The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
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Book Reviews of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Book Review: An absorbing read....
Summary: 5 Stars
This Compelling Fiction involving caustic family secrets, grisly serial killings, horrendous business miss-dealings on a grand scale and much more provide a complex plot.
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative business journalist and co-owner of a magazine called, "Millennium", has just lost his reputation, his savings and his freedom after a nasty libel suit from an executive named Wennerström. His magazine lost its credibility and is on the road to lose everything.
Eventually he makes a breakthrough and needs a good researcher, where Lisbeth Salander, a severe, petite, anorexic-looking, punk-dressing, tattooed genius investigator appears on the scene. Blomqvist's perceptiveness takes hold and Salander's edgy brilliance shines. He spots talents that Salander has kept secret all her life. As Salander lets some of her defenses down, a partnership develops that allows intense deduction and intuition, working up to a nail-biting conclusion that initiates a new set of problems to be faced in the second book, "The Girl Who Played with Fire".
I found myself holding my breath a lot throughout this book! Whew! I recommend highly if you like to sit on the edge of your seat while you read! Great writing style, engaging plot, many complex layers, many unexpected twists, fascinating, NOT BORING characters, and much more!
Also loved THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE, VERY VALENTINE, EXPLOSION IN PARIS, Lucia, Lucia...(BOOK CLUB)
Book Review: I can't wait for the other two!
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this book! It's very Swedish, there are a lot of big corporate/financial details (think Wall Street Journal), and the author has a huge gripe about violence against women. If you can get past these three items, then it's a fantastic story. I listened to it and I was spellbound, but I also leafed through the text to figure out how the Swedish names were spelled.
It's the first of a trilogy and apparently they have been blockbusters in continental Europe. The next book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, will be released simultaneously in Britain and the US on January 8.
This book is about a disgraced financial journalist who takes on an older financier's personal quest (for a decent sum of Swedish Kroner). He crosses paths with a much-younger computer hacker who is someone you'd likely avoid in person (you have to love the details about the state of her apartment) but is amazingly sympathetic. Together they uncover details of the mystery that are very different than the expected.
The book covers a lot of ground including their personal histories and a complex history of the family that they are researching. And there's a lot of social commentary, especially about violence against women, but also about workplace ethics. Most of the relationships are complicated and yet it's all very-believable.
Kudos to Stieg Larsson. Unfortunately, he died shortly after turning in the manuscripts for this trilogy.
Book Review: Fabulous new author for the English/American market!
Summary: 5 Stars
What a great addition to the mystery market!
Sweden ranks first in the world in The Economist's Democracy Index and 6th in the United Nation's Human Development Index.
Sweden ranks in the top five countries with respect to low infant mortality. It also ranks high in life expectancy and in safe drinking water
Sweden has over the years given the world: Volvo, Alfred Nobel, Dynamite, Nobel Prize, Ericsson cell phones, gender-neutral marriage, ABBA, Ace of Base, Europe (the band), Roxette, The Cardigans, Pippi Longstocking, banking system reform ideas, school buses, IKEA, and of course... meatballs!
But with all of that going for it, "According to a victimization survey of 1,201 residents in 2005, Sweden has above average crime rates compared to other EU countries. Sweden has high or above average levels of assaults, sexual assaults, hate crimes, and consumer fraud. Sweden has low levels of burglary, car theft and drug problems. source: wiki).
No wonder the author Steig Larsson has such a vast well from which to pull great plot lines. I would never have known before. I honestly thought that will all of the social reforms and the like that Sweden was a peaceful place with great social systems.
Although I would not characterize 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' as 'world literature' by any means, it does help to broaden our American or even Anglo-American centric view of contemporary fiction.
Book Review: Slow start but great second half... left me wanting more
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't do many reviews but I felt compelled to write a review of this book. I thoroughly enjoyed it overall, and give it 5 stars.
Pros:
* Interesting to get exposed a bit to swedish culture.
* Great characters. Lisbeth Salandar particularly interesting.
* Great multi-threaded storylines.
* Good blend of mystery and thriller
* Exciting ending
Cons:
* Started slow for me. First chapter or two discusses a corporate corruption story the main character (a reporter) is writing. Didn't grab me right away.
* minor nit-picking: The author tended to swap referring to the characters by their first name or their last name. Not a big deal, but there are several character with the last name of Vanger. Henrik Vanger, the rich patriarch of a family that owns a corporation, and his relatives Harriet, Martin, and Cecilia, among others. So a sentence might go like this: "Martin and Cecilia discussed it with Vanger". That took a little getting used to. Vanger in most cases referred to Henrik, although all three in that sentence had the same last name.
* another minor nit: there was a subplot in the book around Lisbeth and an adversarial relationship with another character. It was loosely resolved halfway through the book, but I expected a bit of follow-up at the end. Perhaps it will be dealt with in the sequel.
Again, overall, one of my favorite reads this year. Can't wait for the sequel.
Book Review: Absolutely Wonderful !!
Summary: 5 Stars
To read this book which is translated from the original Swedish can be at times tedious because of some of the spelling, individual names, and the locations but as you get into the book this only serves to make the story more appealing and desirable. Being a reader of many mystery novels allowed me to compare this book with the writings of many other writers and I find it to be among the best.
The author has taken time to weave a very masterful story of murder, suspense, and intrigue with a cast of characters that make it a delightful read. He takes you from a dysfunctional family to a magazine editor and writer to a very different lady (the lady with the dragon tattoo) to a mystery that happened decades ago to modern corporate culture of secrecy. The amazing thing is that this journey contains so many twists and turns the reader never loses interest in the journey. The reader will be surprised by some events, may have managed to guess some others, but will not be completely finished until the last paragraph of the book, very much a surprise for this reader.
It is a tragedy that the author died so early and was not able to complete his professional calling. I am looking forward to his next published manuscript which is due in the fall of 2009.
This book is as good as it gets for a mystery and its characters and I recommend it to anyone who enjoyes reading.