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nuffy375 's review for:
Little Star
by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Disclaimer: I’m not a fan of Stephen King, so I probably shouldn’t have been so excited about reading something by Sweden’s Stephen King.
The plot is in other reviews, so I’ll just put my thoughts:
The idea of the story was interesting, and I was intrigued to see where it was going while reading it, but ultimately I was disappointed by how it came together. What I anticipated happening was more interesting to me than what ended up happening. Throughout the book, certain plot seeds would be planted that would never grow into anything. Most of those seeds were the plot points I was most interested in, but ultimately they amounted to not much.
Also, I feel like several characters were there merely as plot devices, and Lindqvist would realize he hadn’t mentioned them in a while and quickly bring them in for a second so we wouldn’t forget about them, but I don’t feel like they really do much. During the big climax, there’s literally a moment where a character goes, ‘Wait, what about *character*?!’ And it’s just explained away with an ‘Oh, they’re not here.’ Just an insert to cover a hole in the narrative that seems added at the last minute. He didn’t even bother to go back and make it cleaner. Some editing/revising definitely could have been used to trim the story and clean it up.
I give it three stars because despite a fair amount of fat to trim down/around, the writing itself is more than decent. The incorporation of ABBA music fits seamlessly into the plot, and is a very interesting idea. I didn’t love it, but it is a solid book.
The plot is in other reviews, so I’ll just put my thoughts:
The idea of the story was interesting, and I was intrigued to see where it was going while reading it, but ultimately I was disappointed by how it came together. What I anticipated happening was more interesting to me than what ended up happening. Throughout the book, certain plot seeds would be planted that would never grow into anything. Most of those seeds were the plot points I was most interested in, but ultimately they amounted to not much.
Also, I feel like several characters were there merely as plot devices, and Lindqvist would realize he hadn’t mentioned them in a while and quickly bring them in for a second so we wouldn’t forget about them, but I don’t feel like they really do much. During the big climax, there’s literally a moment where a character goes, ‘Wait, what about *character*?!’ And it’s just explained away with an ‘Oh, they’re not here.’ Just an insert to cover a hole in the narrative that seems added at the last minute. He didn’t even bother to go back and make it cleaner. Some editing/revising definitely could have been used to trim the story and clean it up.
I give it three stars because despite a fair amount of fat to trim down/around, the writing itself is more than decent. The incorporation of ABBA music fits seamlessly into the plot, and is a very interesting idea. I didn’t love it, but it is a solid book.