Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

149 reviews

arellareads's review against another edition

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

3.75

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Antisemitism, and Trafficking

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

miss_anthrope's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Antisemitism, Dementia, Kidnapping, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

lil_fork's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative tense medium-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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, and Car accident

aleyajo's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

You know shits bout to go down when they put coffee on the stove.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Incest, Infidelity, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Kidnapping, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Medical content and Dementia

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

kate_elle's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault and Murder

Moderate: Ableism, Animal death, and Violence

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

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

3.75

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