The Sweeney Sisters by Lian Dolan

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I wasn't sure what I wanted to read. Sick of the suddenly-standard Psychological Thriller, and with the weather getting nicer, I was in the mood for a Spring-y read to break in my outdoor reading swing. And, if nothing else, the cover of The Sweeney Sisters by Lian Dolan simply screams Spring.

William Sweeney, a seemingly larger-than-life literary icon, known and taught the world over, dies suddenly one June morning, leaving his three daughters - Liza, Maggie, and Tricia - to not only pick up the pieces, but to find them all first: revenues that are dwindling, memoires that can't be located, and one surprising piece of the puzzle - a half Sweeney Sister - Serena - the result of his affair with the woman across the street. An interesting take on something that has become pretty commonplace these days - DNA testing - The Sweeney Sisters gracefully bypasses the salacious details of DNA revelations in favor of the hearts and souls that are really at the core of these fallouts. This book is a more intimate perspective into this premise, and a thorough exercise in empathy.

Written with a true talent for the word, Dolan expertly tackles the difficulties of writing about a fictional literary icon - writing about his supposed works without having to actually write his supposed works. But what translates is centered more around everyone's reactions, leaving the reader feeling as if they are Serena, herself - walking into the middle of a conversation; or, in this case, a lifetime - between close siblings. We are the flies on the wall as these women traverse their father's legacy - both in public and in family - and reconcile their memories of him with the things they are just learning. So, where you would think twists and turns abound, the so-called shocking revelations - including the reveal of the fourth sister - is pretty anticlimactic and tame.

The Sweeney Sisters is a gentle, feel-good, novel, but certainly not the "belly laughs" as described. It is more of a walk down memory lane driven by the sudden inclusion of an outsider, as well as a story about death and everything that comes after, though the level of empathy makes the story somewhat unrelatable. It's a compassionate look at how we idolize public figures who are dicks in private, the pedestals we place people on, and how they almost always come crashing down upon their death. It's an easy read, though not too exciting, and the drama can be a bit contrived. But the characters are likable and humble, the writing is witty and intelligent, introducing me to a plethora of new words, and the ending is warm and fuzzy. Perfect for Spring. ⭐⭐⭐/5 on my goodreads.

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Like with everything these days, there is a big online community for books, which - when you think about it - is just a tad ironic since, in some ways, the internet killed the literary star. On the contrary, however, the internet has made more books, authors, and publishers accessible to fans and potential readers, and has cast a wider net in terms of passing along recommendations. No longer is it just groups of a dozen slightly buzzed middle-aged women discussing the latest New York Times best-seller; now we simply post a picture of the book online and it reaches an immeasurable amount of people in a short amount of time. It was in this way that I learned of Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale (a book that I saw a woman glancing at at Costco and walked right up to her and told her how phenomenal it was), how I learned that Hannah had written a new book, The Great Alone, and how I learned that it was quickly garnering rave reviews.

As we know, judging a book by its cover is never ok. Except that it's totally ok and it's basically how we choose anything at the bookstore. Judging a book by the title is encouraged and while I cannot exactly articulate what my predispositions were of The Great Alone, after having read it, I was left thoroughly underwhelmed. The title and hypnotic book cover lulled me into a false expectation of something glacial and dramatic, and while it is certainly dramatic, it is a literary roller coaster like no other. I don't expect to be blown away by everything one of my favorite authors writes; case in point, Erin Kelly's The Poison Tree, and I pretty much live in fear of anything Liane Moriarty publishes. But Hannah left me with a new degree of disappointment - The Great Alone made me feel...uncomfortable.

Mother and daughter, Coraline and Lenora, are two peas in a pod. At least, they have to be in order to navigate both the rough terrain of Dad, Ernt's, post-Vietnam personality, and the rough wilderness of Alaska, a place they find themselves grossly unprepared for. Hopeful in the same way that Jack and Danny Torrence were hopeful at the beginning of The Shining, there are moments of this book that actually scared me. It never quite escapes that Overlook Hotel feel, and as the story progresses, a feeling of Shakespeare, Sleeping with the Enemy, and the news tags along for the ride. It is real and raw, but showcases human frailty, especially of our own making, more than anything else. 

