Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
I am going to keep this short and sweet. I am honestly baffled how this made the top 20 list of scariest books out there. I was torn between boredom for a good 1/3 of this book and then just straight up baffled by the time I got to the end.
This story starts out with a man who finds a baby that is left for dead in a hole in plastic in the woods (did you follow that whole thing). Now don't think that you are going to find out why the baby was put there. Or even the backstory to the baby. Instead the book goes into the past of the man who finds the baby (Lennart) and his anger at his wife (Laila) and the disappointment with his son (Jerry). We find out Lennart and Laila were a rising singing duo in Sweden before they failed to make the charts on their newest song.
Lennart is just..I don't even know. I got the sense he felt his whole life was him being wronged and he lashed out at everyone around him. So for him to find a baby and think that keeping it in the basement where he would let no one around it and he would only teach her music that was "pure" because he realized that the baby had a special ability to sing perfectly (also how the hell do newborns or thereabouts sing?) was his ticket to something. I don't know.
I actually did like Laila a bit better than Lennart. I guess I was more confused about what made her stay. She went from one extreme to the other in the book.
Jerry I felt indifferent towards until things picked up after the halfway point.
We also have the baby which is called Little One, Theres and then Tesla as she grows. Don't think reading this book is going to give you any insights into her. I really don't get what she is supposed to be (some type of vampire, ghoul, etc.?)
The book then shifts other to following the family of a newborn girl named Theresa. We have Theresa who does not fit in with her family, who is okay with that after she meets a boy named Johannes. Theresa and Johannes are able to fill each other up in a way there home life does not allow. Until one day Theresa finds she is left behind and feels more apart, until she sees a girl singing on the show "Idol".
There is just so much going on here that I can't really unpack. I think that breaking up the book into so many different sections that had us following Theres, then Theresa, then Jerry, then Theresa, etc didn't help matters any.
We also have so many other characters in this book it was hard to track them all. I ended up really hating Theresa more than Theres though by the end of this book. At least you could excuse Theres for having a really messed up mindset towards big people (adults), but Theresa did not have that excuse. Her final act before going along with a plan thought up by Theres actually ticked me off.
The writing just turned me off halfway through, it was just gruesome after a while and reading how other people were murdering/hurting others just made me a bit sick.
The flow was off. I think it's because there was so much time spent on setting up the backstories to these girls and we stay focused on people who in the end didn't matter to the main story at all (or at least I didn't think they mattered) I found myself bored.
I would have just DNFed it, if it wasn't on one of my must read lists.
This story starts out with a man who finds a baby that is left for dead in a hole in plastic in the woods (did you follow that whole thing). Now don't think that you are going to find out why the baby was put there. Or even the backstory to the baby. Instead the book goes into the past of the man who finds the baby (Lennart) and his anger at his wife (Laila) and the disappointment with his son (Jerry). We find out Lennart and Laila were a rising singing duo in Sweden before they failed to make the charts on their newest song.
Lennart is just..I don't even know. I got the sense he felt his whole life was him being wronged and he lashed out at everyone around him. So for him to find a baby and think that keeping it in the basement where he would let no one around it and he would only teach her music that was "pure" because he realized that the baby had a special ability to sing perfectly (also how the hell do newborns or thereabouts sing?) was his ticket to something. I don't know.
I actually did like Laila a bit better than Lennart. I guess I was more confused about what made her stay. She went from one extreme to the other in the book.
Jerry I felt indifferent towards until things picked up after the halfway point.
We also have the baby which is called Little One, Theres and then Tesla as she grows. Don't think reading this book is going to give you any insights into her. I really don't get what she is supposed to be (some type of vampire, ghoul, etc.?)
The book then shifts other to following the family of a newborn girl named Theresa. We have Theresa who does not fit in with her family, who is okay with that after she meets a boy named Johannes. Theresa and Johannes are able to fill each other up in a way there home life does not allow. Until one day Theresa finds she is left behind and feels more apart, until she sees a girl singing on the show "Idol".
There is just so much going on here that I can't really unpack. I think that breaking up the book into so many different sections that had us following Theres, then Theresa, then Jerry, then Theresa, etc didn't help matters any.
We also have so many other characters in this book it was hard to track them all. I ended up really hating Theresa more than Theres though by the end of this book. At least you could excuse Theres for having a really messed up mindset towards big people (adults), but Theresa did not have that excuse. Her final act before going along with a plan thought up by Theres actually ticked me off.
The writing just turned me off halfway through, it was just gruesome after a while and reading how other people were murdering/hurting others just made me a bit sick.
The flow was off. I think it's because there was so much time spent on setting up the backstories to these girls and we stay focused on people who in the end didn't matter to the main story at all (or at least I didn't think they mattered) I found myself bored.
I would have just DNFed it, if it wasn't on one of my must read lists.
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
I'm not sure if Little Star is my favorite of the four Ajvide Lindqvist novels I've read, but it was the most compulsively readable. The story begins as Lennart Cedarström is hunting for mushrooms in the forest when he finds an abandoned baby. He brings it home and, instead of turning it over to the authorities, convinces his wife to let him raise the girl secretly in their cellar. To keep her from wanting to go outside, he tells the child, who comes to be called Theres, stories of "big people" outside who want to eat her up. That this is somewhat true metaphorically is touched on, but Theres doesn't understand metaphor, and that ultimately proves to be Lennart's undoing.
It is rare for anything I read in a book to literally make my jaw drop, but that is exactly what happened at the end of part one. And yet, this twist (if you want to call it that) is perfectly logical and in tune with what we've been shown so far. If you don't see it coming either, don't feel bad; it just means that you probably aren't a sociopath. Little Star is a breathless ride about teen angst, the need to belong to something, and fighting the monsters that want to eat us up--even if it means we have to become monsters ourselves.
It is rare for anything I read in a book to literally make my jaw drop, but that is exactly what happened at the end of part one. And yet, this twist (if you want to call it that) is perfectly logical and in tune with what we've been shown so far. If you don't see it coming either, don't feel bad; it just means that you probably aren't a sociopath. Little Star is a breathless ride about teen angst, the need to belong to something, and fighting the monsters that want to eat us up--even if it means we have to become monsters ourselves.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Förväntade mig en del av den här boken och det levde den upp till under första halvan. Kuslig och spännande, precis så som John Ajvide Lindqvists böcker ska vara. Men i andra halvan ballade berättelsen ur och den kändes inte längre trovärdig, vilket var synd.
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
wow I absolutely adored this. definitely dragged in parts, could’ve been whittled down a bit, but overall I am in love with these characters. it’s honestly unbelievable to me that a man wrote this, he got like the loneliness and the weird sapphic obsession/possessiveness of best friends and the general humiliation you experience during girlhood down so well it really blew me away, I related to Teresa in a way I haven’t with a fictional character in so long. this brought me right back to being a teen girl and it made me remember how much I loved the other Lindqvist book I read as a kid and now I’m definitely gonna climb back down the rabbit hole of his writing.