USVI-On-Line

Gromit wrote:Just started reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and finding it very hard to get into for some reason. Someone please tell me it picks up....

It definately picks up!

I felt the same way and my BFF, who gave it to me assured me it would be worth it and it was.

Sadly, I lost the book right before we left for STJ and it bothered me so much, I bought another copy to finish on the plane.

I got into a conversation with a few women on the flight down about this book and someone brought up their opinion about the dragging beginning. One theory was that maybe the translation of the first 3rd of the book wasn't as good as it could of been, making for awkward reading.

Other books I finished on vacation and since we arrived home -

My Life in France by Julia Child. I really enjoyed this and I think anyone who enjoys eating/cooking/travelling would also enjoy it.

Julia and her husband had an amazing lust for life.

Getting Stone with Savages. This is the follow up to Sax Lives with Cannibals, which is also a very funny book.

I just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Urgh, it was a slog! It got better in the last 100 pages or so, but the rest of it was so sterile. And I really hated the solution to the mystery. Creepy and not what I wanted to read about on vacation. I am especially bummed because the only other books I have with me are the next two in the series, and I also brought Outlander, but I am here for two more weeks! I bought a huge bag of books to bring down and forgot them under my desk at work.

So, for those of you that read this series, are the other books better? The house we are at doesn't have anything I want to read either. Sigh...

liamsaunt,
have you tried the used book place ear starfish? you an probably find something in there!

While on St John last month, I read Just Kids, by Patti Smith, Shanghi Girls and The Piano Teacher. Of the three, I really liked Just Kids, which is an autobiographical account of when Patti Smith went to NY as a teenager and there met Robert Mapplethorpe. It's the story of their life together and how they worked as artists. I just loved the punk rock days. Patti Smith is a great writer and I was sitting on the plane crying at the end. But then I cry over commercials. The other two were good summer reads and part of my book club homework. Currently, I am reading The 19th Wife, also a book club selection. I couldn't talk them into Just Kids. The 19th Wife is good so far.

Liamsaunt--I think I remember there being used books at the donkey diner and skinny legs to grab if you don't like what you have. Maybe an ereader for you the next trip? I know the "I don't have anything to read" feeling, argh! So much better to not to have to cart around pounds of books.

Island Blues also has a pretty decent selection of "borrow" books.

Alright, things are starting to pick up a little for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" I'm guessing I just had to get in the right mood.

We'll see....

It takes a while to get in to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It drags at the beginning. Perhaps it's the translation; perhaps it's too much background.

Gromit
The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo definitely picks up.
I read it last summer and remember struggling a bit through the beginning. By the end, I was sad to leave the main characters. I read his second book because I "missed" being "with" the main characters. I am now on the third one in the series. This last one is more of a struggle than the first - too many similar names, trying to recall who fits in where etc.

Who recommended "Loving Frank" here? (Too many pages to search through.)
That was good. Thanks.

Well thanks to the weather, I have finished the Lisbeth Salander series. I liked #2, #3 more than #1. Next up: Outlander, recomended from this forum.

I am sure this has been mentioned many times here, but I just finished The Help and thought it was fantastic. I am tempted to read it again, and I've only done that with two other books in my life. That good, from my perspective. Due to family and personal history I might have related to the book more than some, but nonetheless, I did love it.


Edited to add: I just went back a few pages and read some other opinions. I was fine with the ending, and did think it set up the characters to move on and do other great things, which is what I like in a story sometimes.

I just read South of Broad by Pat Conroy. Not normally a big fan of his but I loved this book.
Someone just gave me Beach Music so that's on the pile for the future.