Of Dragons and Dreams

Alright so the title might be a little grander than the reading but this time I've finished two books both of which I enjoyed. First up, The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo.
This one took me a long time to really get hooked on. It was somewhere around page 306 when I finally said, "Yes! This is what I've been waiting for!" Honestly if I hadn't been urged by at least three different people who's book opinions I respect I would've set this one down. The prologue has great promise with an elderly man reciving a pressed flower on his birthday, an event that has occurred for the past
40+ years. The interesting part is the supposed sender, his niece Harriet, disappeared decades ago. The gentleman assumes that its her killer taunting him. Then we get to chapter 1 and enough backstory to qualify as government reading! We find out all about a finacial journalist's downfall and a mysterious girl with a dragon tatoo who does security work. She's asked to investigate the journalist who was just convicted of slander and then the elderly man hires the journalist to investigate his niece's disappearance--a supposedly perfect crime. Somewhere around page 300 this tatoo girl and journalist join forces in the investigation. Before that there is more than enough sadistic behavior directed at tatoo girl (who is named Lisbeth) for me to cringe repeatedly. In the end that sadism helps solve the crime in an ending that I did not see coming. If you can stick out the backstory the novel is worth it. There was a teaser at the end of the copy I read for the next novel in the triology--again a lot of sadism seems to be the theme.
The second novel I read was The Summer we Read Gatsby. I'm not going to lie--I was drawn to it by the title because I love The Great Gatsby. The book started off a little slow again--just can't seem to find that novel that grabs me from the start--but it picked up quickly. It winds up being a romance. Two half sisters who were raised on opposite sides of the Atlantic and have only met in person a half dozen times come together to sort through their beloved Aunt Lydia's things and sell the home they inherited from her when she passed on. Lydia leaves a mysterious message in her will urging the girl to find something of importance in the time it takes them to sell Fool's House--the name she has bestowed upon her home in the Hamptons. The girls--really they're women--spend their time looking for something material of value when its obvious that love and family is what Lydia is alluding to. The chase for material wealth does lead to a bit of a mystery, but all ends well despite an unfortunate end to Fool's House. Along the way you learn a bit about Jackson Pollock, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the artistic traditions of East Hampton. It was a fun read that left me longing for a summer home on a lake and colorful neighbors to drink cocktails with in the sumer sun and shaded porches.