Devouring Books: The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

"That's what they all were, the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real."

The Stepford Wives is surely one of those things that's broken out so far beyond the pages of its original form that no one bothers to read the book anymore. A Stepford wife is a term you'd use to describe someone who's REALLY into housework and whatnot (a loser, in other words) and is, not to put too fine a point on it, sort of acting like a robot. HOW WEIRD.

So, we all know how the story ends, right? (If you didn't, I guess you do now! Sorry...) And the thing is, when you know how a story ends, it's kind of difficult to work up the energy to actually read it because, you know, what's the point? Thankfully, The Stepford Wives is reaaaaally short, and I paid hardly any money for it (3 Ira Levin books for £5, thanks The Book People!) AND I was falling behind on RIP reads, so reading this in one day it was!

So, The Stepford Wives. I think we all know the story, but quick summary- family moves to a new town (Stepford, natch) where the men have their little 'Men's Club' where they hang out and smoke and talk about manly things (no, I don't know either) and the women stay at home and clean and cook and do 'womanly things'. Not just some of the time, but ALL of the time. As in, there is nothing else. Ever. Joanna is the matriarch of this new family in Stepford, and this shit FREAKS HER OUT. She makes a couple of new female friends, who are also new in town (how weird that they're not freaky lady robots...) and when they start acting strange (kind of like... robots) she REALLY freaks out and then things culminate in that ending we all know about.

While I was reading it, I couldn't help but think about what it would have been like reading this in 1972, knowing nothing about it and being SO SHOCKED by the ending. I don't think I'm wrong in thinking that it would have been AWESOME, but there is something to be said for knowing what's going on the whole time. I'm not sure it's a book I'd be that bothered about re-reading (mainly because this sort of was like a re-read, in itself) but I took in and was impressed by little gems like this:

"'I'm doing Marge McCormick's wash. She's got a bug of some kind and can barely move today.'"

Bug... Can barely move... Think about how easily that would just fly over your head if you didn't know the real score, and now appreciate how clever that is. I love it.

Mainly, I didn't mind knowing the end because it meant I could think about important matters of feminism and whatnot.

My thing is this. I can't exactly tell if Ira Levin is like 'ladies, you'd better expect some kind of backlash from all this free-thinking and empowerment you've been doing' or if he's like 'fucking hell, these men are terrible. What the fuck?' Obviously I want it to be the latter, but I'm concerned that it's the former... I guess that, having the story told from Joanna's point of view is almost the same thing as being on her side, except really it's to maintain suspense because she's just the dumb woman who doesn't know anything. So, there's that. The difficult thing of trying to interpret this at all is that you literally know nothing about the men- it's a teeny book anyway, so there isn't tons of character development anyway, but the men are mysterious as hell- they go to their men's club, do their men things, plot turning their wives into robots...

And really, for once, I really want to know what motivates the men. (I know!) Are they really so threatened by their wives having interests outside the home and possibly even having *gasp* jobs of their own that they'd want to replace them with subservient, boring wives with bigger boobs and a 1950s sensibility? Do they hate doing the tiny bit of housework and child-rearing that they're asked to do (and from Joanna's point of view, it really isn't that much) that they'd trade in their human women for something much more sinister? Clearly, the answer is yes, but I still want to know why. The Stepford Wives lets you make up your own mind about that.

 So. This is a really good suspense tale, but there's really not too much to the book- what it really has going for it, though, is the way it makes you think about things for a lot longer than can possibly be healthy. It raises a lot of questions, and then leaves you to answer them for yourself, which can be frustrating, but is ultimately something I really appreciate from books. If you don't mind answering some questions for yourself too, then I wholeheartedly recommend this.

Devouring Books: The Girl Who Had Stuff And Did Stuff Trilogy by Steig Larsson

Oh man.

When I first announced my intention to read these books, the reactions of you lot ranged from 'oh yeah, I've never read them either' to 'OH MY GOD, DON'T DO IT!' and this was not what I was expecting because have you SEEN the praise heaped on these books? 'Best thriller in years', they said. 'Unmissable', they also implied. Obviously I'm just paraphrasing here, because these books have now been graciously rehomed in various charity shops, but that's basically the gist of it.

So what did I think? Something in the middle, I guess. There was a lot I haaaaated about them (and I mean really and truly hated. Abhorred. Couldn't even stand) but there were also things that made me think they weren't so bad, after all. I think it's important to note also that I read them in packing breaks, when I probably wouldn't have been able to focus on a book with even the slightest bit of smartness to it (sorry, Steig) so that has to be taken into account of the things I thought about them.

