The girl who loved Tom Gordon

Hey, look! I found my old blog 😉
My last entry was from 2014, OMG what happened? It’s 2017, I’m scared!

Just finished Stephen Kings “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon”. It’s been standing in my bookshelf just waiting for years. Since 2014?

The book is about Trisha. She’s 9, almost 10 and tall for her age. Her parents recently got a divorce and she lives with her mom and older brother. Every other weekend Trisha and her brother live with their father. The weekends they spend with their mother, she takes them on trips. Sometimes to museums, to carnivals, apple-picking. This weekend, they are going hiking.

Trishas’ brother starts fighting with their mother almost as soon as they get out of the car. He doesn’t like that they moved, he doesn’t like his new school, how could his parents do this to him?
Trisha is so sick of all of this fighting! She loves her mother, she loves her father, she knows their divorce had nothing to do with her. She just wants everybody to get along.

Sick of her mother and brothers fighting she decides to step of the trail to go pee. She follows a small path a little ways, steps off in to the woods and tinkles. When she starts back, she figures she’ll take a short-cut through the woods and cut her mother and brother of. Won’t they be surprised when she shows up ahead of them?

Problem is, Trisha can’t find her way back to the trail…
She walks and she walks… where on earth is that darn path?
When it starts getting dark she realizes she’s lost in the woods…
She also realizes that someone, or something is watching her in the dark…

Why is the book called The girl who loved Tom Gordon?
Trisha has a walkman with an inbuilt radio. The thing that keeps her going, that keeps her from loosing hope is baseball. Trishas’ favorite team is the Red Sox. Her favorite player is Tom Gordon, he’s the best, and the most handsome. So before she goes to sleep she finds a radio station and listens to baseball. Tom Gordon is with her and keeps her from loosing her mind when she’s alone, hungry and tired, lost in the woods.

 

Zombies and shit

By Carlton Mellick III

Oh My God!

This book was soo awesome!
I had never read anything by Carlton Mellick III before, but I promise you I will now!
Imagine battle royale set in the midst of a Zombie apocalypse. Yes… oh yes.

Twenty contestants are chosen at ‘random’  to appear in the Platinum quadrants most popular TV show, ‘Zombie Survival’.
The game is that one surviver, all choosen from the copper quadrant, will win membership in the silver quadrant.
A better life, a life with a home, food every day, and the chance to live to old age.
But there can be only one winner!
You have to get through the zombie infested city to the rescue helicopter, which sits only one!

The contestents this round is among others; a formely famous author, a gentetically enginered human, a half robot-half human, an inventor, a group of mercinary zombie hunters mixed up with some ordinary lowlifes, punks, and druggies.  You know it will get dirty!

This book was so much more than I expected. It was so funny, it was really exiting, I couldn’t put it down, and it was  really well written which I didnt expect.
I loved it, and I have already ordered more Mellick books 😉
It made me happy.

 

 

Legend – Richard Matheson

The book that inspired the movies; The Last Man on Earth (Vincent Price, 1964), The Omega Man (Charlton Heston, 1971) and I Am Legend (Will Smith, 2007)

The movies that most accurately follow the book are the first two, mainly the first.
Since I had seen all three movies prior to reading the book, I already more or less knew the entire story, the book isn’t very long (212 pages) so the movies got most of the details without much left out. Except for I Am Legend, this one has only used the general idea of the book and the main characters name. It’s the movie that’s the farthest from the book.

If you’ve seen any of the movies you know the story. Robert Nevill is the last man on earth after some sort of disease has turned the human race into vampires. The infected aren’t killed by the disease, at least not right away, but when they die, they come back. Robert has fortified his house and we follow him over three years, from about 8 months after the break-out ’til his inevitable demise. It’s a slow-paced story with Robert at times trying to kill all the diseased, at times just trying to survive and at times just wondering why? What is the point to try to even survive? His wife and daughter were killed by the disease and he’s all alone. The last human, perhaps the last human in the entire world. Every night the diseased gather outside his house, banging on the door trying to get him to come out, with his former next-door neighbour Ben Cortman calling him, over and over again Come out Neville! The others don’t seem to talk, just grunt, whether this is because the others can’t speak or if they choose not to Robert does not know. All he knows is that they want him to come out, so they can kill him.

