Reviews tagging 'Antisemitism'

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

100 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

sparky63's review against another edition

adventurous 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? Yes

2.75

This book is very obviously the first book in the series where it just feels like it is leaving things open to be a plotpoint/hook in the sequel. Also nothing really happened until like the 20% mark and it just took so long. I think the whole time I was just catching crumbs of what I wanted it to be

I truely got invested when it was Salander and the guardian that they assigned to her.

I didn't really care for Blomkist the whole book and his whole, wow I'm not a great parent thing got old very very quickly.

That said, I really like the theme of power and manipulation that they got going and how they used it. It was pretty cool as well to see it focused over the mistreatment of women but it was odd that there were so many... men in it. But to each there own. I didn't really care for the relationship drama or the main mystery (which got me infuriated as the clues were visbily connected but they waited so long to pull the trigger. The last two chapters were pandering though to finish the initial drama (that also was boring) and set up the sequel. I will not be reading the sequel. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual violence, and Murder

Moderate: Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, and Antisemitism

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

hleary's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Gore, Incest, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, Antisemitism, Car accident, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

caralin's review against another edition

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Antisemitism

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

brodabooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• 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

4.25

Not so incredible from start to finish, but incredible overall.

Many rollercoasters throughout, well-penned characters with reasonable development. 
 
I especially love how the plot and the characters effortlessly switch control and takeover under Larsson's pacing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Mental illness, Rape, Sexism, Sexual violence, Antisemitism, Murder, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Abandonment

Minor: Abortion

mjohn058's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.0

All things considered, it’s very good. The topics/themes, the plot, the writing, all good.

However,

the entire subplot of the sexual relationship between Lisbeth and Mikael is completely unnecessary. You could simply flip a switch to make their relationship platonic, and both only would nothing fundamentally change, it would actually have been better. Why must she fall in love with him? It’s so out of character with zero justification or pay off.

And this is a minor point, but

why on earth is it titled the way it is? It sounds good. It sure is mysterious. But the book isn’t *really* about her. And her ooooo spooky dragon tattoo is not relevant to the plot at all.

Aside from that, very good.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Gore, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Antisemitism, Car accident, Murder, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment