The Girl Who Played With Fire

After reading the poetic and literary beauty 'One hundred years of solitude,' I was looking for a quick read and so I picked 'The girl who played with fire'-the second novel in The Millennium series by Steig Larsson. I had read 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' a couple of months ago and was completely enamored by it.
 

The first book took me by complete surprise. The plot was intriguing and the characters unique. Especially Lisbeth Salander-the protagonist was so different from any of the novels I have read so far. The saga of the Vangar family was filled with drama and mystery. I liked the fact that it was a very fast paced novel with several twists and turns. It was a thoroughly enjoyable mystery novel.
 

Obviously, my expectations were quite high from the second novel. It is a great book but somehow lacks the same grip as the first one. On its own it is brilliant but in comparison to the first one and as a sequel, I was a little disappointed. The adventures of Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomkvist continue and several characters from the first novel play important roles in this one. I finished the book in two days straight. That has to say something about how much the book can involve you but at the end of it something feels incomplete. Maybe I shouldn't have had such high expectations and I could have enjoyed the book a little better.
 

I am yet to read the last of the trilogy 'The girl who kicked the hornet's nest.' The unusual personality of Lisbeth is the biggest highlight of this series. Her background, talents and experiences are what make the books so popular and interesting.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

After falling in love with 'Love in the time of Cholera' and 'Chronicles of a death foretold', I got my hands on yet another Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel-One hundred years of solitude. I was prepared to have my mind blown away by the Nobel prize winning author. And I was not disappointed.

The novel is a saga of the rise and fall of a fictitious town Macondo through the story of several generations of the crazy Buendia family. There are so many characters and each one of them has a strong distinctive personality yet they all share a common fate because they are of Buendia blood. Much as I tried, I could not pick a favorite as each one of them is so real with their strength and flaws yet equally unreal with their own bizarre and almost supernatural traits.

Best known for its magic realism genre, this novel does not care or pass a judgement about moral or immoral. The characters simply behave according to their inherent nature. There are so many sub plots, themes and motifs in the character yet without overwhelming or confusing, it intrigues and evokes strong emotions in the reader's mind. The novel is an absolute treat for anyone who enjoys literature.The plot is linear with occasional flashbacks, language poetic and the plot fascinating. What I loved the most was the way the writer connects characters from the past with current events depicting the shared fate of the Buendias through generations. The hopes, dreams, fears, mistakes and quirkiness even though different have an underlying common point and that unites the entire novel through six generations.

After completing the novel, I feel an emptiness inside me which I think will be filled only by starting yet another of the master's novel.

Books -2013

For quite some time, I've thought about making a list of all the books I've read this year to keep track of my reading. The ones I can remember so far are:

1.  Jonathan Livingston Seagull-Richard Bach
2. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo-Stieg Larsson
3. Deception Point-Dan Brown
4. God of Small Things-Arundhati Roy
5. Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
6. Chronicles of a death foretold-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
7. One hundred years of Solitude-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8. Trading Up-Candace Bushnell   
9. The Girl who played with fire-Stieg Larsson 
10. And Then there were none-Agatha Christie 
11. The Good Conscience-Carlos Fuentes 
12. The Girl with a pearl earring-Tracy Chevalier 
13. Death on the Nile-Agatha Christie

I hope to see at least a couple more added to this list by the end of this year. Will keep updating.