Response to "Northern Lights"

I really have enjoyed reading the first 1/3 of the book "Northern Lights".  I'm usually very picky when it comes to reading;  I get bored easily.  However, "Northern Lights" has really caught my attention with the story-line of a woman who goes crazy and leaves her fiance once she finds out her deceased father wasn't her biological father.  Her travel to Finland to discover her real father has been very interesting so far.  She doesn't resist Kari, the bus driver when he pursues her and tries to take advantage of her.  She just goes along with what he is doing, without care, which surprises me.  When he becomes ill, she just leaves him there and moves on with her life, forgetting him.  She becomes cold towards people.  She doesn't have a very friendly or loving personality, but for some reason, her goal is to fin her father and start a new life with new people.  

Her personality seems to have been damaged psychologically from childhood by her mother.  Clarissa had felt betrayed by her fiance, her mother, and father.  She felt like she could trust nobody.  Also, as a child, Clarissa's mother was never very caring until just before she left.  She made Clarissa feel terrible when she left her at the mall just because she was running a few minutes late to the meeting spot.  However, she has had some resentment towards her mother.  She is an interesting character to follow because of her temper and strange behaviors.  At times it seems like she reverts back to childhood tendencies.  She has started to lose her mind it seems as her mother had done before she left.  Her mother used to talk to the neighbor's cat sometimes and would give it milk.  

I am excited to read on to find out what happens when she meets up with her biological father.  It ended with the cliff-hanger of her talking to her father on the phone.  I predict that Clarissa will learn a lot more about her mother and maybe why she left and why Clarissa herself was raised by another man.