Amerikkalainen tyttö by Monika Fagerholm

Amerikkalainen tyttö (The American Girl) is first of Monika Fagerholm's books I've read, and it was given to me as a Christmas present by my mom. Well, my mom advertised it to me as a mystery novel (and that's a good way to sell a book me), so I picked it up on Sunday while recovering from my cold expecting something entertaining and light.

Well, it wasn't either. No, that's not quite right - it was entertaining as in it kept my interest and it was captivating, but it wasn't pleasant. Fagerholm writes very well, especially about women and their relationships, but everyone is so unhappy. It's a story about death - it starts out by telling how Eddie, the American girl dies in a small town, followed by her boyfriend who commits a suicide. Two girls set about finding out what really happened and if Eddie committed a suicide or if she was murdered - and they do find something as other one of the girls commits a suicide herself couple of years afterwards. All this is told in the first couple of chapters, and then the story starts all over and fleshes out the events and the characters.

There are hardly no normal people in this book, they are all weird, and why wouldn't they be, they all come from bizarre circumstances. Yet what strikes a cord with me are the girls and the women (men are just... non-expectional), describing them, their emotions and feelings is what Fagerholm does best. There's something magical about two teenage girls' friendship that she captures just right - intense love and feeling of incompleteness without the other.

I understand Fagerholm has been writing this book for seven years, and that this is only the first half of a whole book. I don't quite understand why though - this is a book on it's own right, it tells a complete story with a start, middle and ending that clears up all the questions set in the beginning. In the end new characters are introduced almost as an epilogue but with the words "to be continued" - if it ever will, we'll see.

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