If you haven’t seen the movies I don’t want to spoil the ending, because the twist is rather important. It’s a thought-provoking story about fear and prejudice and hopefully you will find yourself contemplating the morality of Neville’s actions as he himself does.
I didn’t love the book, but it was still worth the read, and after reading it you understand why they wanted to make a movie out of it, and after seeing the first movie you understand why they wanted to try to make a better movie out of it (don’t get me wrong though, Vincent Price is an awesome Robert Neville), and after seeing the second movie, you yet again understand that they wanted a new movie, to try to really do the book justice. unfortunately we got I Am Legend. I liked that movie too, but it would have been nice if they had tried to keep it closer to the original story, especially the ending of the third movie, sort of misses the point being made in the book, if you only want to watch one of the movies, I’d go with the first one, The Last Man on Earth.

Best idea: watch all three movies, read the book and make a weekend out of it!

Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman

Richard is an ordinary, boring man, with an ordinary boring job and an ordinary boring life.
One night on his way to an important date with his girlfriend he finds a young girl on the sidewalk. The girl is badly hurt and Richard stops to help her. Richards girlfriend barely notices the girl and urges Richard to come, they are in a hurry after all. But Richard can’t just leave the poor girl, he picks her up and takes her home.
The girl’s name is Door, and after she wakes up and washes herself of she tells Richard she is really sorry, and leaves.
Sorry, what was she sorry for?

The next day Richard goes to work as usual, but people seem to be ignoring him, he tries to talk to his coworkers but they just look at him confused and turn away. Richard starts to feel like something’s wrong, when he gets home he jumps in the shower, while in there he hears people come in to his apartment. It’s the landlord, and he has people with him, people he is showing the apartment to. Richard takes a deep breath, and wearing only his towel, still dripping from the shower he walks out to tell the landlord and the others to leave… But they don’t even see him… It’s like he doesn’t even exist anymore.

Richard packs a bag and start looking for the young girl Door to find out what is going on. He finds a whole other world under London. He finds Door, and more than he bargained for! In under London Richard meets Rat-interpreters, warmth vampires, the horrible assassins Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, the epic bodyguard Hunter, the black brothers, the great Marques de Carabas, and even an angel! All Richard wants is to find his way back home but the road home is long and hard, and after all that adventure, will Richards ordinary life really be enough?

Read this book in swedish, you should definitely read this book in english if you can. There was nothing wrong with the translation, but things get lost in the translation. It’s by a British author and some books just don’t translate well. The book was exciting and at the same time sweet, works well for both teens and adults in my opinion.

3 Chutulus

Doctor Sleep – Stephen King

 

 

I read Kings newest book a while back, Doctor Sleep. The book is about Danny Torrence, the psychic boy from ‘The Shining’. He’s now in his 30’s and is still trying to put what happened at the Overlook behind him. Unfortunately, the trauma and his fathers alcoholism has followed him and he himself had become an alcoholic and made a lot of bad mistakes in his life.

Danny has still got the shine, only not as strongly as when he was a child, and as he’s running away from yet another bad mistake after a night of drinking he gets a really strong impulse to stop in New Hampshire. Here he gets a job at a hospice and decides to get sober.
Through his shine he comes in contact with a little girl named Abra Stone, a girl who shines even stronger than Danny himself did at the same age.
Unfortunately there are others who have found out about Abra because of her gift. They call themselves the True Knot and are a sort of vampires who live of off children with the shining, or as they call it, children with steam.

When they find out about Abra and her amazing gift they realize that they could live for a long time off her steam and they decide to do what ever it takes to find her. Danny and his new friends has to find Abra and help her, they have to stop the True!

The book was exciting and, as always when it comes to King, the characters were interesting, complex and well-developed. It was nice to get to meet Danny again and to find out what he’d been up to since his days at the Overlook Hotel. In my opinion this wasn’t one of Kings best work, but it was still very good and I recommend it to any and all King fans. You don’t need to read the Shining first to appreciate Doctor Sleep, but if you are acquainted with what happened at the Overlook, then the references and flashbacks will be more interesting.

3 Chutulus out of 5

 

American Horror Story

Been watching American horror story. I’m at S2E5, and I’m like… first we had murderers, ghosts and perhaps the anti-christ. Then we got psycho’s, demons, aliens and nazis, I’m just wondering how they are going to top this? 😉

So far I like the first season more than the second, but I still like it so I’m going to keep watching. It’s a good show, the first season totally hooked me after like the second episode, unfortunately, as I said, second season is not as good, but it’s still good, and I really like many of the actors.
Season 1 gets 4 chutulus, season 2 gets 2,5, maybe 3, but then again, I’m only on episode 5!

