena part is so fast paced, I could hardly tear myself away.

5. The Girl in the Photograph by Kate Riordan

This book is set in England and split between the 1890s and the early 1930s. In the 30s the house hasn’t been lived in properly for years, there’s still a housekeeper and gardener in case the owners need it but they hardly ever return. Alice has fallen pregnant after having an affair with a married man. Her mother is appalled and sends her to Fiercombe Manor where she used to work and still knows the housekeeper who works there. Alice soon discovers the foundations of another house in the grounds but no one will tell her why it was destroyed. She finds diaries dated from 1890, a young woman, pregnant like her, but married. We see glimpses into Elizabeth’s life as well. I couldn’t stop thinking about this book while I was reading it and wondering what could have happened to Elizabeth. It’s clever and a really emotional read.

What are some of your favourite unputdownable reads?

The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye Review

I love the Millennium series, Lisbeth Salander is one of my favourite characters ever, she’s so complex and badass. This is the fifth book in the series and at the beginning we find Lisbeth in prison (only for a couple of months) but she’s using her time there to read up on a complicated maths problem. Until her old guardian Holger comes to see her and tells her about a visit he received from someone in Lisbeth’s past. Lisbeth and her sister Camilla were almost part of an experiment carried out on twins.

Mikael and Lisbeth start looking into the experiment and uncovering the shady people behind it. Lisbeth is under threat, she’s on a high security ward which has been corrupted by an influential inmate. They’re beating up a young woman everyday and Lisbeth won’t stand for it.

We also delve into the stories of a pair of identical twins whose lives were ruined by the scientists who ran the twins experiment.

The book is gripping and mysterious as always with this series. The author constantly keeps us guessing. I still found myself thinking about the story and how it was going to pan out even when I wasn’t reading it. The story is all woven together so seamlessly, it’s fantastic writing.

Dan and Leo (the identical twins) break my heart, they always felt alone because they were missing the other part of themselves. Twins have such a powerful connection and splitting up twins isn’t just fiction, it really happened, it’s disgusting. I find twins so interesting so all the bits about the twins research was great to read about.

I got really in to this book, I read it really quick because I had to know what was coming next. The sixth book isn’t out yet so I have a bit of a wait to find out what happens next in Lisbeth’s mad and dangerous life!