I'm going to do a teeny review of each book at the end (because, you know, I know you were all worried that wasn't going to happen) but here are a few generals:

• I kind of love Lisbeth Salander- She's probably not a great role model or anything, but she's without a doubt the most interesting character in the books, and she's flawed and broken in a way that women characters aren't often allowed to be. It's worth noting that a lot of the other characters are super one-dimensional, so Lisbeth really stands out as especially interesting, but whatever. I basically just wanted to read about her doing stuff.
• I kind of really hate Mikael Blomkvist- Ok, I didn't to begin with. He's fine as a character, a bit boring and plot-moving on-ish, but his heart's basically in the right place, and his morals align with mine and whatnot. BUT. I hate him. I haaaaaate him. He is the laziest written character because he has no flaws, and (most annoyingly) every woman he ever meets wants to have sex with him. There is literally not a female character he comes across who doesn't want to have sex with him, and by the third book, it was just like 'oh, you've just introduced a single female character? I WONDER WHO SHE'LL BE BONING NEXT CHAPTER!' No good reason is given for Blomkvist being catnip for women, and it freaks me out that Larsson probably basically wrote him as wish fulfilment for himself. But UGH.
• But the feminism, though- So the Swedish title of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is actually The Men Who Hate Women (bit different, then) and I think the way the books were marketed* over here actually says a lot about us, but the point is that there is a LOT about the men who hate women. There's a whole lot. There are sexual harassment subplots, and countless attacks against women, and it's made crystal clear that this shit is NOT OK. Which, obviously, I appreciate, even whilst I was shocked that shit like this happens in Sweden, because if Sweden isn't safe for women, then what do we have?!
• That writing, though- It's not the best writing. For the most part it's readable, but a lot of the dialogue is really bad, and I honestly believe that about half of the third book should have just been edited right away. Just... No. I don't know if I can blame some of it on the translation, or if it just is genuinely bad writing, but beautiful prose is not something you're going to find in these books. Just... In case that's what you were expecting.

So far, this seems like I'm pretty evenly for and against it, BUT my hatred for Blomkvist really outweighs my love for Salander (I haaaaaate him!) and I don't know if the clearly female-positive story lines are enough to balance out the really bad writing. I just don't know how I feel, so let's look at each book individually shall we? ('Oh yes, lets!', I hear you cry)

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

This was definitely my favourite of the three books, because it was a fairly self-contained story and it was fun trying to solve the mystery of the girl who disappeared from an island that was impossible to get off of secretly. Less fun were the parts with the rapes, but I feel like they weren't really gratuitous and were really there to serve the story. There was, however, a lot of unnecessarily complicated economic crap, including this 20 page section right near the beginning of the book that I'd imagine has tripped up nearly everyone who's read it. Note to writers: DON'T put a boring, rambling crap part right at the start of your book, what is wrong with you?! And then a similar thing happened at the end- the interesting part of the story was solved about 100 pages from the end, and then somehow the crap part was back and whyyyyy? But, overall, I liked it? So, I moved on to:

The Girl Who Played With Fire

I didn't dislike The Girl Who Played With Fire. I mean, sure it starts off with about 100 pages of things that have nothing to do with the story (seriously, was there an editor of these books? Because it sure as shit didn't feel like it) and sure there are loads of convenient last minute rescues and things when Larsson didn't want to kill a character off, but there was a lot more Salander! And eventually (and I mean, after literally hundreds of pages) you get to the crux of Salander's childhood, and that was kind of (hmm... very kind-of) worth waiting for. Plus it's all actiony and fairly exciting and I'd come this far so I figured, might as well read:

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

Annnnnd, what a mistake that was. This book had pretty much nothing to it. All The Things kind of get solved at the end of The Girl Who Played With Fire, and THIS book is pretty much Mikael Blomkvist showing how much smarter he is than A WHOLE TEAM OF MEN and also having sex with yet more women (obviously). Don't get me wrong, Salander still manages to solve a lot of her problems, and everyone else's, for that matter, but there are a LOT of pages for NOTHING new to happen in (I mean, stuff happens. But it basically just wraps up the second book. In SEVEN HUNDRED PAGES. God.) But, I mean, I kept reading it, so... Can it have been that bad? Maybe not.

Ha, remember when I said I was going to 'review' each of the books separately? Obviously I meant, 'tell you my feels about each of them' because reviewing? What's that?! But anyway. The crux of the matter is this: I'm pretty glad to have gotten these out of the way, and I'm really glad I read them before I moved so I didn't have to lug them up all the stairs. They're absolutely not the best books in the world, and I wouldn't want to read them again, but they did keep me entertained at a time when I didn't think I wanted to read anything, AND (and this is really important) if there was another book (and I believe there were supposed to be quite a few more) I'm pretty sure I've have read that one too. So. Take from that what you will.

Oh man, a whole post about Swedish books, and look what I nearly forgot!

It's ok. All is well now.

*for 'marketed', read 'the way they changed the title and that'

Devouring Stephen King: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

"The world had teeth, and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted."

Ah, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. When you decide to do something stupid like read every single Stephen King book ever, when you've already read quite a few of them, there are bound to be some that you're not really bothered about encountering ever again. Whilst I didn't dread The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon like I do, say, Dreamcatcher (I hate it. I hate it so much. And it's a mere 2 books away.) I still wasn't desperate to read it again, like I am, say, the last three books of The Dark Tower.

Anyway. Enough about me. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is about a girl. Who loves Tom Gordon.

