Flodhesten i hverdagsrummet - Tommy Hellsten

Title: Flodhesten i hverdagsrummet (The Hippopotamus in the Living Room)
Author: Tommy Hellsten
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: 3/5
# pages: 155
Date read: September, 2010

It is said that a family who lives with an alcoholic lives with a hippopotamus in the living room. Everybody notices the hippopotamus, that forces the members of the family to adapt to certain circumstances, but everybody tries to deny its existence through silence.

This book addresses what happens to children who grow up in the shadow of alcoholism, work addiction, extreme religiosity, incest or violence. The family members of someone suffering from one of these end up becoming co-dependent; each family member suffer through co-dependency of the abuse, and pass on this handicap to the next generation.

What do you do with these experiences, that nobody wants to talk about? And how do you become a functioning adult, if you as a child had to conform to the hippopotamus?

I feel odd rating this book, because I don't think it's possible to get the full effect of it, if it's not personally relevant, and therefore it doesn't feel fair to rate it down, just because I couldn't relate. Therefore this semi-average rating.

I had it recommended to me because I have a couple of very close friends who grew up suffering from some sort of co-dependency, and I could definitely recognize them in the personality traits Tommy describes a co-dependent person as having. However, no matter how much I'd like to, I can't force them to relive their lost childhood, until and unless they feel ready to do so themselves.

Cold Fire - Tamora Pierce

Title: Cold Fire
Author: Tamora Pierce
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5
# pages: Audiobook ~10hrs
Date read: September, 2010

Daja and her teacher, Frostpine, settle into the northern Namorn city of Kugisko for a restful winter break. Not surprisingly, their illusions are promptly shattered, as Daja discovers that the twin daughters of her host have "ambient magic." As the discovering-mage, Daja is obliged to teach the fidgety girls the rudiments of magic. Meanwhile, Kugisko seems to have fallen into the hands of a ruthless arsonist, and Daja is determined to help her new firefighting friend, Bennat Ladradun, get to the bottom of the mystery.

Whereas the Circle of Magic quartet was mostly written for a younger audience, the same definitely cannot be said about the Circle Opens quartet. Here Tamora Pierce dives into the darker aspects of life and humanity.

Daja has always been my favourite of the four, but she does seem an awful lot older than 14. I guess some of that could be contributed to her past, but still. Nia and Jory were much more believable 10-year-olds than Daja ever was. Although I have to say they drove me crazy with their obstinancy to learning meditation. I would not have been able to be as patient with them as Daja was, and think their disobedience was passed by much too easily. That bugged me.

I was fascinated by the insights into the arsonists mind - especially his absolute bafflement, that Daja could ever suspect him of being cruel or a monster - he obviously thought his actions perfectly reasonable and a natural consequence of how he was treated... probably not too far off from how real psychopaths think