American Girl
by
Monika Fagerholm
adult fiction
This is a novel for adults. It was originally published in Finland but written in Swedish. It is set in Finland.
This is NOT the American Girls book series for children.
This is NOT the magazine for children.
I hope this is now clear which book I am reviewing. I hate it when you can't tell which book it is from the title.
That being said, I picked up this book because it had glowing reviews on the back and because it was set in Finland. I know a number of 3rd or 4th generation Finnish Americans and I have flown Finnair (the official airline of Santa Claus), and I enjoyed "Sisterchicks on the Loose" when they head to Finland so I figured it might be interesting.
I struggled to get through this book. It was set in some kind of stream of consciousness confusing style where the reader could not tell if what was being said was reality or fantasy and the time periods jumped around a whole lot. Maybe this book lost something in translation. It says on the cover that it is part of a series. I have no desire to read any more books like this.
The cover says that it is about two girl friends that discover the body of an American teenager in a swamp. Yes, this does happen, but mostly the book dashes around from character to character, time to time, and perspective to perspective until the reader is completely confused. I would tell you more about it, but I'll be da**ed if I know what happened, even after reading the whole book.
Maybe if someone reworked this into a screenplay and simplified everything I would have a clue.
There is a death, so I guess you could call this a mystery, but mostly I would call it a mess.