(Tom Gordon being apparently a real life baseball player and zzzzzzz) And who also happens to be walking in the woods with her mum and brother when she goes off the path to pee and gets completely and horribly lost. And she wanders around in the woods for days and stuff happens and there's a really stupid supernatural element aaaaand that's about the whole book.

The thing about The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is, even if you hate it (which I don't! I just don't particularly like it) it's at least short, so you don't feel like you're about to die of boredom while you're reading it. Having said that, though, it also almost felt too long for what it was- there's only so much you can read about one girl's struggle to survive in the wilderness before you almost don't care anymore. In some ways this book reminded me of The Body (which was also Stand by Me) only with more peril, and I felt like it would also have benefitted from being novella-length, rather than a full sized novel.

But. The main character is a girl!

Now, I actually think King has a fairly good track record with his representation of women (if I didn't think that, I don't think I would have been able to keep reading him for so long) but it's a rare thing where his main character (and in this book, Trisha is basically the only character) is a girl, and even rarer when that girl isn't a victim of some kind of abuse. Better than that though, Trisha is sort of awesome- she's a nine year old who manages to forage in the woods for food, escape insect attacks, and walk into a whole other State to try and find her own way out. Not bad for a girl, huh?

She's also a girl who loves baseball, which makes me partially want to go 'Yessssss, girls like sports too!' but in reality it was more like 'ughhhhh, baseball' because I don't really enjoy reading about a sport that firstly, I don't really understand because it's not something we have in the UK, but also that what I do understand I find kind of boring? The point is, this is something King often includes in his books, and it's never going to be something I find very interesting, although I understand why he does it and I'm not going to scold him for it. I'll just continue to yawn my way through those parts.

So, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It's fine, but it doesn't set my world on fire. If you were the kind of child whose nightmares were centred on being lost in the woods, then this will probably scare the bejeesus out of you, but I'm from England and there probably aren't even any woods here you couldn't find your way out of in, say, a day. Which, incidentally, is about as long as it'll take to finish this book, ensuring that you don't waste too much of your time on it. Which isn't something I'd recommend.

Devouring Books: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (teehee)

"Humans often assumed symmetry and equality where none existed."

I'm not sure if anyone's aware of this (I may have figured it out all by myself) but Robert Galbraith is the pseudonym of JK Rowling.

I know. This seems like a pretty good move to have made since all any reviews of The Casual Vacancy were able to say were 'Well, it's not as good as Harry Potter' and 'Good God, she uses the word cunt a lot,' but then again, whilst reviews for The Cuckoo's Calling were favourable (and no one said 'OMG cunt.') sales were pretty poor until you know, we all found out JK was the author and everyone wanted a piece of that.

I was no different, and after a thankfully short wait and a mere 50p of cash, I had my copy from the library, and I zipped through it in mere days (about 3 of them? And it's a hefty book!) I haven't read a lot of crime books, and so there's always going to be a specific reason I read them (JK) but whenever I do, I find that I really like them. I like not knowing what's going on, and I like having people explain things to me using things we've discovered together through the story and I just like them like them like them.

The Cuckoo's Calling is no exception. The case concerns the death of Lulu Landry, (alliterative names, love it) the bipolar supermodel who seemed to commit suicide one freezing night by jumping off the balcony of her swish London flat (Spoiler: it wasn't suicide. Obvs.) and the detective chosen to investigate it is Cormoran Strike (what a name!), an ex-army officer who, when we meet him, is technically homeless and kind of a mess (is there any other kind of PI? I think not.) Things progress, clues are gathered, suspects are considered then discounted and it's all just really really good fun.

This is where Daria and I part ways because I actually do like fun.

I probably have two favourite things about this book, and they are these:

• London- The London that JK depicts is probably the best London I've ever read in any book ever (you should probably take into account the fact that I don't read a lot of books set in England when I say this...) and by this I mean that, her descriptions brought up an exact picture of the London I know in my head. I'm really interested to know if this setting is as vivid for someone who has, say, never been to London- I'm guessing the picture wouldn't be exactly as clear, but then when that person visited London it'd be like 'WOAH, it's just like being in a Robert Galbraith novel.' The setting is really great, is what I'm saying.
• Cormoran and Robin- It's not quite Batman and Robin, but the relationship JK sets up between Strike and his assistant is truly one of the best things about The Cuckoo's Calling. It's really interesting because you get to see the relationship from both sides, and the things Strike assumes Robin is thinking about him are not necessarily correct, and vice versa (although sometimes they do overlap almost alarmingly). This relationship is set up so well that I can't help but wonder (hope) whether JK plans to write more Cormoran Strike books because I would support that, big time.

What else can I say? It's JK, so you know what you're getting in terms of readability and awesomeness, and you know you're going to read this if you're a Harry Potter fan* so don't even pretend you're not. Rest assured, though, that when you do, it's definitely not going to be a waste of anyone's time and hopefully you'll have a lot of fun when you're not being all sombre and serious because, oh yeah, it's about a murder. Read on, my pretties.

*i.e. a breathing human