So H.D Carlton is one of my favorite authors. I'm excited to read her book, "Does it Hurt". 

I define my life by the books I'm reading. Like the era I was reading the girl with the dragon tattoo series. I think about why I love that series so much. Salandar is this girl with communication issues. She doesn't conform to society and because of that her life is being unfairly controlled. I feel like my early childhood was unfairly controlled. Maybe if I had just fought harder, rebelled, did anything worthy of changing my circumstances I could've turned out differently. 

Salandar communicates more with actions than with words. When a boy assaulted her she beat him to a bloody pulp. She could've just told someone and let them handle it, but why let other people doll out punishments when it's a crime against you. Shouldn't you be allowed to settle the dispute. Or an Eye-for-Eye dealing where you doll out a fair but equal reciprocation of the initial grievance. In another life there's a society where people do this, and it probably creates more harmony than anything. 

Salandar is a ward of the state. It's weird how my last name is Ward and I know it probably comes from slavery. I know my great ancestor must have been a ward of something and chose the last name Ward. Or someone chose it for them. Salandar is under guardianship, which is a lot like a conservatorship . Her guardian controls her money, place of living, job, etc. Every aspect of her life she has not control. Lucky she is assigned to a guardian that allows her to control her life. Then he mysterisoly suffers a brain stroke and she is back to square 1. She's stuck with a guardian who doesn't let her control her life and is sadistic in every way. He doesn't just care to control her finances and daily living, he also want to control her body. 

Salandar does manage to get her revenge. It's so creative and masterful. I know this is public and that I'm spoiling the book. But I recommend reading it if you really want to be surprised. 

Here we go. Salandar is raped by the man, but luckily she catches it all on video. She threatens her idiot sadistic rapist to leak the video if he ever tries to rape her again. Not just her, but have any sexual contact with any woman, even consensual. She creates fail-safes to make sure the video get uploaded in the case she goes missing or dies. She then uses the leverage to gain control from him, but also set herself free. She orders him to write reports saying she's doing well so that in a year he can petition the court to free her from the guardianship. My favorite part is after all this, giving her life back and never being able to have sex again, she tattoos "I am a rapist, a sadist, and a sadistic pig on his chest." If he were to even try to have sex, the moment he pulls his shirt up and woman would run. It's genius. Also the pain he endured while she did the tattoo is a fair and equal kind of revenge. 

The rest of the girl of the dragon tattoo revolves around Blookvist, a disgraced journalist after being found guilty of libel. Her wrote a scathing article on a financial tycoon, Wenestrom. Blookvist was fed false information and he knew spilling his source wouldn't help the case so he gets sentenced to a couple months in jail. After the trial, Henrik Vanger a grieving great uncle enlist his investing journalism expertise to solve the case of his missing granddaughter Harriot Vanger. Henrik pay Blookvist a lot of money and gives him a place to hide from journalist that aim to add insult to injury from the trial. 

It's the harrowing adventure of a disgraced journalist and a dysfunctional woman. Their paths cross when Henrik's assistant reveals to Blookvist the person who did a background check on him before he was hired to find Harriot. Blookvist notices information in the background check that wouldn't be publicly available, only if the person hacked into his computer. Knowing Salandar is a hacker, he enlists her to help find Harriot. Salandar agrees because she's interested in the case. The solve the case and find Harriot alive in Australia. I don't even know where to begin with the case of Harriot. She comes from a family of narcissist and serial killers and basically she left after so many red flags.

The final act of the girl with the dragon tattoo is Salandar helping Blookvist takedown Wenstrom. She not only helps him find the information he needs to expose Wenstrom, Salandar then steals billions of Wenstrom money. This leads into the events of the next book which are my favorite. 

This entire book with all of it's poignant plot is written by a man. He mainly focuses on circumstances that happen in these situation and less on the internal thoughts of what most women go through. That's what I love while the average women, have the same average women thoughts in these scenarios. This is a story that in life would never happen, and if it did it would be  unbelievable. No one would believe that each event led to the next.

All in all, I want to write a story like this. Something so outlandish and crazy that it sticks with you. Maybe I should write my book like I'm reading it. Like I don't know what is going to happen next. I've done that with some of my short stories where I just keep writing until I have to stop. It's not that the story can't go on any longer, it's just pure creative exhaustion. 

I need to work on that. Writing until my head is about to explode. Not creative burnout. But creative exercise. When your lifting weights and you keep lifting until her muscles are bulging. They keep getting bigger and bigger as it rips apart then heals. Maybe life is like a muscle. Where you need to push yourself to the breaking point. I just can't skip the recovery phase. I know how to work out, I just need to remember how important it is to recover. To not completely rip the muscle for too long. I just want to be creatively shredded. I used to run so often. I used to run until my legs didn't know they were still running. That's the best feeling, when your legs get so used to the pain, they can take you any distance. I want that again. I want to run and my legs to forget their running and my head to forget I'm running. 

That's what it's like reading a book. You eyes forgets you're reading and you feel like you're just living in this fictional world. This resting place where you don't have to worry about bills, about sleep, about problems. I know problems are just another part of life. But it helps reading something that makes your life feel small and normal. It reminds me how easy my life is to manage. I read the girl with the dragon tattoo and reminded how much my life doesn't suck. How all of the troubles I've been having are salvageable. I'm not too far gone. All the friends and family I've been neglecting. I can call them, text them, make things better. Things can get better. 

It's only the second chapter of the burnout diaries and I'm already getting better. I'm already recovering.