This being my second of Hannah's novels, I can say that she has a true talent for creating vivid characters, set against a magnificent backdrop, and for weaving everything together to form a remarkable, poignant story. Her writing is profound, moving, clear, and imaginative, and she digs deep to really give her books a three-dimensional feel. My trouble with this specific book, however, is that the main thing it made me feel is sadness. Where The Nightingale is sad because there is nothing about WWII that is not sad, in The Great Alone, Hannah corners the market on sadness. And just when you think that there can't possibly be anymore sadness, here is a big heaping scoop of even more sadness. It reminds me of one of the many reasons that I didn't enjoy Blind Your Ponies - it's like one Lifetime movie regurgitating every other Lifetime movie.

Cora and Leni's story is definitely dramatic, engrossing, emotional, and heart-stopping, so I understand the glowing reviews. But it's in the way that I don't relate to people who enjoy binge-watching murder shows at bedtime - this book's level of sadness and unfortunate circumstances is simply not my personal taste.

Hannah has many a book in her arsenal, including one that is currently on my shelf. I will continue to read Hannah's books, though maybe paying a little less attention to the cover and the title and the rave reviews.

California by Eden Lepucki

Sometimes it feels like divine destiny when certain books enter into our lives, what I shall hereto forth refer to as "book-estiny." Or maybe it just seems that way to us over-analytical, bibliophile, Virgo types, but after reading Eden Lepucki's California, "book-estiny" is the only way to describe my interaction with this compelling, gripping, thought-provoking, haunting peek at a very real near future.

I first heard about California back in 2014 when it was a New Release and Lepucki stopped by The Colbert Report on her book tour. I don't remember any part of the interview but I accept any and all book recommendations, especially from one of my favorite TV personalities. I picked it up cheap with an Amazon gift card then it sat on my shelf for the next two years. Although California would have been as equally relatable back in 2014 as it is now, with the recent death of the Occupy Wall Street movement that's only accomplishment was the degradation of millennials, it couldn't possibly have predicted the political tide of the 2016 Presidential election. Or could/did it?

What could have easily been a cheesy, overly-dramatic homage to what could very well be our near future, is actually quite frightening when you realize it was written two years ago and you suddenly have flashbacks to reading 1984. But rather than distinguish an obvious hero and villain - the winners and loser of the last several years, if you will - Lepucki artfully crafts a desolate and untamed world in which everyone loses under the guise of victory and supreme rule (*cough* President Trump *cough, cough*). And although the story and landscape scream of apocalyptic end-times, it is actually only the result of a political apocalypse skillfully detailed by Lepucki as the best and worst principles to be born from any modern-day revolution. So while California may have gotten lost in the sea of Fifty Shades of Grey and Game of Thrones, Lepucki's startling portrayal of a world controlled by fear would make for excellent discussion material in any University Sociology course. While that was mostly what propelled me through this book, it wasn't why I picked it up in the first place, thus divine book-estiny.

A few years ago I wanted to spend the summer reading non-fiction and now it's become habit; I find the season to be synonymous with WWII and getting lost in the jungle, thus I admit to committing the cardinal book sin of judging California by its cover.

There was very little jungle-roaming involved, nor was it a theme or anything Lepucki put any sort of focus on aside from describing the ravaged LA now-countryside. What did stand out for me, however, was the many possible ways to analytically dissect this novel. Like, the impact children have on a society, both biologically and in terms of culture, and how they alter our perceptions, reality, and the combining of the two; or the fundamentals of each prominent ideology and why no one idea is the perfect formula for a Utopian society; or how and why there is no such thing as a Utopian society, and that despite a revolution, history still has more to teach us, most importantly that we will always rely on each other if our species is to survive. But in spite of all of this, the book as a whole lacked structure and offered very little incentive for the reader to keep going.

I noted early on that although I didn't "feel" the usual "click," I did find myself blindly moving through the book, similar to the way Cal and Frida moved through their daily existence. But while they asked very little questions, I asked many, especially when the book neared the end and it became clear Lepucki had no intentions of wrapping everything up a nice, happy ending. It is hard to determine if she had aspirations of a sequel, or if she just realized that in order to wrap each story up in a nice, little ending package she'd need to write at least 100 more pages and just decided to quit instead. Or maybe that is the final lesson she is trying to teach us - that cycles will continue in the face of insanity; doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results no matter how much planning is involved.

