Stieg Larsson - "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

     If Dan Brown and Dean Koontz had a literary baby, it would be Steig Larsson.  His writing is fast-paced, highly detailed, well thought out, filled with many layers of mystery, a puzzle of multi-layered plot lines, and  macabre (if not bordering on grotesque).  Once I go to the 1/2-2/3 point, I COULD NOT put it down until it was finished!!!  Of course I had to because at this point in my life, I am only rarely able to dedicate entire days to my favorite hobby, AND although I fancy myself a fast reader, I'm incapable of reading 350+ pages in the space of a few hours.  I digress...

     One of my dearest regulars from work lent me his copy to read, and I'm so glad I did finally get to it.  I resisted reading it at first because it's such a popular series right now, and in my opinion, being popular doesn't necessarily mean it's any good.  I suppose I was waiting for a recommendation from someone I know.  The story begins with Mikael Blomkvist, a respected investigative journalist who is convicted of libel because he had "false" information regarding one of Sweden's wealthiest businessmen.  The other main character is Lisbeth Salander, an emotionally troubled, and very mysterious girl who is not what she seems.  She works for a security company to be a  researcher.  She's hired to find out all she can about Blomkvist for one off her company's biggest clients.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

      The next thing you know, Henrik Vanger, one of Sweden's oldest and wealthiest industrialists hires Mikael to spend a year trying to solve a forty-year-old mystery that has been haunting Mr. Vanger.  It involves the disappearance of his niece, Harriet who mysteriously vanished a lifetime ago.  Henrik gives Mikael the pretense of writing a chronicle of the Vanger family so there are not too many eyebrows raised at all of the research.  As Mikael digs further and further into the case, he finds some literal skeletons in some of the Vanger family's closets as well as some very dark and somber secrets. 

     This is a long and involved story, and it's somewhat "unorganized" in it's delivery.  Don't get me wrong, it's a good story that takes you by surprise time and time again, BUT I had a little trouble sometimes figuring out where I was in the story.  This may be due in part to the fact that it has been translated from Swedish into English, or to the fact that it was published posthumously, or that it's just the way it is.  Maybe I'm just a little slow on the uptake?  The chapters are very long, but have various "breaks" throughout to switch between story lines a la Dan Brown.  All in all, I have some mixed feelings about the book due mostly to the graphic and violent nature of some of the content.  I have found over the years that the stories I read have a way of slithering into my dream life, so I am somewhat sensitive to certain subjects and in order to protect my coveted "sleep time" I have to watch what I read.  That may not be the case for you, but now you know just a little more about me than you did yesterday.

     I do like how involved and engaging the story is, I was constantly wondering, "well what's gonna happen next?!?!?!"  Also, the character if Lisbeth Salander (aka the girl with the dragon tattoo) is so intriguing.  She in herself is an enigma and is, I believe, a truly unique literary character.  She has piqued my interest enough that I'll will most likely be reading the next book, which promises to reveal a little more about Lisbeth's personal history. 

Until next time...

Steve Dublanica - "Waiter Rant"

     Did I just stumble onto my own autobiography????  I wonder if anyone's ever thought that before?  Ummm, this may seriously be in my top three best books EVER!!!!  (After you count all of Francine Rivers' works, naturally.)  A little, personal side note about me:  I've been waiting tables now for about a decade (plus or minus a few months here and there while I tried my hand at other professions) and have been a server in the fine dining arena for over four of those years.  I ate this book UP (pun totally intended!), which was recommended to me by a waiter friend of mine.  I cannot wait to run out and buy Mr. Dublanica's second book.  Hubby had to literally tell me, "Babe, I'm glad you're so entertained, but you either need to stop reading or go in the other room." on not one, but TWO different occasions as I read through this book.  

     So a few years ago, "The Waiter" began his blog, www.waiterrant.net to detail and sometimes rant about his life as a server in one of New York's fine dining establishments.  He is a college educated middle-aged man who through a topsy-turvy stream of events finds himself thrust into the restaurant business aka service industry at the age of 31.  It's a great insight for those of you who've never worked in the retail or service industries.  Eventually his blog garners quite a bit of attention, which at some point leads to a book deal.  And here we are...

     Steve's memoiresque (yes I created a word... just go with it) book contains snapshots of what it's like on the other side of the table and in the typical commercial kitchen.  Now, do keep in mind, this is one person's take on it, but honestly I can say that in my nigh ten years of experience I've run into 85% or more of the exact situations.  Honestly, for the VAST majority of this book, I seriously wondered if someone had planted a bug in my brain.  I am fortunate in that I work for a great company with fair and respectable management and owners, and most days, I really enjoy my job, but that has not always been the case for me (or for Steve and probably the majority of waitstaff everywhere).  He has very accurately (and cynically - he warned you on the cover of the book...) relayed the "waiting experience" in an easy-to-read, relateable way that is laced with humor, honesty, and a super quick wit.

