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mishka25's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
5.0
squid_vicious's review against another edition
4.0
Noir, thriller, family-mystery, social and political statement, psychological study… There is so much stuff going on the in the Millenium trilogy that I don’t know where to begin with reviewing this book.
I watched a documentary on Stieg Larsson and one of the first thing they said, as you get a panoramic shot of beautiful Stockholm, is that Sweden is the rape capital of the world. “What? WHAT?!?!” you might have heard me scream at my tv, had you been in the room with me. Apparently, under its guise of lovely socialist Heaven, Sweden has some very dark spots, and Larsson was not afraid of bringing some very uncomfortable truths about his country to light. He was an investigative journalist who, just like his protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, pissed off important (read: rich) people by telling the world the not-so-nice things they were doing, and for that, he actually lived in fear for his life.
Because he is a journalist, I can tell you right off the bat that his prose is nothing special. In a possible effort to sound realistic, he describes settings, meals and the contents of people’s bags in an almost clinical fashion. That’s really the only thing I can hold against his work though, because he created an amazing story and unforgettable characters, despite his obsession with sandwiches and IKEA. His Millenium trilogy is compulsively readable and impossible to forget.
Originally titled “Men who hate women”, this is the first book featuring the Mikael Blomkvist/Lisbeth Salander duo. A disgraced journalist is hired by an old industrialist to solve an ancient family mystery: the disappearance of his beloved niece. Said journalist hires a very unusual assistant, and they both find out much more than they bargained for as they conduct their investigation.
That’s the main story, but Larsson packs a lot more than that in there. Lisbeth’s own struggle with her legal guardian and her bizarre family history are interwoven with the investigation, as well as Blomkvist’s attempt at cleaning his reputation after he was accused of defamation and sentenced to go to jail. In fact, it’s a very hard book to summarize because it goes so many places, in a very intricate web, and somehow, doesn’t feel scattered. It’s also a completely addictive read: the pacing is great, the characters out of the box and the story unfolds in a very gripping way. You end up wanting to figure it all out just as much as Mikael and Lisbeth.
A word about Lisbeth: she is such an amazing bad-ass. Damaged, resourceful, incredibly intelligent, completely unique. I simply loved her and rooted for her on every page. She is weird, anti-social, has major trust and authority issues and can react violently when she feels threatened, but she is also deeply caring, albeit in her own awkward way. It has become a cliché to have a dark, “alternative” looking female hacker character kicking around, I am quite aware of that. But I think that Lisbeth stands out. We must remember that this is the first tome of a trilogy, and that through said trilogy, she matures and evolves quite significantly. In “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, she is introduced and shown at a pivotal moment of her life, and events taking place in the first book start a ripple effect that continues throughout the entire trilogy.
Blomkvist is a weird one: women apparently find him irresistible, he’s a great journalist, a shitty father, but a generally good and caring guy. I like the fact that he is realistically flawed and clever, but some aspects of his personality felt a bit inconsistent. The other characters are interesting, though I feel they are not as fleshed out as the leading duo.
I really enjoyed this book! It’s a great, entertaining, disturbing read. The main characters are compelling, the mystery is fascinating and the final part will keep you reading on the edge of your seat until the last page. I like that the topic of violence towards women was addressed in a realistic, careful way. It is not a pleasant subject matter to tackle, and it took a lot of courage on Larsson’s part to write about it. I’m very happy to have an intelligent noir thriller handy when I feel like escaping (to a super fucked up, violent place).
Oh, and no offense to Mr. Fincher, but if you want to watch a movie version, get the Swedish trilogy. Noomi Rapace is incredible as Salander!
I watched a documentary on Stieg Larsson and one of the first thing they said, as you get a panoramic shot of beautiful Stockholm, is that Sweden is the rape capital of the world. “What? WHAT?!?!” you might have heard me scream at my tv, had you been in the room with me. Apparently, under its guise of lovely socialist Heaven, Sweden has some very dark spots, and Larsson was not afraid of bringing some very uncomfortable truths about his country to light. He was an investigative journalist who, just like his protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, pissed off important (read: rich) people by telling the world the not-so-nice things they were doing, and for that, he actually lived in fear for his life.
Because he is a journalist, I can tell you right off the bat that his prose is nothing special. In a possible effort to sound realistic, he describes settings, meals and the contents of people’s bags in an almost clinical fashion. That’s really the only thing I can hold against his work though, because he created an amazing story and unforgettable characters, despite his obsession with sandwiches and IKEA. His Millenium trilogy is compulsively readable and impossible to forget.