While the lessons gleaned from California abound both in 2014 and in present-day, I felt the hitting to be too close to home, and as much doom and gloom as watching the news. It's possible I might have felt differently had I read the book two years ago but, like 1984, this book will probably always find a way to be culturally relevant.

Book-estiny.

Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin

Your first thought upon cracking open this biographical work is, "Wow, I can't believe this was written in 1959! This could be about [insert current year here]!" I mean, after your actual initial thought of, "I'm reading a piece of culturally significant material that enlightens me to the world beyond my own backyard, go me!"

But as the story develops, cultural implications give way to a bland overview of 1960's Deep South racism, spectral division, and a sense of hatred that would be powerful and life-altering had the story execution been even remotely interesting.

What would have ordinarily been a rather quick read ended up dragging on slower than the buses that begrudgingly carted Mr. Griffin around Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and the like. Distantly telling of the obstacles he encountered after altering his white skin to become black - colored bathrooms miles away from convenient, denied cups of coffee or glasses of water, looks of disgust from obvious strangers - Mr. Griffin spoke more of the general segregation and corresponding consequences of blacks - oftentimes horrific - than of his own, often horrific, experiences. And although they were shocking in nature, Griffins' portrayal of them was distant, vague, and lacked the sort of intensity one would expect from a white man going from his seemingly privileged existence to the suppressed, harsh life of a 1960's Negro man; especially coming from his own personal journal.

Afforded the luxury of being able to switch from black to white skin, Griffin instead wasted it by describing his experiences is generic prose, as if he were standing outside a window looking in. Constructed as his personal journal throughout his seven-week experiment, his freedom to paint a more specific picture of 1960's racial injustice was supremely wasted, though he was still subjected to his own brand of racism once the experiment was made public. Not until the epilogue, which I almost didn't read, did Mr. Griffin delve deep into what his experiment revealed, why, and any possible moves toward national harmony, though he stopped short of making any actual suggestions.

Obviously this work was culturally significant in it's 1960's publication, and is still relevant today, which is both sad and promising. Sad because we're dealing with the same issues as a nation over 50-year later, and promising because although racial harmony alludes us, and springs up in new, ugly ways, our ability to recognize the problem of judging someone based on skin color alone is what separates us from the animals. But, if we're being honest, animals have us beat in this area; I've never seen a dog attack another dog simply for being black.

The Gringo

I came across this title by way of a virtual goodreads.com friend. I read the description and instantly added it to my list for Summer of the Memoir. Having momentarily fancied the idea of joining the Peace Corps after college then realizing I'd have to leave all of my high heels at home, the subject matter instantly piqued my interest.

Like anyone entering government work, J. Grigsby Crawford jumped head-first into his Peace Corps assignment with grandiose dreams of changing the world, one poverty-stricken village at a time. Initially put-off by the recruitment and training regimen, which used to be difficult but now more closely resembles grade school Field Day, Crawford ultimately follows through and asks for the most popular and widely-known (and most likely to lead to a high-level government job) assignment: remote South America. But upon his arrival, things are off to a very weird, very unpredictable start.

Although the population of the area he was supposed to be helping quickly rebutted him and put his life in danger on numerous occasions, Crawford never lost his desire for the dream. Working tirelessly to do something, he wound up making the most difference (mostly to himself) in only a short amount of time, and spent the rest worrying if he would live from one day to the next. His account isn't exactly what I would call a glowing recommendation for the Peace Corps, or any government-run agency.

As most of us do, I looked up to the Peace Corps as something I'd only ever aspire to be like. I put the organization and the people in it on a pedestal of greatness; stronger, more capable, and fearless than I ever could hope to be. I feel powerless without my high heels. While Crawford lived up to that embodiment, his account of the organization and its members is rather disappointing and frustrating.

An interesting story with twists and turns you don't see coming, The Gringo is more than just a memoir but a tale of survival, idiocy, hopes of changing the world, and just how difficult people can make that be. Written more like a working blog than a memoir, Crawford takes you along for the ride, random observations of human nature and the occasional swear word just in case his mother isn't reading included. He learned a lot during his travels abroad and we learned something from him thanks to his candor and unwillingness to sugar coat his experience. His ultimate feelings about what he was trying to accomplish were quite disappointing, but had it been us, we would have felt a lot worse.

