The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo revolves around Mikael Blomkvist, a disgraced journalist who‘s been hired by a wealthy former businessman to investigate the disappearance of his niece, which took place forty years before, and Lisbeth Salander, a young, intelligent private investigator with a troubled past who eventually finds herself helping Mikael in the investigation. The Stieg Larsson novels have become very popular over the last several years, as evidenced by the large number of people I see reading them on the train. I don’t usually jump on the bandwagon and buy the popular pick at the bookstore, but Mrs. was intrigued enough to purchase The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the first novel in the trilogy. After less than 100 pages (of nearly 600) she said she read ahead, didn’t like what she saw, called an audible and set the book aside. Since we owned the book already I decided to see what all the hype was about.

Overall I’d say that I don’t have strong feelings about this book one way or the other. The story was strong enough that I’d recommend the book for those interested in a good thriller, and I could see myself continuing with the next book in the trilogy, but it obviously wasn’t the greatest novel I’ve ever read. Without giving any of the plot away, I’ll say that some of the scenes in the book were a bit graphic and while I understand that Larsson is telling a dark tale, I felt that some of the scenes could have been toned down and weren’t necessary for where he was taking the plot. The book was originally written in Swedish, so it’s possible that some of the material was lost in translation. I also felt that the last section of the book, which wrapped up a minor plot point from the beginning, was almost unnecessary. And I won’t even go into some of the issues I had with the romantic relationships that the characters get themselves involved in.

With all that said though, the novel definitely kept me turning the pages, and I felt that Larsson created a very interesting character in Lisbeth (the actual girl with the dragon tattoo), who’s a bit crazy, but definitely someone you want to have on your side.

Next up: The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath