Since I’m sick* and way behind on reviews, I’ve realised the only way to catch up is to make them speed reviews and post a whole batch at once.

The Age of Napoleon; Alistair Horne, eng, 235
Interesting, but a little choppily written, and also the author assumes you know certain things and never explains them, while others he explains over and over again.
C

Cold Comfort Farm; Stella Gibbons, eng, 253
Funny, though I accidentally didn’t read the preface, so I wasn’t 100 % how much of it was intentional (all of it, as it turns out, and as I suspected). Flora Poste is kind of annoying, but all right all the same.
For the TBR reading challenge and as part of the BBC Big Read.
B

Rebecca; Daphne du Maurier, eng, 410
A re-read, not as good as I remembered it, but still lovely. Maxim is both wonderful and creepy.
C

Med uppenbar känsla för stil; Stephan Mendel-Enk, swe, 128
Interestingly written about men and what’s considered masculine. References Morrissey at some points, mostly in connection with a man who went berserk and killed people. Lovely… not!
C

Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East; Brian Whitaker, swe, 230
Interesting, scary and occasionally a little bit hopeful.
C

Ingen behöver veta; Christina Wahldén, swe, 139
About male rape and how it does exist, but people find it hard to believe. Kind of a non-ending, but then I suppose that’s sadly the case in most instances of actual male rape also.
C

Ingen grekisk gud, precis; Katarian Kieri, swe, 217
Kind of brilliant tale of a young girl who falls for a teacher. Kind of brilliant mostly because the main character is into Morrissey, but for other reasons also. I was a bit worried where it was going to end, but it’s kind of perfect, really.
B

Sandman: The Kindly Ones; Neil Gaiman et al., eng, 335
I wouldn’t say Sandman is Gaiman at his best, but I do like the stories and so also in this volume. Not my favourite, though.
For the TBR reading challenge.
C

Doctor Who: The Nightmare of Black Island; Mike Tucker, eng, 255
Scary monsters and kiddies with nightmares. I liked it, but not as much as other DW books.
C

Doctor Who: The Art of Destruction; Stephen Cole, eng, 256
Farming in Africa, golden statues and creepy aliens. Good, but not great. Doctor’s always nice, though.
C

Doctor Who: The Price of Paradise; Colin Brake, eng, 255
References Franz Ferdinand and other pop culture a time or two. Not the best of the DW books I’ve read—I don’t much care for Colin Brake’s style of writing it, though I can’t put my finger on the exact reason.
C

Tro, hopp och burnout; Johan Unenge, swe, 228
YA story about a guy who’s really into cars and death metal, who ends up going on a confirmation camp. It’s a decent story, and I was happy to see it didn’t end up quite where I expected it would, but the writing style is very, very choppy and not at all my cup of tea.
For the A-Z reading challenge.
C

Vadå feminist; Lisa Gålmark, swe, 188
Basic guide to feminism. I wasn’t too keen on the writing and didn’t like the book all that much. Mostly it made me a little annoyed with the author, though it did contain sections worth thinking about. It bothers me that there is no question mark in the title.
For the A-Z reading challenge.
D

Homofamiljer; Sara Stenholm & Cecilia Strömberg, swe, 312
About rainbow families and different ways to get one. Interesting, especially the personal stories, but not fab.
C

*Just a cold, but a bad one. I hate colds. And I’ve run out of Kleenex, which means my nose is very, very sore from regular paper towels. Woe.

Hundår
by Markus Zusak
Original title: The Underdog

For the A-Z reading challenge.

Swedish
128 pages
Richters
ISBN: 91-7130-027-9

First line: Det var medan vi tittade på teve som vi bestämde oss för att råna tandläkaren.

Back cover blurb:
Cameron Wolfe är en ensamvarg och underdog som slår i underläge. Alltid i underläge!
I Hundår berättar han om några månader i sitt liv. Inte för att det hände något särskilt. Bara hans försök att hitta sin väg genom livet. Och några boxningsmatcher på bakgården.

