This book was just outright fantastic. FANTASTIC!!! Highly recommended.

An epistolary novel (sigh. I have such a weakness for those!) relating the story of young writer who finds herself corresponding with a group of Guernsey natives, learning of their experiences during the German occupation. Charming, poignant, moving. It’s romantic and sad and just really really lovely.

Best book I’ve read this year, hands down (and although I read it in January, I still think that now in March when I’m finally telling you about it).

A very intense book about a messed-up mother/daughter relationship with lots of cool photography stuff to boot. I doubt anyone with knowledge of 20th century photography can read this without thinking of Sally Mann’s photographs. (However, while Mann shot all three of her children, the photographer in the book concentrates only on the one daughter.) It was sometimes a tough read (my overly enhanced Piscean empathy gets me way too involved in fictional conflicts!), but I thought it was completely engaging and I may have stayed up until 3 a.m. finishing it. Really loved it.

Soooooo good. I’ve recommended short stories by Lanagan to you before (here or here), and I believe this is her first novel. I will be eternally in Marrije‘s debt for introducing me to such a great author.

This is earthy, dark, bitter, spiky, sexy and tactile. It’s also sweet and loving and tender at times. The bad is often quite brutal, often in metaphor, and the good is quite poignant.

I was a little surprised it was classed as YA. Certainly the fairy tales of our/my youth flirted with just as much danger. But I don’t remember them being as powerful. Perhaps if I re-read them today, I would find myself gripping the book like an anchor and crying through chapters as I did here. But I doubt it.

So Good!!!

Really entertaining. In the beginning the focus is split and I started to wonder when the two stories would come together, but the payoff when they did was pretty great. Dark and twisted, totally intense mystery. Loved how it was finally figured out. So many well-drawn characters and spooky pasts to think about. Very cool.

The title is a bit of a misnomer. That person exists, but the tattoo is very little to the point. But that may have been picked by the publisher as apparently Larsson died shortly after turning in this manuscript (and two others).