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theboldbookworm's review against another edition
4.0
This book takes a while to get to the horrific parts, but I found the whole story rather odd and engaging. I thought it was thought-provoking and very unique, which are things that I love in a story, and the horrific parts were pretty horrific.
slimefudge's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
torihbu's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
this is a winding existential glimpse into the psyche of the teenage girl. how easily young minds can be swayed in response to how society beats down on them, in the event that someone comes into save them and guide them toward an adverse direction. young people are incredibly impressionable and driven by peer pressure, and without even realizing it, they can be coaxed into horrific acts to quell the loneliness and despair that crops up inside them. this book shows the human capacity for wrong-doing and the complexities of seeking justice and how this complexity can manifest itself unsuspectingly within the minds of teenagers. some parts were a bit slower than others, but aside from the pacing, this novel was poetic in its examination of teenage angst gone too far
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Toxic friendship, Violence, Body horror, Kidnapping, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Gore, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Adult/minor relationship, and Murder
lindsaysc310's review against another edition
5.0
This book isn't for everyone but I had a lot of personal connections with it including the girls and their intense draw to songwriting. Lindqvist has a way of making you feel for the main characters even though they sometimes do very bad things. You identify with them and you oddly justify their actions. When I finished the book, I felt a weird sense of emptiness in the pit of my stomach for days after. It haunted me and left me wanting at the same time.
fran_ryougi's review against another edition
5.0
Sotto le parole degli splendidi ABBA una storia di amicizia e amore si compie. Lupi ritrovati che ululano alla luna, nutrendosi delle carni delle loro vittime. Un romanzo eccezionale.
kmnkary's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
kcfromaustcrime's review
5.0
The problem, if there is one, with the receipt of a new book by John Ajvide Lindqvist is the vague worry that one day there just could be a book by this author that doesn't quite work for me. If there is such a book in Lindqvist's imagination, LITTLE STAR isn't it.
I don't quite know what it is about Lindqvist's writing but he consistently takes this reader into territory that I'd normally run a mile from - be it vampires in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, zombies in HANDLING THE UNDEAD or mysticism and profound parental attachment in HARBOUR, so nothing much has changed as I found myself deeply involved in a plot that culminates with an "Swedish Idol" styled TV program.... Without giving too much away, let's say that LITTLE STAR is about a family's musical stardom, an abandoned baby, ambition and the perversity of fame. LITTLE STAR is another clever morality play from this author, weaving a tale of manipulation, selfishness, and selective blindness in the face of raw ambition, into a narrative that's extremely readable, hypnotic and frequently very moving.
I'm not sure if it's a feature of the original language, but somehow there's a tone and a cadence to the prose in all of Lindqvist's books, that gives them a lyrical, beautiful and extremely readable style - it must, at the very least, be quite a feat of translation. However it's done, that style, cadence and tone were a part of the great appeal of the first book, and it's definitely continuing in LITTLE STAR. Which makes many of the less palatable elements of some of the characters, their actions, and their behaviour stand out even more starkly, and, in particular, make the mystical, the "other" (for want of a better description) just work. They become not just believable, but somehow expected, required if you like.
So yet again, I'm confounded by the use of another "other worldly" scenario in LITTLE STAR that was so simply and beautifully built into the narrative that I didn't bat an eyelid. I was amazed at the way that the narrative ebbed and flowed, the way that a story built and rolled out and around and into some of the dark places of the worst of behaviour. I was strangely relieved at the metering out of justice, albeit somewhat startled at the method... but mostly, I was extremely pleased to spend time with yet another superb book from a master storyteller like John Ajvide Lindqvist.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/content/little-star-john-ajvide-lindqvist
I don't quite know what it is about Lindqvist's writing but he consistently takes this reader into territory that I'd normally run a mile from - be it vampires in LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, zombies in HANDLING THE UNDEAD or mysticism and profound parental attachment in HARBOUR, so nothing much has changed as I found myself deeply involved in a plot that culminates with an "Swedish Idol" styled TV program.... Without giving too much away, let's say that LITTLE STAR is about a family's musical stardom, an abandoned baby, ambition and the perversity of fame. LITTLE STAR is another clever morality play from this author, weaving a tale of manipulation, selfishness, and selective blindness in the face of raw ambition, into a narrative that's extremely readable, hypnotic and frequently very moving.