Waiter Rant: Thanks for the Tip--Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (P.S.)

   

     He articulates a lot of things that go on in an restaurant in a way that pretty much anyone can understand, relate to, and hopefully use to get a glimpse into the life of the average American server.  He is correct in saying that, "80 percent of customers are nice people just looking for something to eat. The remaining 20 percent, however, are socially maladjusted psychopaths."  If you have ever worked in a restaurant, you KNOW it's true.

     Throughout the book, Steve paints poignant portraits of life in a restaurant.  He talks sincerely and humorously, and cynically not only about the woes or working in as a server (of which there can be many) but also about the really great times and people he got to meet throughout the course of his employment as waitstaff.  I love that's he's given a voice to the 2 million servers in the U.S.  As a matter of fact, I think Mr. Dublanica should be nominated for sainthood; Server Steve - patron saint of waitstaff everywhere.  I think he's dead on when he "breaks down" the various types of guests as well as what it's like to work any of the major US holidays.  If you are a server, enjoy the camaraderie that you feel, and if you are a regular diner, see what it's like to wait on folks; you may learn something about something you didn't know before?

     One more note on my newest favorite book, there is a LOT of profanity in there.  It is a normal part of working in the industry, and the book would've lost a lot of it's true-to-form-nature had he excluded most of it.  Steve actually explains why he thinks this much profanity is part of the "behind the scenes" look at a restaurant staff in the book....  Just so you're warned, now, go and read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

J.K. Rowling - "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"

(My normally busy life + the super bowl being hosted in my neck of the woods) /  the fact that I work in the service industry     =   Not much time to read

     I'm not exactly AWESOME at math, but I think it all adds up to give you a semi-accurate picture of my life as of late.  We did just experience an "arctic blast" (Texan for cold weather coupled with frozen precipitation that doesn't melt immediately) that did allow me a few days off to catch  up on reading.  You may think, "With all that time, you should have been able to finish a book or TWO?"  Yes, I should have, but this is a 734 page book.  Plus, I got beaucoup amounts of housework done, including, but not limited to: laundry, ironing said laundry, sweeping, cleaning the shower, vacuuming, hanging all of the wall art that we bought for the new place and haven't had time to hang prior to now, washing dishes by hand due to the line to the beloved dishwasher being frozen, AND giving myself a hard-earned pedicure.  Oh, yeah, and I read some...

     Now, on to the good stuff!  Of the four Harry Potter books that I've read, this one is so far, my favorite. 


Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Book 4)

As I've said in previous Harry Potter posts, this series "grows with its readers," and this book really proves that point to me.  Harry is now 14 and entering angsty teenage-hood along with his cohorts, Ron and Hermione.  Also, as I said in the last Potter post, this book and it's most recent predecessor both have grown a little bit "darker" than the one before.  In the last book Harry was pursued by creepy beings called Dementors while Voldemort's power slowly grew.  ***spoiler alert***  In this book, Voldemort grows even stronger, and Harry actually comes "face to face" with Voldemort, and for the first time in a Harry Potter book, someone bites the dust! ***end of spoiler***

     Another thing I liked a lot about this book is that there were quite a few different story lines drifting in and out of the spotlight.  I know all good books have few different threads of story peeking out every now and again, but this one had at least five or six; a couple of those were not just interwoven tales, but were mysteries in themselves.  What I mean to say is that there was a lot of mysteries to be solved throughout the various stories.

     I really didn't have many gripes about this book at all.  It was a bit long, and I did have a harder time "getting into it" that it's predecessors.  Once I was about 200 pages in, I was hooked and had trouble putting it down (except to do all of that grizzly housework).  This book was also a little "scarier" that it's ancestors,
too, but I don't know if I'd call that a gripe, per se.

     I do have something to say about the movie though.  Yes, this IS a BOOK blog, but my movie-loving Hubby insisted that we watch the flick.  I believe the movie in itself is as entertaining as all of the others, and it was just plain fun to watch.  It did leave a LOT to be desired when compared to the book though.  There were so many parts left out, that it felt like it only covered half of the contents of the beloved book.  I know it would take six hours to watch a movie that had all of the book in it, but I was still sad to see so much missing.  This just proves that I was right to read the book first so as not to be disappointed in the book that takes much longer than 157 minutes to read.  On the flip side, if I had seen the movie before reading the book, I may have just been pleasantly surprised to see that there was more between the two covers than the movie had led me to believe.  Hmmmm, it'll always be a mystery...

     Well, looks like there's more snow headed my way, I'll try to avoid the housework and keep my nose in my literature.  ;)