A short, relatively uncomplicated read that flows more like a blog, finishing this in a weekend and/or hauling around in your tote isn't any more difficult than dealing with intense genital pain in the middle of South America.

The Silver Star

My inaugural book when I first joined the book club was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and it quickly became one of those books I still talk about and recommend almost five years later. A couple of years ago, still big fans, we picked up her Half Broke Horses, a memoir of her grandmother on her mother's side. Her latest, The Silver Star, is a mix of the two and a tired use of very similar themes.

Taking place in the 70's, the too-long, under-developed story centers around Jean "Bean" Holladay and her older sister, Liz, on their own while their flaky mother chases dreams of Hollywood stardom. Surviving only on pot-pies (which, oddly enough, made me crave a pot pie), their mother Charlotte, doesn't come back after one of her trips so the girls decide to go where their survival might be aided by an adult figure of some responsibility. I'm starting to think that only in a Jeannette Walls novel is young children traveling cross-country alone acceptable - even in the 70's - but I guess I'm just a fuddy-duddy like that.

Making it all the way to Virginia where their uncle has been tending to the once opulent but now decrepit Holladay estate, he hesitantly lets the girls in despite their penchant for causing trouble in the name of good. They soon start a life that is on the verge of normal but couldn't be entirely so since it is Jeannette Walls after all, an author who found the homeless/poor theme and decided to stick with it.

Obviously, one can't fault her for exploring those themes in her first two books as they were memoirs. But with this being her first novel, I had expectations she'd branch out a bit more. Look at Outlander, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter; the imagination knows no bounds! So throughout most of the book I found myself wondering, as an author, why she didn't explore a place she has never been.

I might have been able to overlook that for the most part if the stories and sub-themes had actually been developed and not come to a screeching halt. Every instance of "drama" was shorter than the last with the reader forced to visualize, assume, and do most of the work. Walls created a story that could have gone several different places but chickened out, and was written with a style more suitable to the Young Adult genre. If one thing can be said, Walls expertly wrote from the prospective of a 12-year old.

Others in the book club generally agreed, that The Silver Star was very much been there, done that, got the burlap sack you wore as a dress for a month. We get it.

Obviously, it's no secret this was not one of my favorite books, especially of her's. It's not terrible and might be more appreciated if it was read before her others instead of after. Either way, wait until it hits the bargain bin. It's a short, uncomplicated read, good for reading during a weekend while you're in between better books. Sorry, Ms. Walls; I'll be interested in what you come out with next...

The Great (??) Gatsby

Committing the ultimate faux pas in book-reviewing (ok, really on in my anal-retentive mind), I'm book-jumping to squeeze in The Great Gatsby during its 15-minutes of popularity due to the latest Leonardo DiCaprio movie. Go figure.

Hailed as one of the greatest works of fiction - and F. Scott Fitgerald's - The Great Gatsby is a story of complete and utter absorption, from the main character, Nick's, preoccupation with the ostentation neighbor, to Gatsby's unhealthy infatuation with a woman he knew long ago, Daisy. The intense imagery and plethora of metaphors transport the reader back to a different era that keeps them plenty occupied while they wait for the actual story to begin.

Just shy of halfway through the short 180-pages, the story actually begins; a pretty messed up one at that. More of a short story, Fitzgerald's tale lack a lot of the drama, mystery, and mystique we've come to know and love with contemporary novels. Just as quick as the story begins, it's over and we're left wondering why we were participatory.

The span of several months, and even years, reads much like the length of only one day, and our knowledge of the main character - our accomplice, if you will - is startlingly limited. Even our knowledge of the would-be main character, Gatsby, is rather limited and sporadic and is seems like we're only left with the attributes of him that are grossly unflattering and downright sad. DiCaprio's Gatsby, however, will no doubt melt even the coldest hearts to pools of rich butter while his predecessor couldn't melt anyone's, even with a hearty helping of the finest champagne, the finest food money can buy, a mansion, and an air of mysterious, intriguing, possibly troubling past.

