Karin Slaughter: Fractured

 

Abigail Campano, the mother of teenager Emma. comes home from her tennisclass and finds her daughter killed and the killer still in the house. The killer sees her and comes running towards her with a knife on his hands.  Abigail does what her survival instincs tell her to do: she kicks the killer so that he falls down, she gets on top of him and strangles him to death. 

But in reality he wasn't the killer and the girl lying dead wasn't her daughter. 

Her daughter has been kidnapped and the person she just strangled was probably the only person who could have helped her to find Emma. Instead the police and the agent Will Trent have trouble to realise what this crime is all about. The small secrets start to reveal themselves and the case seems sometimes even more complicated than in the beginning. 

Do they find the real murderer and what were the real reasons behind these several murders that occur in the book?!

Read to find it out, in my opinion this was the best crimenovel i've read in the past couple of years!

Arja Mäkinen: Vanhojapiikoja ja vapaita naisia

 

(free translation to English could be something like Old spinsters and free women)

This is the book made out of the authors Thesis Oikeesti aikuiset (Real adults). Basically it's the dummies version of the first one. Maybe if i hadn't read the thesis first i wouldn't feel like this, but this is how i view it now. 

It is a really good book describing the situation where you are alone and don't want any children.. And as a little lighter reading than the original thesis this could do the trick. But for me having to read the other one first, i kind of rely on that one more and this is.. just what it is: kind of repetive and doesn't really give anything new to the table.

Alex Rovira and Francesc Miralles: La última respuesta

 

translated into Finnish: Lopullinen vastaus (free translation to English could be something like Final Answer)

This one is a difficult book to describe. The plot is somewhat similar as in DaVinci-Code (yet again), but this has to do with Albert Einstein and the mysteries he left behind. The main character is Javier who has been offered a lot of money if he finds out what Einsteins secrets were and if he writes a book about them. But things aren't as they seemed (are they ever?) and he ends up travelling across the world with a killer following each of his steps. 

This book is hard to describe because the athmosphere while i tried to read this was kind of off. I never really seemed to have time to read this. It was either five minutes in the bathroom or the same five just before going to sleep. So it didn't ever really kick in, but i didn't want to put it down because i found the plot facinating. Finally i was able to read it with out any pauses, and oh boy was i dissapointed?! The ending? I haven't read this pathetic ending in a long time! It's almost like the authors gave up with the story. It could have mounted up to anything and they chose some cheesy ending to it. I haven't felt this fooled for such a long time..

So, if you are looking for an adventurous novel with awesome turns and twistes in the plot - put the book down and step away from it. And go choose something else instead.

Arja Mäkinen: Oikeesti aikuiset

Free translation of the title could be  Real adults. 

Little bit background: I've apparently started to reach that agepoint where most of my friends have already have children, are either pregrnant, dream of having children or are trying to have them. Some how i do kind of feel like left out. Not because i would want to be in their situation, 'cause honestly i don't even want to. But to be that only person who doesn't dream about the same dreams and doesn't really want to live life like that - it's sometimes quite hard in a society where living life without children is kind of a thing where you get judged on easily. 

The book is a thesis of women who live alone and don't have any children/ don't want any children or cannot have any children. There hasn't really been that much of studies on the subject and specially not within Finland, so i was really pleased i found this one (and actually couple others from the same writer). 

Of course when this is a thesis, it's not really any kind of self-help book, but anyways at least for me, it really helped out to see that there are really others like me. Others that kind of maybe would like to be in a relationship but it hasn't really ever happened - but are satisfied in their lives anyhow, but seem to get this judgement from the people and the whole society that gives out the norm that it's almost obligatory to get into a relationship, get married and have kids. 

It's really releaving that eventhough majority of the people don't understand this kind of way of living and probably assume it's either being some crazy manhunter or gay, there are other people out there who has to fight against these same assumptions and has to justify their way of living. In the perfect world you wouldn't have to justify it, but in rhe real world i don't see that happening in anytime soon..

Jennifer Lee Carrell: Interred with their bones

 

Kate Stanley is directing Hamlet in London where her old colleague wants to meet her and let her in to a secret that she is carrying. The secret is about William Shakespear but before Kate is let on into it her  colleague Roz gets killed and the theathre where Hamlet was supposed to be playd gets burned. 

From there starts the adventure that takes Kate to question was Shakespear really someone a lot of us assume he was, or was he a conspiracy that others made up. Whatever he/it is, it takes Kate to a place that is extremely dangerous and it'll make her doubt who she can trust. 

The book studies a lot of the written word that Shakespear has written - i found it at times a bit annoying because i've never been interested in the plays he has written. But overall the writer managed to include somewhat similar storyline of DaVinci Code into the book so that the story carried through and you really wanted to know what is really going on.

Ann Brashares: The second summer of the sisterhood

 

Like the title already tells us, this is a sequel of the book "Sisterhood of the traveling pants". I haven't read the first book, but i've seen the movie where Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera and Blake Lively starred in. Eventhough already in 2005 i wasn't probably the main audience agewise, i really liked the movie and when "the opporturnity came" to read this book, i took it.

So basically to describe what this book is about, you should know about the first one. Obviously this continues with the four girls lives where the last book/movie left off. But to not to give anything away the main idea is, that these four girls who have been friends since their childhood find a pair of pants that fits all of them even when they are sizewise different. In the first book they decide that they'll share the pants and each can have them for a spesific time until they have to ship them for the next person and include a letter that tells what happened while they were wearing the pants. 

And stuff do happen while they have the pants. Even events that changes their lives. This second book continues with the path that was shown in the first book. It was a good read, the story was consistent and it was easy to read. I really enjoyed it and can recommend it to anyone who like these kind of somewhat light books.

Anne B. Radge: Satunnaista seuraa (casual company)

 

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 If you want to read this yourself after it gets translated into your own language - stop reading now.

If not, follow me ;) The book is about 38 year old Ingunn who has never really been in a real relationship/ doesn't really seem to even like to be in one. That being said, it bugs the hell out of me why the author couldn't pull that storyline through to the end. It bugs 'cause you don't see those happily childfree/relationshipfree people in literature at all and this had a good start but it didn't carry through. Everything is sugarconed into sunshine and puppies. Eventhough this one starts with random sex with anything that can walk it ends with sunshine and puppies and it makes me somehow very dissapointed. 

The title and.. everything just hinted that for once there could be a book without the "this is how it's supposed to be"-storyline and it got me so excited. But from this point of view the story fell short. From some "yay this is the only way to go"-point of view this book is probably a success.