Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire By Stieg Larsson

What a relief to finally finish this book.

I feel like I've been reading it FOREVER. Well, at least a month, anyway. Which is unusual for me. It's partly because I've been so busy, partly because of the size, but I think mostly, for awhile there, I just didn't feel compelled to pick it up at all. Don't get me wrong - the story of Lisbeth Salander accused of murdering three people, and Mikael Blomkvist's search for the truth, is an interesting one, and the writing is good overall. The first part dives straight into action, and although it still takes awhile to get to the main plot, I really enjoyed reading it. The ending is also great - once I got to the last third of the book, it was hard to put down as everything came into place. It was just the middle I had a lot of trouble with.

I think the main problem is Lisbeth Salander. She's such an amazing character and undoubtedly the star of the series. She's kick-butt, complex, uncompromising, unique and brilliant. She absolutely leaps off the page when she appears. So when she doesn't appear - like, in the whole middle section of The Girl Who Played With Fire - the pages feel flat and dull. She's still part of the story, as the team investigating the murders comes together and begins to hunt her down, but she's not actually present, and her absense is definitely felt. Now, I like me a murder investigation, but unfortunately the bulk of this one was just so boring. I felt like every time I picked up the book, a new character was being introduced, and their whole life story was revealed in intricate details, and I JUST. DIDN'T. CARE. I get it, it's Larsson's style, but there were so many characters that I had difficulty tracking who was who (especially as it was often days between readings) and I just wasn't invested in most of them at all.

When Lisbeth finally appeared again, I think I literally breathed a sigh of relief, and read the rest of the book in a matter of days. Once again, to Larsson's credit, there were some major twists that I did not see coming at all. I love it when a book catches me by surprise. So I closed the book feeling satisfied. But even though there were quite a few threads left hanging for The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, I have to say I don't think I'm going to pick that up immediately. I'll get to it soon, because I really want to know how it all ends, of course, but at the moment I feel a bit fatigued by the series. Time for some mindless, easy fluff, I think.

Rating: 3/5

Spoilery Talking Points

• ZOMG I was NOT expecting Zala to be who he was. I thought maybe Lisbeth had been kidnapped and abused as a kid, but finding out what "All the Evil" really was, was completely shocking. In a good way.
• I knew she didn't do it. Still, she's pretty mental. In a good way.

Fine Print
Genre: Crime
Published: 2009
Get It: Abe Books

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I feel like I'm the last person in the world to have read this book.

I put it off for a long time because (I'm embarrassed to admit) of the size. I love big books, don't get me wrong, but I love new books more, and tend to prefer to speed through three shorter ones in the time it takes to get through one massive tome. You might say I'm a tad impatient. But the other week, when I was trying to decide what to read, my fiance - who reads about four books per year and has managed to read this one - insisted I pick up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, coz he liked it so much. So I relented. I was curious to know what all the fuss was about.

I'd heard from the fiance, and others, that the first quarter is pretty slow going. And it really was. There were a few times when my eyes glazed over from boredom. While it laid the groundwork for the whole book (and, I'm assuming, the whole series), not a lot happens in the way of plot. Sure, we meet the main characters, but it takes an incredibly long time for them to finally meet each other and get things going. Even seemingly minor characters are given a detailed history, which I could appreciate on one level but also found quite tiresome on another, as I waited for the main story to start rolling. When it finally does, it's definitely a page-turner. It's an awesome mystery, with a fantastic cast of suspects and a fascinating set of clues.

But what really kept me turning the page was the chemistry between the two protagonists, Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. As I mentioned, it takes awhile for them to hook up, but it's worth the wait. They work amazingly together, and I have to admit, though it made me impatient, the slow build to their meeting lays a strong foundation for the characters, both individually and as a team. I really liked Blomkvist, but like so many others it was Lisbeth Salander who really stole the show for me. She's definitely a strange and unique character, but she's super strong, got a lot of 'tude and can do some pretty clever things with a tattoo needle (this is significant in a spoilery way).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn't shy away from violence, and though I was prepared for some brutal scenes, they still managed to shock me. Certain parts are incredibly uncomfortable to read - as they should be - and while initially I thought it was unnecessarily graphic, these details did make events that unfolded later (and the reader's understanding of certain characters) all the more powerful. It is the kind of book that stays on your mind even when you're not reading it, with the kind of characters you champion forever.

Rating: 4/5

Spoilery Talking Points

• I loved discovering what really happened to Harriet. I suspected just about every character of murdering her at some point, and it's to Larsson's credit that both twists - who was responsible for Harriet's disappearance, and what actually happened to her - came as surprises to me. While both things did cross my mind, there were so many other possibilities that I wasn't really expecting them. I love a good twist!
• Maybe I'm dense, but I didn't really get what Salander was doing with the bank accounts at the end - or maybe I should say, I didn't get why she was doing it. I felt that wasn't really explained properly. Perhaps it's covered in the next book?

Eye Candy
I'd seen the trailer for the upcoming English language adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo a few times before reading it, so I pretty much had the entire cast stuck in my head while reading the book.

Fine Print
Genre: Crime

Published: 2008

Get It: Better World Books