a page-turner, i concede

today, while sitting in a catholic church in a small town outside of cape town, i finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.  and what did i think?  meh.  good, entertaining, captivating at points.  but not well written and i am not sure if this is due to the author's writing skills or lacklustre translation from swedish to english, but errors like 'disinformation' instead of 'misinformation,' improper hyphenation, and the use of the word 'had' in duplication in a sentence drove me batty.

some might not be bothered by the writing style and it might interest you to read about the perversions of society, but i needed to finish it to find out the conclusion to the story and less because i really cared about the resolution or the characters involved.

like i said, the story was a page-turner indeed, but i felt it lacked depth and i still don't feel as though i really know the main characters after 800 pages.  which, to be perfectly honest, might be enough for me to pick up the second in the series as i am slightly intrigued.

pick it up, it won't be tough to finish if you have a little time on your hands, but don't expect it to live up to the hype (remember The Da Vinci Code...?)

a great way to pass time at heathrow (or anywhere you find yourself)

stuff white people like

i especially like #99 - and i have taken a stand on the serial comma gramar rule and i love the serial comma!

there, that's better

the pink and white is refreshing. i was getting sick of looking at the black dots.

but i seem to have lost my map and counter. apparently, i can get it back somehow but don't have the patience to fight with blogger today. although i must say that blogger rarely puts up a good fight and is usually pretty easy to contend with. and the map never showed me in kenya anyways*.

i have had a headache the past few days. it could be a) dehydration, b) stress, c) staring at a computer screen, d) the burning garbage outside my window (again), or e) all of the above.

*can we talk about the use of the word 'anyways?' because i think that it is fine to pluralise it, but recently someone from another former british colony pointed out that canadians always say anyways when they say anyway. which is correct? grammar police, any ideas?