Showing posts with label finnish books. Show all posts
(As White as Snow, Snow White, #2)
5/5
Lumikki Andersson is backpacking in Prague, where the weather is scorching hot. A girl approaches her in a small café and claims to be her half sister. Lumikki’s parents seem to be hiding a secret concerning the family’s past, so the girl’s claim rouses Lumikki’s interest. Despite her erratic behaviour, the girl manages to persuade Lumikki to join a religious family community. Later it turns out that the members are no relation to each other, after all. But it is not until Lumikki learns that the cult leaders are planning mass suicide that she understands just how dangerous the cult is. Furthermore, someone is planning to profit from the tragedy. Lumikki gets acquainted with the streets and graveyards of Prague when she is forced to run for her life to prevent the tragedy. The religion of the cult is not pure; and innocence is not as white as snow.
Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a secret.
Lumikki's story continues. This time freezing Tampere has switched to scorching hot Prague. This time the story feels more real when it's not happening in Finland.
I love Simukka's writing style, it's so detailed that I could really imagine being there and seeing what Lumikki is seeing. After reading this book, Prague is in my "must visit someday"-list.
The second book wasn't as difficult to read or as confusing as the first one. Maybe it was 'cos I got used to Simukka's writing style or maybe this was just more straightforward-type of book. I donät know whick one, but I really loved this book and finished it in only few hours.
The book wasn't too long, story progression was just perfect. There were enough details, but things also happened pretty fast and you couldn't get bored. This was one of those book that I needed to finish in one sitting. I just couldn't put it down, there were always something exciting happening. I must say that I'm really looking forward to reading next and final book in this series that will be published in couple weeks.
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(As Red as Blood, The Snow White Trilogy, #1, pub. Aug. 2014)
5/5
In the midst of the freezing Arctic winter, seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson walks into her school’s dark room and finds a stash of wet, crimson-colored money. Thousands of Euros left to dry—splattered with someone’s blood.
Lumikki lives alone in a studio apartment far from her parents and the past she left behind. She transferred into a prestigious art school, and she’s singularly focused on studying and graduating. Lumikki ignores the cliques, the gossip, and the parties held by the school’s most popular and beautiful boys and girls.
But finding the blood-stained money changes everything. Suddenly, Lumikki is swept into a whirlpool of events as she finds herself helping to trace the origins of the money. Events turn even more deadly when evidence points to dirty cops and a notorious drug kingpin best known for the brutality with which he runs his business.
As Lumikki loses control of her carefully constructed world, she discovers that she’s been blind to the forces swirling around her—and she’s running out of time to set them right. When she sees the stark red of blood on snow, it may be too late to save her friends or herself.
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Once upon a time, there was a girl who learned to be afraid.I rarely read finnish literature, but this was one of those that I just had to read. Everytime I went to bookstore, it just sat there in the shelf watching me and I just couln't ignore it anymore. And I've read so many great reviews, that I thought that it has to be a great book. And the reason why I'm reviewing this book here is that the translation rights has been sold to Amazon and this book will be published in english in August 2014.
It feels weird to read these kind of book in finnish, all this druglord-stuff feels so absurd, when events happen in a town that's less than 100 miles away. Of course we have crime here in Finland too, but Finland is so small country that it's usually in lot smaller scale. Or maybe it just isn't in media so much, that we don't notice it. I mean, we have 5,5 million people in the while country and our biggest city Helsinki has about 600 000 people. So the stuff in this book feels so far away, it almost unreal. I guess that it's possible that it really happens, but it just feels weird. But yeah, that's it about that. Maybe I just need to focus on this book and not in Finland general...
I love how this book is written. It's really detailed, so you can really almost imagine you're in there. I could close my eyes and I could imagine everything and how it would look. I don't know if I know how to say it right, but the wording in this book was interesting. I mean that sentences weren't straight. I don't know. I'm not probably saying it right. But yeah, it was really interesting way to write, it was different and it was really detailed.
Second thing that was interesting was that there were multiple pov's. And sometimes there were little timejumps, like flashbacks. There were few times when I was a little lost at first and there were some scenes that didn't make sense, they felt like they didn't have anything to do with the story. But this is a trilogy and maybe htere are things that will make sense when I read the next book. I loaned it too from library and I'm going to read it next.
I don't know what more can I say about the plot, synopsis says everything you need to know. There isn't much I can say without spoiling too much. But I really liked it, even when it's not the usual genre I read. Lumikki is a character that feels real. Like a real person and not just a character in a book.
Salla Simukka, you are my new favourite finnish author and I'm definally going to read more your work.