I'm not sure if it's a feature of the original language, but somehow there's a tone and a cadence to the prose in all of Lindqvist's books, that gives them a lyrical, beautiful and extremely readable style - it must, at the very least, be quite a feat of translation. However it's done, that style, cadence and tone were a part of the great appeal of the first book, and it's definitely continuing in LITTLE STAR. Which makes many of the less palatable elements of some of the characters, their actions, and their behaviour stand out even more starkly, and, in particular, make the mystical, the "other" (for want of a better description) just work. They become not just believable, but somehow expected, required if you like.
So yet again, I'm confounded by the use of another "other worldly" scenario in LITTLE STAR that was so simply and beautifully built into the narrative that I didn't bat an eyelid. I was amazed at the way that the narrative ebbed and flowed, the way that a story built and rolled out and around and into some of the dark places of the worst of behaviour. I was strangely relieved at the metering out of justice, albeit somewhat startled at the method... but mostly, I was extremely pleased to spend time with yet another superb book from a master storyteller like John Ajvide Lindqvist.
http://www.austcrimefiction.org/content/little-star-john-ajvide-lindqvist
yardchild's review against another edition
4.0
What a great book. This is the first time I have read John Lindqvist, and I hope to read more now. So much detail went into the characters and you could almost find yourself relating to them.
Two little girls who are very different than other kids their own age (or any age for that matter) find a friendship, and learn about empowerment. Never mind that it isn't an appropriate form of empowerment since it involves killing people who are standing in your way.
I would say to anyone who likes horror that this is a must read.
Two little girls who are very different than other kids their own age (or any age for that matter) find a friendship, and learn about empowerment. Never mind that it isn't an appropriate form of empowerment since it involves killing people who are standing in your way.
I would say to anyone who likes horror that this is a must read.
zoe_e_w's review against another edition
5.0
What to say about Little Star without spoiling it? I feel a need to gush, and yet, I’m worried that gushing will lead me to spoilers. Screw it, let me just give a spoiler warning first. And then I will start this review off with a random tangent.
A couple years back, I wrote a book about a bard, a book with musical numbers and singing and dancing and magic spells composed in notes. After I finished it, I begged for others to please, please do the same thing. Some people said it was a neat idea, but nothing ever came of it.
Until now.
I’ve probably made it clear in past reviews of Lindqvist’s books that I’m deeply in love with his writing, with his objective narrators who can describe the most horrific details in a manner similar to a seasoned weatherman speaking of an approaching hurricane. I’ve loved every one of his books, and within pages, it became clear to me that Lindqvist wasn’t just writing a musical book. He was writing about a bard as a monster. I was elated, because the new literary love of my life was writing the very book that I had begged for someone, anyone to attempt.
Despite my love for his words, it took me the better part of three months to work my way through this massive tome. Early on in the book, there’s an act of domestic violence so brutal, I had to put the book down for two weeks to get over my loathing for a character. Many other scenes were just as hard for me to read, and I had to take chapters in stages and decompress over days or weeks before I could move on.
Once I passed the middle of the book, my need to know what happened overcame my need to decompress, and even if the book was churning my guts up and tearing open a lot of old emotional scars, I read even faster. I read two hundred pages in one night, and right before writing this review, I read the final hundred pages in a blur.
This story starts off with a man in the woods, Lennart, who happens upon an infant buried in a plastic bag and left to die. Lennart gives her mouth to mouth resuscitation, and with her first inhaled breath, the infant begins to sing.
