The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg LarssonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
OK, I read it. It was on a train. I was looking for a book to take my mind off the endless tedium of a 14-hour train journey, but actually it turned out that the scenery was quite nice.
I didn’t find myself quite as mind-blown as everyone had promised I would be. In fact I kept finding little typos and translation errors. Always a bad sign when you’re reading along and you think ‘Wait, that’s not right’.
So, the book. Lisbeth Salander was intriguing, yes, but I didn’t like her being so young. I’m getting older myself and I’ve started to find that people get more eccentric, complex, wise and flawed as they age. Young people are just so... formless.
In that vein, I thought the journalist was more interesting. Though I didn’t necessarily share his obsession for financial investigation. Anyway, it seemed to be a fairly standard murder mystery. Girl disappears, various family members act suspiciously, detective is invited to stay in remote village while secretly working on mystery while falling for local woman who may or may not be a suspect. While he may or may not have another lover (or two) on the side.
I assume it must be the presence of Salander that provides that extra oomph to the plot and gives this book something unique. She seems to be the book's secret weapon. That thing that gets a grip on you and won't let you go.
Is she? I'm not totally convinced.
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It is always hard for a book with this much hype to live up to everyone's expectations. I will say I really enjoyed this one, and the second one even more so!
ReplyDeleteI read this and at the time, I thought it was great. However, I finished the entire series more than a year ago, and now I just remember the violence against women, which really turns me off. The whole thing is just kind of mysoginistic and icky to me. And why is the entire series called "The Girl Who . . . " -- she's a WOMAN!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry, was I ranting?