Tags
book review, dark fiction, girl with the dragon tattoo, lisbeth salander, murder mysteries, stieg larsson
Meet Mikael Blomkvist. 40 something journalist. Divorced. Attractive. Career currently in tumultuous waters.
Meet Lisbeth Salander. 24 year old. Pierced. Tattooed. Asocial misfit. Genius computer hacker.
Meet Henrik Vanger. 80 year old. Ultra wealthy company owner. Determined. Obsessed.
What do these three individuals have in common in Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger, niece to the powerful Henrik Vanger, disappeared without a trace. For those forty years, Henrik’s desire to find Harriet’s body and catch her killer has turned into an obsession. He is determined to find the truth before he dies and hires Mikael Blomkvist to get to the bottom of it once and for all.
As Mikael digs deeper into Harriet’s disapperence he begins to realize that he needs help and the odd and fascinating Lisbeth Salander joins the case. What they discover is far darker and frightening than they had ever imagined.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a story about abuse and fear. It’s about power and murder. It’s about the terribly dysfunctional Vanger family.
I enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It’s a thriller and murder mystery that kept me glued, though I admit that it’s odd how glued I was in that nothing—nothing—really happens in the first half of the book. The writing is very modern and at times was a bit too sharp and choppy for my liking. The plot is twisting and full of horror, though (to be honest) I was never that concerned about finding the truth about Harriet. It’s the characters that shine.
Lisbeth in particular.
I found myself cursing under my breath whenever she didn’t start a paragraph. I liked Mikael fine. He’s a perfectly good guy—one of the few in the story—though I had issues with his sexual ‘whatever’ attitude. I mean, really?? It’s just that Lisbeth was so much more fascinating. I never really understood her. Not even when I finished reading the last page. After 400 pages, she’s still a mystery to me. More human, but still foreign.
I absolutely loved her. And I suspect that her numerous layers will be revealed in books two and three and I’m itching to dive into them.
Was the book fantastic? No. Was it captivating? Utterly. I would definitely recommend it for people who enjoy darker fiction. I don’t see myself rereading it, but I certainly don’t see myself forgetting it any time soon.