For most, this was required high school reading and in the beginning I could for the life of me fathom why; "spectroscopic gayety," really?! And, "...[she] began to cry stormily. 'They're sure beautiful shirts. It makes me sad because I've never seen such beautiful shirts before.'" Then, as the story gets moving, I realized walking through the world of The Great Gatsby (more specifically, his somewhat nosy neighbor) is an over-analytical individual's utopia. What better way to waste an hour than sit in a classroom and hypothesize why this book takes us through the various twists and turns, and analyze the supposed symbolism in the plenitude of metaphors? Perhaps, then, I might have liked and appreciated it more, and why my friends who did read it in high school think it's "AMAZING."

This might be the very first case where I enjoy the movie considerably  more than the book. At least if the story is told equally as bad, I'll get to preoccupy myself with looking at all the pretty outfits.

Queenmaker

Have you read Michelle Moran's Nefertiti, Cleopatra's Daughter, or The Heretic Queen? Well, India Edghill's Queenmaker is exactly like those, only set in Biblical Jerusalem instead of pre-Biblical Egypt.

I reached page 4 when I got sucked into the book and realized the King David I was reading about was the David who defeated Goliath with a single stone. Surely, this would be a story of a great man, not like the extra large tool-bags I read about in Moran's fictionally historic novels. The first line: "People say David loved me because I resembled my brother." Ok, so maybe we were reaching into some Alexander with Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie territory. But Edghill writes in such a way that we aren't entirely sure if David is a hero worth his praise or the creepy master manipulator from whence we all originated. Even long after finishing the book, when I encounter references to King David, a mixture of emotions and judgements bubble to the surface and I still can't decide if he was a good man. But maybe that is the point; it's not for me to decide.

Reading about the wife of royalty is always an interesting experience. Like the back of the book boasts, Queen Michal offers up an intense behind-the-scenes, first-hand account of her life as a prisoner of David's love; love for her or himself we're never quite sure. As an impressionable daughter of King Saul, she falls head-over-heels for the enigmatic, dashing stranger, David, brought to Jerusalem to play the harp for the King. He quickly imparts his wisdom on King Saul on how to handle the nation's enemies and approaching conflicts from expertly articulated innocence.

But Future-King David is anything but, slithering his way into Jerusalem's driver's seat by epitomizing the friend that stabs you in the back to your face. Michal is granted her prepubescent wish in becoming his wife, but is forced to live separated from her love. This is when Michal learns the most about her husband, and is faced with the realization that it was nothing more than puppy love and a case of raging adolescent hormones. King David, however, views Michal as a trophy from his first, and most influential, conquest that must shine at his side no matter how dull and jaded it became on the inside. No matter how many other wives he acquired - more than Kings before him - Michal remained his one and only, holding her captive from the man she grew to love in David's absence.

Like all great females of history, Queen Michal was able to extract her revenge, if nothing more than to realize it was David who ultimately suffered the most during his reign.

Edghill expertly captures the essence of Michal, the troublesome girl who grew into an introverted Queen. But her story was bleak and offered happiness in only the most painful of circumstances, something extremely difficult to relate to in this constant I-want-what-I-want-when-I-want-it culture. But, in that vein, she teaches us how to appreciate every little thing we have because it could be a lot less. Or, like Michal, we could have everything we thought we wanted, but nothing of what we did.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I'm a little late to the party in most situations; Desperate Housewives, LOST, The Office, Harry Potter, Twilight, and now, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. I was given the first two in the 3-book series nearly a year ago but, if you've ever seen my bookshelf, I have a lot of catching-up to do. I suppose somewhere in the back of my ego, I don't always want to jump on the latest bandwagon. At any rate, I finally decided to pick up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and about 150 pages in, I almost put it down for good.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, the back cover not necessarily misleading, but not altogether informative, either; it at least didn't even mention the plethora of Swedish financial information I'd have to weed through before the story actually got going. I e-mailed my friend, who I later learned is a big proponent of the series, that this first one was sooooooooooooooooo boring; and that the only reason I was continuing to read was because of my deep desire to have all of my questions answered, my main one being: what does all of this financial mumbo-jumbo have to do with a girl gone missing over 40 years ago? The answer to this question was not as interesting as I would have hoped, and the book eventually morphed from the Swedish Forbes who's who of swindling financiers to a sexually explicit, revolting train-wreck you can't turn away from.