Next time; hopefully Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

Lost Girl

Recently started watching Lost Girl. Its about a succubus just finding out what she is, and finding a whole world of creatures living next to us humans, and her human best friend.
I know, there are four seasons and I’ve only seen one so far, but… But; strong female lead; yes she has sex to heal, which is a perfect reson to, yeah, have sex. But it’s not used as much as I thought they would, as they could.
They feature strong sexy, independent leads, female/male friendships that are nothing more than.. FRIENDSHIPS! and they show homosexual couples where the story line has nothing to do with their homosexuality, which is refreshing.

As I mentioned, I’ve only seen one season, but I really like it, totally hooked. Watch it, tell  me what you think =)

First out, Urban-Fantasy

 

 

 

 

Review will follow in Swedish

Daughter of Smoke & Bone – Laini Taylor

Karou is a 17 year old girl with blue hair who’s an art student in Prag. On the surface she’s a fun-loving, excentric, creative girl with sarcastic humour and wild imagination. All her friends and classmates love to flip through her sketch books, where she draws her strange characters; Brimstone, who collects teeth, Issa, the snake-woman who makes wonderfull cookies and little Kishmish, the raven-like creature who likes to play on Brimstones horns.

Soon we find out that Karou’s imagination isn’t as wild and crazy as we first thought.

Karou grew up in Brimstones shop, where she was looked after by Issa. Now she’s living in her own appartment in Prag and is trying to live an as normal life as possible. Well, she’s still running arrends for Brimstone and she sees him and the others from the shop as her family.

She stands with one foot in Brimstones shop, which is the only part of his world that she knows, with chimeras and magic (and why do they need all those theeth?), and with the other foot in our world, with school and friends.

One day, burned handprints start showing up on doors all over the world. Doors, that are also portals to Brimstones shop.
While on an arrend, Karou suddenly lock eyes with a strange man…

Karou is thrown in to a war between two ancient races, two races who both sees themselves on the side of good fighting demons. Yet the only thing Karou can think about is how she fits in to all of this? Who is Karou? When, and why did she get her tattoos on her palms? And who is the man following her?

This is the first part of a triology and I will most certainly read the other two. I read it in swedish and the translation was really well written. The book is ‘young-adult’, but it fits anyone who likes urban-fantasy. It contains excitement, love, humour, war, betrayal, family and joy.

I had never read anything from this author before but I probably will in the future because this book gave me just a taste, and I want more 😉

I give it four Chutulus out of five!

Mörk ängel – Laini Taylor

Karou är en 17årig tjej med blått hår som pluggar konst i Prag. På ytan är hon en rolig, excentrisk, kreativ tjej, med sarkastisk humor och livlig fantasi. Alla hennes vänner och klasskamrater älskar att bläddra i hennes ritblock där hon tecknar sina märkliga karaktärer; Brimstone som samlar på tänder, Issa, ormkvinnan som alltid bakar kakor och lilla Kishmish, en kråkliknande varelse som gillar att leka i Brimstones horn.

Snart förstår vi dock att Karou’s fantasi inte är så livlig ändå.

Karou har vuxit upp i Brimstones butik där hon blivit omhändertagen och uppfostrad av Issa. Nu bor hon i en egen lägenhet i Prag och försöker leva ett vanligt liv, så gott det går i alla fall, hon springer fortfarande ärenden åt Brimstone och ser honom och de andra från butiken som sin familj.

Hon lever med ena foten i Brimstones butik, vilket är allt hon känner av hans värld, med kimärer och magi, (och vad använder de alla tänder till) och den andra foten i vår värld, med skola och vänner.

Plötsligt börjar det dyka upp inbrända handavtryck på dörrar över hela världen, dörrar som agerar portaler till Brimstones butik och på ett utav Karou’s ärenden möter hon plötsligt blicken på en man…

Karou kastas in i ett krig mellan två uråldriga folk, två folk som båda anser sig stå på de godas sida och ser de andra som demoner och det enda hon kan tänka på är hur hon själv passar in i detta? Vem är Karou? När och varför fick hon tatueringarna på sina handflator? Och vem är mannen som förföljer henne?

Detta är första delen i en trilogi och jag kommer definitivt läsa de andra två. Original titeln är Daughter of Smoke & Bone, jag läste den dock på svenska. Översättningen var mycket bra, jag tänkte inte ens på att det var en översättning, den är välskriven med ett bra språk. Boken är en ‘ung-vuxen’ bok, men den passar utmärkt för vilken vuxen som helst som gillar urban-fantasy. Den innehåller spänning, kärlek, humor, krig, svek och glädje.

Jag hade aldrig läst något av denna författare förut, men jag kommer nog göra det i framtiden för denna bok gav mersmak.

Fyra chutulu’s av fem 😉