Thoughts: I don’t know if it was because of the translation, my mood at the time, or because Zusak is just not my cup of tea, but I didn’t like this book. I’ve been hearing a lot of good stuff about him, so I think I’ll probably try The Book Thief anyway, though not by buying it. If I’ll read it, I’ll borrow it from the library.

A D grade. It just wasn’t interesting to me.

En liten chock
by Johanna Lindbäck

Swedish
272 pages
Tiden
ISBN: 978-91-85243-98-3

First line: Han ansträngde sig inte direkt för att komma i tid, det kan man inte säga.

Back cover blurb:
Gustav hoppades på tre saker när han började gymnasiet:

1. En flickvän, eller en tillfällig tjej att ha sex med, åtminstone en gång.
2. En massa nya kompisar med samma intressen som han, det vill säga inte sport.
3. En ny personlighet.

Nu är det bara ett par mÃ¥nader kvar till studenten och Gustav har nästan gett upp hoppet. Men sÃ¥ bildar han och Elin i klassen en pakt. De ska göra nÃ¥got oväntat—nÃ¥got som gör dem mindre missnöjda med varandra och sina förutsägbara liv. NÃ¥got som gör att de slipper dö av tristess och leda.
Det drar ihop sig till en liten chock…

Thoughts: This was a decent little YA read. Most of the reason I liked it as much as I did (not more than a C rating, though) is because it’s set in UmeÃ¥, which is where I studied at university, so I know the city. It’s always neat to have places you are familiar with appear in fiction.

Daddy-Long-Legs
by Jean Webster

For the Decades ’08 reading challenge (first published 1912).

English
160 pages
J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd/E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.
ISBN: n/a

First line: The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day—a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.

Back cover blurb: n/a

Thoughts: I’ve read Daddy-Long-Legs before, but always in Swedish, so this was a bit like reading it for the first time. I’ve always liked it in Swedish, and I like it even more in the original.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s the story of Judy, a girl who’s grown up in an orphanage. Her real name is Jerusha, because the head of the orphanage had a habit of picking first names from head stones (and last names from the phone directory, which is why Judy is an Abbott). When Judy’s eighteen, one of the trustees of the orphanage decides to sponsor her education at college. His only demand on her is that she write him one letter a month, to tell him how she’s doing at school.

In essence, then, it’s a novel in letters. A format that is not always easy to pull off, but that Webster truly excelled at (she wrote other novels in the same style—the sequel to this one, called Dear Enemy, being one of them).

I’m giving this a B grade, in part because the writing is such that I got pulled in, and in part because there is an underlying romance that is lovely, but not too in-your-face and definitely not the only thing in the story. I like that sort of thing.

If you haven’t already read it, do it now! (Or at least soon. If you’re not averse to reading things on the screen, you can find this, and its sequel, at Project Gutenberg.)

Från en annan planet
by Tamara Bach
Original title: Marsmädchen

Swedish
168 pages
Berghs
ISBN: 91-502-1541-8

First line: Mitt namn är Miriam.

Back cover blurb:
“Laura och jag bredvid varandra pÃ¥ väg mot klassrummet. Steg, andas in, steg, andas ut. Lagom takt. Ska jag säga nÃ¥t? HÃ¥lla tyst? Andas. Där framme är dörren och jag kan inte göra nÃ¥t utom att gÃ¥, andas gÃ¥. Och jag vÃ¥gar inte se pÃ¥ henne.”

Om Miriam 15 år, som bor i en småstad där det aldrig händer något. Men när Laura börjar i hennes klass förändras allt. Miriam har äntligen hittat en vän, och vänskapen övergår till kärlek.

Very short synopsis in English: Miriam is fifteen and lives in a small town. Laura is new in her class and they become friends, and maybe more.

Thoughts: This is the first lesbian-related YA novel I’ve read and properly liked. Still can’t remember one with a decently upbeat ending, though. Everyone always moves away. Or dies.

Either way, read it if you find it. I think it’s called Girl from Mars in English.

A B rating.