Review: Arcadia

Arcadia by Iain Pears
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the most interesting and beautiful books I've read lately.
It's part sci-fi, and part dystopian, and it also reads like a fairy tale.

Three parallel worlds: Oxford in the 60's, right in the middle of the cold war, Anterworld an idyllic almost primitive civilization, and a post apocalyptic Island of Mull sometime around the 23d. century.
There's love, murder, mystery, spies, a cat and time travel. Characters overlap from one universe to the other, but it's not as complicated as it seems. Once you get the hang of it, it's easy to find out who is in which world (although there a few surprises here also)

But can parallel worlds/universes exist at the same time? What if you go from one to the other and how can the actions of a character in one world affect others? And what if you'd rather be in a world that wasn't your original one?

Iain Pears makes the more than 500 pages of this book fly by.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

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Review: The Unforgotten

The Unforgotten by Laura Powell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If I could give this book 6 stars, I would do it, or even 7, that's how good it is.

It starts with a serial killer in the little and calm town of St Steele, in Cornwall. When reporters from all around the UK descend massively to cover the story, they all room at Hotel Eden, where 15 year old Betty Broadbent and her crazy, alcoholic mother manage and live.
Betty becomes friends with John Gallagher, one of the reporters. This friendship will shape the rest of their lives. The promise Betty makes to Gallagher will still affect her 50 years on.

The story is narrated in 2 different time levels: one during the summer-autumn of 1956, when the killer struck, and another one 50 years later.

Even if this is a crime-mystery book, the story behind it, of the choices people make and how they define their lives (and of those around them) is more important. The book has an air of sadness and of lost love. Of decisions having been made against people's wills.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

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Review: Hidden Bodies

Hidden Bodies by Caroline Kepnes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I should have listened to friends that said you have to read book 1 in this series (You) before reading Hidden Bodies. There are many situations that happen in books 1 that lead directly to this book, so I was somewhat lost.

Joe Goldberg is looking for true love. When he thinks he has finally found it, he is betrayed once again, so he travels across the country, all the way from New York to California, to find the girl who has treated him badly and kill her. Seems every time he doesn't have his way he just decides to eliminate the problem, instead of fixing it.

Though he doesn't find her, he does meet Love, who seems to be the perfect woman for him. But that doesn't stop him from leaving a trail of dead people behind him. We have a very creative killer here.

Though I did like it, I didn't love it. I have seldom seen a cast of characters so shallow and full of themselves.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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Review: The Birds

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't really pay much attention to how others have rated the books I read until after I read them, as I don't want to be influenced by those ratings. It's happened that I completely love a book that other people have rated low and vice-versa.

In this case, I seem to be in the 20% that didn't rave about it, as I found the book very slow. Or maybe it just wasn't the book for me? I have to say that it is beautifully written and translated, and that is why for me, it is a 3 star read.

Mattis and Hege, brother and sister, have lived together all their lives. Mattis is mentally disabled and Hege works all day long to support both of them. Though he is physically fit, he struggles to find work and he never helps around the house either. Hege talks with the fewest possible words while Mattis talks and talks, his musings making her angry. When Jørgen, a lumberjack, arrives to their small town and boards with them, he and Hege fall in love, and Mattis is completely left out. While he understands nature, he can't understand this.

This seemed to me a book full and sadness and despair.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

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Review: The Madwoman Upstairs

The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have to start this review saying I absolutely loved this book. Sometimes I surprise myself because I think I don't like books that can be tagged as women's fiction, romance or chick-lit, but deep down I love them. And if you add that there's books and a mystery involved, it's so much better, right?

When Samantha Whipple arrives at Oxford to study Literature, she tries to forget she's the last of the Brontë's. Yes, Brontë as in Charlotte, Anne and Emily.
Lonely and a bit awkward, she makes few friends but does develop a serious crush with her tutor, who also happens to be a Brontë scholar.

Rumor says she has inherited the Brontë estate, but as far as she knows, that is just not true. She has never seen any part of it. But then, as in a scavenger hunt, clues start arriving at her doorstep and all she can do is follow them to solve the mystery of the mythical Brontë legacy. But it is not just a hunt for the legacy, as in the meantime she starts discovering so much about her father and also about herself.

The only part that I didn't like so much is the fact that Samantha seems like a cliché: tall, awkward American. Or maybe I have just read a few books where the main character is similar to her? On the other part she is a lovely bright woman, so that makes it even. And the romance part is good!!!

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

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Review: I'm Traveling Alone

I'm Traveling Alone by Samuel Bjørk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a big fan/reader of Nordic-Noir, and it makes me very happy to see there are tons of authors from this genre that I haven't read yet.

Samuel Bjørk, from Norway is the case. Originally published in 2013, but just recently translated into English, "I'm Traveling Alone" is the first in the Holger Munch & Mia Kruger series. From what I've investigated, there's one more book in the series, which will also be published in English in a few months (can't wait!!!) and a third one only in Norwegian.

To cut a long story short, when little girls are kidnapped, murdered and dressed in strange doll-like clothes, Holger Munch is put in charge of a special homicide task force. He then has to convince his ex-colleague Mia Kruger to return to work, as she has serious personal problems. Things get even more dark when one of the little girls that go missing is Munch's own grand daughter.

Fast paced, thrilling and full of plot twists, this is a great book not only for fans of the Nordic-Noir genre, but for fans of mystery and thriller books.

I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review

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Review: The Seven Good Years

The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Seven Good Years of the title refer to the years between when the author's son was born and when his father passed away. These are short essays that refer to his daily life and the struggles of living in a country that is mostly in a state of war.

Though I did find them interesting, I was expecting more depth, perhaps? It felt like they were written fast and easily, and not much more. I had read reviews about this book and author, and was certainly expecting something else.

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