{Review} As Red as Blood by Salla Simukka

The streets of Finland are frozen and white with snow. And nothing is as red against snow as blood . . .

In the midst of the freezing Arctic winter, seventeen-year-old Lumikki Andersson walks into her school’s dark room and finds a stash of wet, crimson-colored money. Thousands of Euros left to dry—splattered with someone’s blood.

Lumikki lives alone in a studio apartment far from her parents and the past she left behind. She transferred into a prestigious art school, and she’s singularly focused on studying and graduating. Lumikki ignores the cliques, the gossip, and the parties held by the school’s most popular and beautiful boys and girls.

But finding the blood-stained money changes everything. Suddenly, Lumikki is swept into a whirlpool of events as she finds herself helping to trace the origins of the money. Events turn even more deadly when evidence points to dirty cops and a notorious drug kingpin best known for the brutality with which he runs his business.

As Lumikki loses control of her carefully constructed world, she discovers that she’s been blind to the forces swirling around her—and she’s running out of time to set them right. When she sees the stark red of blood on snow, it may be too late to save her friends or herself.

As Red As Blood is the first book in the Snow white trilogy, or the Lumikki Andersson trilogy. I struggled with this book. It was originally written in Finnish and it takes placei n Finland, so maybe something was lost in translation, but I just could not get into this story. And that seems like a real shame to me, because I really, really liked the main girl Lumikki. I thought she was resilient, and smart. But the story was too jarring for me. The book felt kind of choppy and all over the place. The pace was brisk but the story felt like, scene. event. new person. confusing thing. scene. scene. without any explanations or time to catch your breath. I think for people that enjoy foreign or noir gritty crime thrillers might really love this, but it is not my normal read so the flow of the story was almost too big of a hurdle for me to overcome.

As I said before Lumikki is a great character. I went back and forth many times on what rating to give this book. I almost gave it 3 stars because I really enjoyed Lumikki. I loved how tough she was and when she stood up to the principals son early on, I cheered her on in my head. And I also liked the premise. She finds blood covered money hanging to dry in her school dark room. Umm, what??? That sounds like a crazy story! So I decided to give it a try, and it was kind of crazy, but it just wasn’t really my thing. I feel like it might translate better on the tv or movie, but in a book, at least with this translation, something wasn’t adding up for me to really get into the story.

As Red As Blood deals with a Finnish crime ring. Again a cool concept, and people that read crime thrillers or noir crime novels I think will love the snow white trilogy. The writing style is very distinct and the landscape felt very pungent, and fitting. It is a quick read, so I was glad that I stuck this one out. It was a good story, but not great for me. Lumikki is the winner of As Red As Blood. I wish I could have liked this one more, but I do hope people give this a shot if it sounds like your kind of read.

But don’t just take my word for it.

Check out these reviews from people that LOVED As Red As Blood:

The Review Diaries gave it 4 stars!
Paper Fury gave it 4 stars!

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