Had anyone else found the child, this might have been a happy story. But Lennart is a bastard, and a wife abuser with a terrible secret. When that secret was revealed, I loathed him, and I almost threw the book down for good in my hatred of him. Lennart’s son Jerry is just as wretched at first, but in his case, it’s the result of living with an abusive father as his role model. So at the time, the only character who I could feel any sympathy for was Laila, Lennart’s long suffering wife. I wished for Lennart to die, but there was a tragic air around Laila that told me she would die first, and horribly.
Lennart becomes obsessed with this singing baby, who he calls Little One, and who Jerry names Theres. Lennart wants no one else to see this child and corrupt her pure musical gift with pop “poison.” He resolves to train her in music himself, and he even threatens to kill his wife if she should try to report the child to the authorities.
Over time, it becomes clear that Theres has a power to manipulate emotions, and Lennart changes from being a complete bastard into something of a smaller monster. He still fears giving up his chance at success, and so as Theres ages, he crafts a terrible lie about how the world is full of big people who want to eat his Little One. He tells her that he and Laila and Jerry are different, because they have love in their heads. While this very effectively convinces Theres to stay indoors, it also creates in her a psychotic understanding of other people, and of her own adoptive parents, who she eventually kills to find the love in their heads. Jerry stumbles into this literal mess, and he takes Theres to safety before reporting the crime.
And then...the story changes over to completely different girl, Teresa, who grows up in a normal home with a normal family. And yet, there is something very wrong with Teresa, and she is an outsider with only one real friend. Teresa’s life at school is unhappy, being that she is not attractive and cannot find a place among the cool kids. Over time, her distance and increasing weight leads to more and more torment from the other kids, and I wondered at what point she might snap and do something terribly violent. Then one night Teresa watches a young girl perform on Idol, and she begins to feel euphoria. A girl in search of an answer, Teresa has found it in the eyes of a singer not much younger than herself.
The story flips back to Theres and Jerry to explain how Jerry constructed a fake ID for Theres, giving her the name Tora Larson. And it is Theres who Teresa has fixated upon. By a stroke of dumb luck, Theres and Teresa are members of the same internet forum, and after Teresa defends Tora’s performance, Theres asks to arrange a meeting.
But Teresa is not alone in this fixation, and the magic power of Theres’ voice begins to draw in others, like Max Hansen, a “talent scout” who is more of a sexual predator using his job as an easy method of seducing young girls. Theres and Teresa meet, and Teresa writes songs for Theres. She films one of these songs as a simple video, and it goes viral. And soon, there are many other girls flocking to Theres, seeking her out as their guru and guide.
What follows beyond this point is a descent into madness, although I admit, it’s hard to spoil a book when the prologue tells the ending before getting into the actual story. In any case, Theres’ understanding of the world infects Teresa, and the two begin a killing spree, first starting with a random store owner, and ending in a mass murder that’s publicly televised.
This is not a book I’d say I enjoyed. This book tormented me, and it dragged me down into the darkest, worst parts of my own past. It stirred my inner animal, and it made me feel ill many times.
None of these are complaints. This is a horror book, and Lindqvist steps up and delivers a brutal story that’s worthy of the word horror. That’s why I’m giving Little Star 5 stars, and I would recommend it to any horror fan looking for something to push them into feelings of genuine discomfort. No, I can’t say I enjoyed this book. But I devoured it, and I know it’s going to stay with me for a long, long time.
A couple years back, I wrote a book about a bard, a book with musical numbers and singing and dancing and magic spells composed in notes. After I finished it, I begged for others to please, please do the same thing. Some people said it was a neat idea, but nothing ever came of it.
Until now.
I’ve probably made it clear in past reviews of Lindqvist’s books that I’m deeply in love with his writing, with his objective narrators who can describe the most horrific details in a manner similar to a seasoned weatherman speaking of an approaching hurricane. I’ve loved every one of his books, and within pages, it became clear to me that Lindqvist wasn’t just writing a musical book. He was writing about a bard as a monster. I was elated, because the new literary love of my life was writing the very book that I had begged for someone, anyone to attempt.
