Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

147 reviews

abwilli's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Incest, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Antisemitism, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment

frenchfrybri's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Child abuse

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, and Murder

tiamani's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

There was an interesting story here somewhere buried beneath useless descriptions of irrelevant people and subplots that didn’t do anything to add to the overarching plot. Tons of needless sexual violence against women in this one and an obvious self insert of the author

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, and Violence

syylvie's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment

agnesssimo's review against another edition

informative mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.0

Den var så intressant men så lång. Alldeles för mycket beskrivande kring affärer och finans, den skulle gott o väl kunnat kortats ned några hundra sidor. Dock var Vanger- ploten  såååå bra, hade inte tänkt mig det där.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Incest, Rape, and Murder

adventurouspotato's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Rape, Torture, Antisemitism, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

stephdavis's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Considering how popular this book was, I’m genuinely quite shocked at how dark it is. It is a good psychology thriller (especially for a male author) although there are multiple smaller storylines that could be edited out in my opinion. 

I did like the book overall and see why it was such a craze, but there are just so many moments where Larsson makes his gender biases known and he doesn’t even seem to understand his own female protagonist. 

This is also personal opinion but there was literally no need for Salander and Blomkvist to have a sexual relationship. It really highlights Larsson’s inability to have a female character who isn’t at some point sexualised, even in a consensual manner.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Incest, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

h_elene's review against another edition

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No

0.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

sweetleafs__'s review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

summerlyn's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

There is too much unnecessary information in this book. The plot doesn’t progress until about 60% in and Lisbeth isn’t really a main character. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Antisemitism, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Mental illness, and Religious bigotry