Originally titled “Men who hate women”, this is the first book featuring the Mikael Blomkvist/Lisbeth Salander duo. A disgraced journalist is hired by an old industrialist to solve an ancient family mystery: the disappearance of his beloved niece. Said journalist hires a very unusual assistant, and they both find out much more than they bargained for as they conduct their investigation.
That’s the main story, but Larsson packs a lot more than that in there. Lisbeth’s own struggle with her legal guardian and her bizarre family history are interwoven with the investigation, as well as Blomkvist’s attempt at cleaning his reputation after he was accused of defamation and sentenced to go to jail. In fact, it’s a very hard book to summarize because it goes so many places, in a very intricate web, and somehow, doesn’t feel scattered. It’s also a completely addictive read: the pacing is great, the characters out of the box and the story unfolds in a very gripping way. You end up wanting to figure it all out just as much as Mikael and Lisbeth.
A word about Lisbeth: she is such an amazing bad-ass. Damaged, resourceful, incredibly intelligent, completely unique. I simply loved her and rooted for her on every page. She is weird, anti-social, has major trust and authority issues and can react violently when she feels threatened, but she is also deeply caring, albeit in her own awkward way. It has become a cliché to have a dark, “alternative” looking female hacker character kicking around, I am quite aware of that. But I think that Lisbeth stands out. We must remember that this is the first tome of a trilogy, and that through said trilogy, she matures and evolves quite significantly. In “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, she is introduced and shown at a pivotal moment of her life, and events taking place in the first book start a ripple effect that continues throughout the entire trilogy.
Blomkvist is a weird one: women apparently find him irresistible, he’s a great journalist, a shitty father, but a generally good and caring guy. I like the fact that he is realistically flawed and clever, but some aspects of his personality felt a bit inconsistent. The other characters are interesting, though I feel they are not as fleshed out as the leading duo.
I really enjoyed this book! It’s a great, entertaining, disturbing read. The main characters are compelling, the mystery is fascinating and the final part will keep you reading on the edge of your seat until the last page. I like that the topic of violence towards women was addressed in a realistic, careful way. It is not a pleasant subject matter to tackle, and it took a lot of courage on Larsson’s part to write about it. I’m very happy to have an intelligent noir thriller handy when I feel like escaping (to a super fucked up, violent place).
Oh, and no offense to Mr. Fincher, but if you want to watch a movie version, get the Swedish trilogy. Noomi Rapace is incredible as Salander!
annarosereads's review against another edition
1.0
Whenever I'd tell someone about how I couldn't get into this book, they would tell me I had to give this book a second chance. So I final tried the audiobook version on my ipod. I really wish there was a second rating area for the performances, because this reading was great!
That being said, the book is something I'm still not a fan of. I've read reviews which praised [a:Steig Larsson|706255|Stieg Larsson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1246466225p2/706255.jpg] for his raising awareness of violence against women. I just don't see what the big deal is. There is nothing inherently feminist or even brave about writing about violence against women, especially when it is done in such a sensational and salacious way. If anything that idea that only a woman who is not quite right emotionally will be willing to fight back is insulting. All the female characters are one-dimensional and damaged. But thank god there is knight-errant Mikeal Blomkvist to help all the ladies sort out their problems.
What really boggles my mind in regard to the popularity of this novel is not the sexism, but the poor and uneven storytelling itself. It's painfully boring at the start, unbelievable in the middle, and then hurriedly wrapped up at the end.
That being said, the book is something I'm still not a fan of. I've read reviews which praised [a:Steig Larsson|706255|Stieg Larsson|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1246466225p2/706255.jpg] for his raising awareness of violence against women. I just don't see what the big deal is. There is nothing inherently feminist or even brave about writing about violence against women, especially when it is done in such a sensational and salacious way. If anything that idea that only a woman who is not quite right emotionally will be willing to fight back is insulting. All the female characters are one-dimensional and damaged. But thank god there is knight-errant Mikeal Blomkvist to help all the ladies sort out their problems.
