This is translated from Finnish, and while I think getting books translated into different languages is awesome and well-worth doing, sometimes you can just tell that it's not in its native language. This is the case here. The sentence structure was often just a little off, and sometimes there were weird italicized sentences in between paragraphs that didn't really seem like they belonged or were necessary. I'd like to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that this was solely the work of the translator or just the effects of being translated to a different language but it is possible her style of writing is just more unique as well. Either way, it's not hard to guess it's translated and the writing doesn't always come off very well.

Lumikki herself is a bit of a mystery. We're told that her home life wasn't bad but her parents weren't very communicative or loving and she really couldn't wait to leave and be on her own. I never got a good sense of why she didn't like being home or around her parents, and seeing as how we basically never see her interact with them, it just left me baffled as to why she felt the way she did.

We keep getting some vague references to some past trauma in her life, but the reveal of what it was left me feeling a little underwhelmed when it was made out to be a lot worse for how Lumikki acts and references always needing to be wary and learning how to walk/act differently so as to seem to be someone else and her very strange obsession with scents. And also it was incredibly frustrating that she never once tried to ask for help. She admits that she didn't and that she never even considered telling her parents or asking for help. She literally didn't even think about it. That really bugged me.

The fairytale elements included left me a little baffled, as this can by no means be called a fairytale retelling, but we kept getting references to fairytales within the story. There was one scene that you could say was paralleling Snow White, but it was one scene, and you wouldn't even guess it to be related if the title wasn't straight from Snow White and you were looking for a connection.

I'm not going to say Lumikki is stupid, though she does make a few decisions that could be called that. But every other non-adult character (and some of those too!) legitimately are dumber than a box of rocks. Granted, there are not many of them, but specifically we keep being told that Elisa is only acting dumb to fit in at school or with her friends. I call foul. Elisa is straight up "not the brightest bulb", as even her father thinks of her.

It's a super quick thriller mystery that's fairly predictable but does leave you wanting to see how it ends. It's bogged down by some writing issues that overall, due to translation or not, seem like laziness and could have been fixed with a couple more drafts or editing run-throughs. I think youngish (but not too young!) teens would probably get the most enjoyment out of this, without quibbling too much about the issues, but there's still some content to be wary of with that age group, so it could be tricky to hand off to those who might enjoy it the most.

I must come off first saying that this book was not for me. I was interested in this because it was a Scandinavian author and she was a young adult author. I don't know what the standards are for young adult novels are for Europe, but for me it was very gritty and the Language was more than I thought appropriate for this type of novel. Now saying that.... I thought that this book was quite witty and exciting I liked the main character she had some serious guts and smarts, but I think that because of the grit it just was not the book that I wanted to read. I would recommend it to people who like books in that wheelhouse.

3.75 stars. When I heard As Red as Blood reviewed as a young adult Girl with a Dragon Tattoo I knew I had to read it. Using fairytale-like descriptions that thankfully weren't lost in translation, Simukka lays the groundwork for an exciting series, dropping hints of Lumikki's difficult past and secrets that she has yet to uncover. While this first book seemed to be mostly about building characters, I'm hoping the next one will be more about their story.