Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - Miehet jotka vihaavat naisia

Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Miehet jotka vihaavat naisia by Stieg Larsson

86 reviews

kissezmusic's review against another edition

mysterious tense medium-paced

3.0

i would like to start this by saying i am not normally a fan of mystery books. i like a good mysterious book but mystery as a genre never really interested me and that held true here as well. it was by no means a bad book, hence the 3 stars, just not for me. i did end up spoiling it for myself by accidentally seeing something on a wayyy later page, i saw one of his emails to her, which really took the little enjoyment i had by that point (probably around page 140 at that moment) out of it completely.

there are 2 slightly on page non-consent scenes and one almost non-consent scene, which i did not know about, i knew nothing about this book going into it; please be careful with that. also this book has a very liberal use of the r slur derogatorily (one character slightly uses it to 'jusify' an action), so please keep that in mind.

i didn't very much enjoy the pages and time in the book after the central mystery is done, it was very boring to me just reading about office politics and such.

this is all just my personal opinion so please take it with a grain of salt. if you want to read this, please do! the translation feels very smooth and had i not been told there was a translator, i would've thought this was written in english originally.

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arellareads's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is the first book I’ve listened to via audiobook, so this probably influenced my experience, but I was having a hard time following all the characters and plot points at first. I actually read a synopsis after each chapter just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything since the book is very dense. The story doesn’t start picking up until a hundred pages in or so, when the mystery takes hold — at that point I started getting hooked on the crime drama.

Despite the slow start, this book gets extremely dark and disturbing mid-way through as the mystery behind the girl with the dragon tattoo comes to light. It’s a heavy read, with a complex, intellectual plot line about social tensions surrounding the fascist Nazi regime, family economics, domestic violence, serial murders, sexual assault, and systemic abuse and oppression against women (many of these scenes are graphic).

It’s a very meticulously crafted story and I value the planning that had to go into this. However, the writing is very explanatory and matter-of-fact, leaving little breathing room. I’m assuming some of the style was lost in the English translation, but this made it challenging to get through. It wouldn’t be my usual choice, but I can appreciate the serious issues this book tackles.

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miss_anthrope's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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abwilli's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Stellar. Excellent twist, complicated characters. No clear “good” or “bad.” A truly enjoyable read.

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frenchfrybri's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

lisbeth salander is an icon

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syylvie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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adventurouspotato's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This is a tough book to review. The mystery at the heart of it is compelling and well laid out but there is a lot of other stuff in this book which slows the pace down incredibly for most of the first half as well as the last 50 pages. I think the beginning of this book is pretty bad, with infodump problems in the first couple chapters. The Wennerström affair and the future of Millennium was just not that interesting to me and the book outlines it in too much dry detail.

It took until part 2 for this book to even start being interesting, and it takes until part 3 for any progress to be made on the case! But the mystery itself is well laid out and interesting, and while I guessed a couple things, namely that

Harriet was still alive,

most of it was a complete surprise. The end of part 3 and beginning of part 4 was a real page turner, but then we saw more of a secondary plot at the end which I didn't care much about.

The characters are also interesting, especially the title character, but I had some issues with their relationships with one another. Is it really too much to ask for

any of the main female characters not to fuck Blomkvist? I think his relationship with Cecilia was a bit interesting cause it could have compromised the case, but otherwise, was it really necessary to spend that much time on the subject of his sex life?

Salander is even more complicated in this regard.

I think her experience of SA and how she responded to it actually gave an important look at her character, which I do have to respect since it's kind of rare for that to work. Her revenge was really satisfying and shows how she takes care of things on her own even though it may be more dangerous.

You can also see how her circumstances affects her attitude towards the case and other male characters. She has no idea what it's like to have healthy boundaries or relationships, whether platonic or sexual, and it's no surprise when she randomly asks her boss if he thinks she's attractive or when she tries to have sex with Blomkvist even though he's old enough to be her dad. This is the first time Salander actually trusts someone as a friend and she basically tries to sabotage it by reverting to a dynamic she understands.

This all makes sense for her character, but I hate that Blomkvist goes along with it! For him it's just sex but it should be clear that Salander is vulnerable and that their relationship would be healthier without that. Blomkvist isn't always perfect but I'm not sure if we're supposed to treat this as a mistake since there isn't any consequences for him and their relationship remains pretty much the same, just now with sex. I think this is a missed opportunity for Salander to either be confronted with healthy boundaries in a platonic relationship for once, or to have a conflict between them because their sexual relationship isn't super healthy for their friendship and working relationship.

Anyways, I'll wrap up with some more small thoughts. This book is really Swedish and it doesn't try to explain linguistic or cultural things to a foreign audience for the most part, except for some reason it used Fahrenheit for the temperature which just killed me as a Canadian. It also makes constant reference to books, newspapers and magazines characters read, almost none of which I had heard of. For all I know they are fictional, but I assume they are well known to Swedes. I thought this surprising lack of localization was interesting given this book's international success.

Also, most characters are referred to by last name way more frequently than I would expect, which is probably a Swedish cultural thing? But it makes it confusing since the Vanger family are all called by their first names, but "Vanger" is specifically used for Henrik Vanger. Another example is that Birger Vanger is called "Birger" while Erika Berger is called "Berger". This confusion could have been avoided if she was called by her first name in the text!

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