A review by dalving
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

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

3.5

I have very mixed feelings about this book - on the one hand, the mystery developed is very engaging. The story takes a while to get started, but once pieces are uncovered, the pace picks up rapidly towards the end and I found myself very curious to know "whodunit". On the other hand, the author was very obviously a man. Women were described in unnecessary detail, everyone seemed to fall in love with main male lead, despite sometimes problematic age gaps/professional interactions with the women involved, and he was a notorious flirt and never stayed with anyone he hooked up with except his long term open relationship with a married woman. There was gratuitous sexual violence especially, as we find out later, surrounding the murder investigation. Irritatingly, I was curious enough about the mystery to continue reading and would probably read the rest of the series in hopes of more mystery and less everything else but the plot could have been driven more by other factors.
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