Despite my love for his words, it took me the better part of three months to work my way through this massive tome. Early on in the book, there’s an act of domestic violence so brutal, I had to put the book down for two weeks to get over my loathing for a character. Many other scenes were just as hard for me to read, and I had to take chapters in stages and decompress over days or weeks before I could move on.
Once I passed the middle of the book, my need to know what happened overcame my need to decompress, and even if the book was churning my guts up and tearing open a lot of old emotional scars, I read even faster. I read two hundred pages in one night, and right before writing this review, I read the final hundred pages in a blur.
This story starts off with a man in the woods, Lennart, who happens upon an infant buried in a plastic bag and left to die. Lennart gives her mouth to mouth resuscitation, and with her first inhaled breath, the infant begins to sing.
Had anyone else found the child, this might have been a happy story. But Lennart is a bastard, and a wife abuser with a terrible secret. When that secret was revealed, I loathed him, and I almost threw the book down for good in my hatred of him. Lennart’s son Jerry is just as wretched at first, but in his case, it’s the result of living with an abusive father as his role model. So at the time, the only character who I could feel any sympathy for was Laila, Lennart’s long suffering wife. I wished for Lennart to die, but there was a tragic air around Laila that told me she would die first, and horribly.
Lennart becomes obsessed with this singing baby, who he calls Little One, and who Jerry names Theres. Lennart wants no one else to see this child and corrupt her pure musical gift with pop “poison.” He resolves to train her in music himself, and he even threatens to kill his wife if she should try to report the child to the authorities.
Over time, it becomes clear that Theres has a power to manipulate emotions, and Lennart changes from being a complete bastard into something of a smaller monster. He still fears giving up his chance at success, and so as Theres ages, he crafts a terrible lie about how the world is full of big people who want to eat his Little One. He tells her that he and Laila and Jerry are different, because they have love in their heads. While this very effectively convinces Theres to stay indoors, it also creates in her a psychotic understanding of other people, and of her own adoptive parents, who she eventually kills to find the love in their heads. Jerry stumbles into this literal mess, and he takes Theres to safety before reporting the crime.
And then...the story changes over to completely different girl, Teresa, who grows up in a normal home with a normal family. And yet, there is something very wrong with Teresa, and she is an outsider with only one real friend. Teresa’s life at school is unhappy, being that she is not attractive and cannot find a place among the cool kids. Over time, her distance and increasing weight leads to more and more torment from the other kids, and I wondered at what point she might snap and do something terribly violent. Then one night Teresa watches a young girl perform on Idol, and she begins to feel euphoria. A girl in search of an answer, Teresa has found it in the eyes of a singer not much younger than herself.
The story flips back to Theres and Jerry to explain how Jerry constructed a fake ID for Theres, giving her the name Tora Larson. And it is Theres who Teresa has fixated upon. By a stroke of dumb luck, Theres and Teresa are members of the same internet forum, and after Teresa defends Tora’s performance, Theres asks to arrange a meeting.
But Teresa is not alone in this fixation, and the magic power of Theres’ voice begins to draw in others, like Max Hansen, a “talent scout” who is more of a sexual predator using his job as an easy method of seducing young girls. Theres and Teresa meet, and Teresa writes songs for Theres. She films one of these songs as a simple video, and it goes viral. And soon, there are many other girls flocking to Theres, seeking her out as their guru and guide.
What follows beyond this point is a descent into madness, although I admit, it’s hard to spoil a book when the prologue tells the ending before getting into the actual story. In any case, Theres’ understanding of the world infects Teresa, and the two begin a killing spree, first starting with a random store owner, and ending in a mass murder that’s publicly televised.
This is not a book I’d say I enjoyed. This book tormented me, and it dragged me down into the darkest, worst parts of my own past. It stirred my inner animal, and it made me feel ill many times.
None of these are complaints. This is a horror book, and Lindqvist steps up and delivers a brutal story that’s worthy of the word horror. That’s why I’m giving Little Star 5 stars, and I would recommend it to any horror fan looking for something to push them into feelings of genuine discomfort. No, I can’t say I enjoyed this book. But I devoured it, and I know it’s going to stay with me for a long, long time.