What really boggles my mind in regard to the popularity of this novel is not the sexism, but the poor and uneven storytelling itself. It's painfully boring at the start, unbelievable in the middle, and then hurriedly wrapped up at the end.
alyssainnc's review against another edition
4.0
Not what I expected and I'm sorry I waited so long to read this book. Interesting story and characters. I prefer McDermid's writing a bit more (Larsson even mentions one of her books in Dragon Tattoo), but I still look forward to reading the other two in this series.
nozzony's review against another edition
3.0
It took me awhile to drag through this. I partly blame it on the fact that I saw the movie before reading the book. I didn't much care for the way it ended. The book seemed long and rather actionless until about 70% through. I checked the synopsis of the other two books and don't intend to read them anytime soon. It was basically a book within a book within a book. I will give Larsson credit for creating a deeply interesting character in Lisbeth Salandar, but the other characters seemed rather shallow and even Blomkvist seemed half done.
nikchick's review against another edition
4.0
After a slow start I got into the book and kept picking up speed and interest like a train finally coming up to speed. Set in Sweden, all the references to coffee and aquavit, the summer cabins on coast and the freezing winters made me "homesick" for Finland and even the Scandinavian sentiments and trappings of northern Minnesota. The author succeeded in eliciting strong responses from me throughout the book and made me also care for the characters. I was sorry to learn the author died in early middle age and did not get to finish his planned series. In the end, I liked this book very much.
profbanks's review against another edition
4.0
I've fallen a bit behind in blogging about my Year of Reading Virtuously efforts, but so far, I'm still managing one "required reading" book per week. This one may seem like a strange addition to any list of "virtuous" reading, but since it's hard to have a conversation or read an article about current fiction without this book coming up, I figured its virtue lay in keeping up with some sense of cultural literacy (I know, a ridiculous, bordering on delusional, effort for a parent of young boys).
I figure most of the good analysis of the complex layered characters, the twisting and intertwining plots, and the brisk narrative style have already been done by better critics than me. I only have two observations to make that may or may not have been said before:
First, this book basically has about 250 pages of exposition, which makes it a surprisingly difficult book to stick with. After that, it's all downhill to the end, but I have to admit my reluctance to start the sequel without knowing if it's going to be such a hard slog until momentum reaches a cruising speed.
Second, I know that Sweden exists (I can even find it on a map), and I know that this story would be firmly grounded in the mental map of Swedish, even generally Scandinavian, readers. As a foreign reader, though, Sweden might as well have been Krynn or Middle-earth. All the references to streets and islands and rail lines squiggled around in my head as indefinitely as one of those atlases of the world that just fades out around the edges. Combined with the fact that isolation--geographic, social, emotional--is a central theme of the book, the whole thing seemed to hang in the same vague, misty middle distance as any other fantasy book I've ever read.
I figure most of the good analysis of the complex layered characters, the twisting and intertwining plots, and the brisk narrative style have already been done by better critics than me. I only have two observations to make that may or may not have been said before:
First, this book basically has about 250 pages of exposition, which makes it a surprisingly difficult book to stick with. After that, it's all downhill to the end, but I have to admit my reluctance to start the sequel without knowing if it's going to be such a hard slog until momentum reaches a cruising speed.
Second, I know that Sweden exists (I can even find it on a map), and I know that this story would be firmly grounded in the mental map of Swedish, even generally Scandinavian, readers. As a foreign reader, though, Sweden might as well have been Krynn or Middle-earth. All the references to streets and islands and rail lines squiggled around in my head as indefinitely as one of those atlases of the world that just fades out around the edges. Combined with the fact that isolation--geographic, social, emotional--is a central theme of the book, the whole thing seemed to hang in the same vague, misty middle distance as any other fantasy book I've ever read.
juliehirt's review against another edition
5.0
I really enjoyed it. The characters are great and unexpected. I miss them already!
gjeva's review against another edition
4.0
I was so resistant to read this but then I just bit the bullet and did it. Fast. Never thought I would enjoy a book that falls into a mystery/crime category but this was fascinating from beginning to end, so detailed, clever, gripping and I loved the girl at the centre, totally unlike any other "heroine" I've ever come across. Although I must say, there is barely any mention of the dragon tattoo itself, so I don't know why they decided to change the title from the original Swedish. Although "Men Who Hate Women" is understandably a pretty brutal name, too envelope-pushing for the English and American publishers!
0xdamien's review against another edition
5.0
Ok, I didn't actually read this book, I listened to it on my iPod. The story is fascinating and was really enjoyable for me. There are some sensitive topics that might not be for everyone, but the story kept me engaged over the 15+ hours of listening on my commute. I liked the audio book so much, I may read the actual book again.