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ninanesseth 's review for:
Little Star
by John Ajvide Lindqvist
John Lindqvist is really a compelling writer - he writes with subtlety even as he explores the most grotesque qualities of human relationships. I have previously read and loved Let the Right One In and Handling the Undead. I loved them for their human quality in the face of inhuman plots, characters, or behaviours.
Little Star began promisingly with an exploration of an unbalanced family finding a baby in the woods and choosing to raise in an cellar, shut away from the world, and how this environment would shape a child.
If the entire book had explored this issue, I would have found it much more satisfying. Instead Lindqvist decided to bring in other teenaged girls who felt lost and alone or abused and bind them together with music. The result was like film The Craft, minus the magic and witchcraft. I appreciate what Lundqvist was trying to achieve, but I don't feel like it was the most interesting way in which an unsettling, sheltered girl with a perfectly pitched, enthralling voice could have been used for a horror novel. Given the hint at the ending within the first few pages of the book, I was carried through with anticipation that was ultimately let down. The Big Ending was lackluster, for all of its blood and gore.
The dust jacket description stated that Little Star is "... and unforgetable portrait of adolescence, a modern-day Carrie...". I think that that's a bit of a stretch. Carrie more fully explored the effects of ostracization on an unbalanced, if powerful psyche. This book does paint a realistic picture of teen bullying online and off, I guess, but I personally didn't care to explore that aspect of what I considered to be secondary characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed other works by John Lindqvist - it wasn't my favourite, but the writing is strong and the story is good.
Little Star began promisingly with an exploration of an unbalanced family finding a baby in the woods and choosing to raise in an cellar, shut away from the world, and how this environment would shape a child.
If the entire book had explored this issue, I would have found it much more satisfying. Instead Lindqvist decided to bring in other teenaged girls who felt lost and alone or abused and bind them together with music. The result was like film The Craft, minus the magic and witchcraft. I appreciate what Lundqvist was trying to achieve, but I don't feel like it was the most interesting way in which an unsettling, sheltered girl with a perfectly pitched, enthralling voice could have been used for a horror novel. Given the hint at the ending within the first few pages of the book, I was carried through with anticipation that was ultimately let down. The Big Ending was lackluster, for all of its blood and gore.
The dust jacket description stated that Little Star is "... and unforgetable portrait of adolescence, a modern-day Carrie...". I think that that's a bit of a stretch. Carrie more fully explored the effects of ostracization on an unbalanced, if powerful psyche. This book does paint a realistic picture of teen bullying online and off, I guess, but I personally didn't care to explore that aspect of what I considered to be secondary characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has enjoyed other works by John Lindqvist - it wasn't my favourite, but the writing is strong and the story is good.