The level of sexual depravity is beyond comprehension. Or maybe I have just led a very sheltered existence. Or maybe I was disheartened with the level of honesty that is presented in this novel. I know people have experienced sexual exploitation, deviance, rape, molestation, torture, and limitless other mind-bogglingly horrific encounters, but having it laid out in print was something I found surprising. But I am one of those naive fools who read for the purpose of escaping reality rather than submerging myself within it.

Once the story moves beyond Sweden's financial troubles - shockingly similar to that of the US, by the by - the premise of the story is revealed: an aging man who has had his hand in every pot of gold all over Europe lost his beloved niece over 40 years ago; and I mean lost in the literal sense. She disappeared like a fart in the wind, leaving in her wake limitless possibilities of what happened, when, where, and why. But first we're introduced to the 2 people who are supposed to ultimately crack the 40+ year-old case that not even the local authorities could solve (although if you've ever watched a soap opera you know that isn't saying much), both of which are highly unexpected sleuths.

For starters, there is Lisbeth Salander who, for some reason - which I've heard is explained in the following 2 books - we get to learn all the details of the sordid past of this "punk prodigy," who is covered in tattoos, piercings, and enough attitude to give all of those Emo kids a run for their money. But she became that way thanks to a past peppered with absentee parents, drug additions, sexual abuse, group homes, and conservators who took advantage of her apparent non-status in society. She spends all of her time - free and otherwise - using her powers to gain access to information on people us mere mortals could only dream of. Her methods are unconventional and could place her among the depravity she inevitably encounters if not for the goods she digs up.

No one saw her coming, nor expected her to, assuming she had been beaten down by the system and preferred to stay there with only her misery to keep her company. Her most recent case worker banked on this assumption and never even considered the possibility of the retaliation she conducted after he brutally rapes her. I, personally, found this aspect of the story very unbearable and only got through it by assuming the reader needed to know her entire story so we could eventually see how awesome a heroin she is. Just learning of her investigative talents was enough for me, thank you very much.

Another aside was learning all about our main character, the hero and Lisbeth's partner both in crime and eventually the sack, Mikael Blomkvist. It's not often someone convicted of libel turns into a hero and, sadly for the first book, he doesn't really amount to much of one in the eyes of his fictional public. Promised with the goods against those who accused him of slander, he hesitantly embarks on the journey to find missing Harriet Vanger; the most likely heir to the Vangar Corporation, Sweden's most prominent of floundering financial firms.

Armed with absolutely nothing but a family of liars, Mikael is introduced to Lisbeth as the last quarter of the book starts. He encounters her work through a lawyer who had the investigative firm run a report on someone who proves to have little significance to the overall story (remember the man who had Mikael convicted of libel? Yeah, him.) Even still, their paths are quite windy and shifty it's amazing they meet in the first place. But meet they do and, of course, solving an old mystery isn't all they get themselves into.

The case seems highly improbably - and the fact that Mikael was personally requested to accomplish the task is even more of a stretch - since all Mikael has to go on is an old photograph taken by a couple visiting the area on their honeymoon. And, lest we forget, any alleged crime took place over 40 years prior. Muddying the waters are members of the Vangar family who span the globe greater than the Kardashian family, and tell just as much of the same truth. It becomes painstakingly obvious that Mikael has inadvertently situated himself amidst a family secret he might have been better off not knowing, with a family hell-bent on keeping it hidden. So the story inevitably evolves into a battle of morals between Blomkvist and the Vangars. What he eventually uncovers, while navigating the bumps of his own personal life, is a level of sexual violence only imagined by those who occupy the most secure of imprisonment institutions.

To say the ending has a twist is an understatement, but I wouldn't lump it in with the twist-master himself, M. Nigh Shyamalan, or that guy who made all of those Bruce Willis movies. The end is shocking and I will not expound further.

As an extremely emotional person, I found this book to be highly intelligent, intriguing, disgusting, shocking, sordid, and just plain crazy. It left me feeling like learning more about Lisbeth would be satisfying but only in the way that eating an entire package of Oreos is satisfying. I'm forced to continue reading the series, however, since it was that in trade for my friend reading her emotionally-scaring equivalent: Marley and Me.

But when I eventually break down and read The Girl Who Played with Fire I'm at least armed with a fresh bottle of antidepressants.