Lynn_Harnett
"Stunning debut for Swedish novelist"
A Lunch Community
Rating:
+5
Though its got a slow start, The girl with the dragon tattoo gets better and better....adding more and more clues, incidents, and questions, and drawing the reader in. Stieg Larsson, a Swedish author, is incredibly talented in this area, following all the clues and even adding smaller side stories in the sequels to this book. I felt like I was reading a real, live, emotionally gripping and intelligent book. Whereas most crime novels jump from fact to scene to fact, taking those journey's in between for granted, Larsson follows each character, each fact, each side fact, til he gets to where he needs to go. This sounds exhausting, but really i feel like Larsson is insisting his readers be intelligent too. he knows what he is talking about.
This is the book that got me into crime novels, and i havent found other books like it. Mikael Blomkvist is hired to investiage a forty year old crime, and he enlists a rebellious young compuer genius woman named lisbeth salander to help him. Together they solve the crime and unlock a dirty family secret.
these characters are very well developed, though you dont learn more until you finish all three books. THough a large part of the narrative follows Blomkvist, Salander is the major character who undergoes a character arc by the end of the story. Though she acts like a tough chick, and trust me she is, she is super intelligent, but like a wounded dog not sure if everyone around her is going to hit her or comfort her.
Great books, perfect for men and women, young adults and up. Great film adaptation too, though its in Swedish. you can probably find some english subtitled ones online, and an english adaptation is in the works.
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Kellydeee
October 12, 2010
i was living in Sweden when these books were getting big there and read them before they really hit America. A lot of people are not crazy about the characters because they dont seem to be very moral or nice or pleasant for the most part, and maybe too sexually promiscuous. i just want to note that Sweden has a very liberal sexual view- one night stands are totally standard- and their crime novels tend to be, in my limited experience a bit darker, a bit more gritty. Sweden is almost the homeland of crime novels actually :) they have a very long history there. salander is one of the most dynamic female characters in literature- she is very moral, almost too moral beyond reason. She looks objectively at everything, even in cases where she maybe shouldn't- as in being angry with Harriet for not revealing her secret earlier. mikael is moral too, as well as a simple man who likes and respects women, as well as sex. EVERYONE should read all three books before they venture to make an opinion about the characters. Things will be so much clearer, and I think people will really understand why these books are so great!
Scotman
October 12, 2010
OK, good idea.
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Scotman
October 11, 2010
By the way, use the editor to check your spelling. I read this book and though it is not the greatest crime novel ever (ever read Agatha Christie?) it was entertaining.
Kellydeee
October 12, 2010
never read agatha christie, think that "Greatest Crime Novel" is purely subjective, know how to spell, figured everyone reading would be smart enough to understand what i meant, spelling mistakes or not. Sorry if you had trouble ;)
Scotman
October 12, 2010
A clean text is easier to read. "Investiage" is a bit much. Just lazy writing, but I understand. Use the 'show text editor'. I use my word processor and type up and clean it up before posting, usually. Agatha Christie was one of the greatest crime novelists of the early 20th century. Although a bit dated by today's standards, she is rather a good read.
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ohhaykfrankk
August 03, 2010
I have yet to read this book because it's all hype and I hate reading with the bandwagon. However, your review makes me want to start reading it now. The way you described it and how you and everyone else rated it +5. So, I'm not sure if I should thank you sincerely or sarcastically because now I'm just itching to read the book that the rest of the world is interested in. :] Thanks(?).
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More The Girl with the Dragon Tatto... reviews
Translated from the Swedish by Reg Keeland I was late coming to the massively popular and critically-acclaimed novel (now a Major Hollywood Movie), and while I was thoroughly entertained, I found it left me not quite satisfied. The hook, if you've not read or seen it in any of its formats (there is also a Swedish movie version), is the Girl of the titles (Larsson finished three before he died, and an unfinished fourth is in limbo pending a bitter estate battle)--an … more
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I had mixed feelings about what type of a rating I should give this book purely based off my disappointment with the end of the novel, which I won't spoil in my review. Overall, I enjoyed the mystery. I couldn't solve the ultimate puzzle, which always fascinates me since I consider myself an amateur sleuth when it comes to mystery novels. In retrospect, I fear I was too engrossed in the book to pay enough attention to the clues that would help me solve … more
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When I finished reading this book, it was hard to imagine it being the same book that I began a month before. In fact, reading the last third of the book was like reading a completely different book from the first third. The first third of this book was so slow and boring that I had significant problems even wanting to pick it up off my nightstand to read it. It was great for sleeping but not so good for reading! Everywhere I went, people were raving about how fantastic … more
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Mikael Blomkvist, investigative journalist and owner of Millennium magazine, is on top of his world. He's just published a hard hitting series of sensational financial articles exposing the staggering corruption of Swedish banker, Hans Wennerstrom, and his star is in the ascendant until Wennerstrom drags him into the courtroom and wins a devastating criminal suit for libel. Blomkvist's world looks bleak as he faces three months in prison and a fine that threatens to take down everything … more
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I finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo around three-thirty this morning and I still can't believe how brilliant it was! My husband bought me a copy and I started it as soon as it arrived. Lisbeth Salander is one of the most likable characters that I have come across. I had heard a lot about how great this book was and so I was expecting it to be pretty awesome. What I found though was that words cannot describe this book. No matter how great I tell you it is, you won't understand unless … more
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OK, so I'm a little late to the phenomenon that is Stieg Larsson and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. This book, and in fact the whole Girl trilogy, seemed to come out of nowhere and reach a fevered pitch in a very short period of time. I find it even more amazing that it did so as a novel that had to be translated into English after the author's death. Regardless, I finally got a copy and started reading... and was immediately hooked. Larsson mixes a criminal mystery plot with a number … more
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"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is the first book in Stieg Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy. It is a well crafted crime thriller, but both in its scope and execution it is much more than that. It features two main characters, a middle-aged journalist Mikael Blomkvist who publishes a magazine Millennium in Stockholm, and a young tattooed girl with a troubled past named Lisbeth Salander who works as a freelance security consultant. These two unlikely individuals find themselves … more
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I saw the movie, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, before reading Steig Larsson’s book, and I really enjoyed it. The movie is very true to the novel, but the main surprise I found in reading was how handsome and intriguing the main character was meant to be. Lisbeth’s attraction to him is much more believable in the book. And Lisbeth herself is perfectly cast! I think I liked the book even better than the movie. The story starts slowly with lots of details of … more
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I was initially drawn to Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo after reading about the movie, which, to be honest, is a crying shame. When I started looking for it (this was before it started turning up in big box stores, following the release of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest - which is, by the way, a great way to pick it up on the cheap), no one I knew had ever heard of it. Two things really stood out in Larsson's story: the characters … more
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For me, The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo started as an audiobook. It's slow at first, and I had a hard time getting into the story--but after about an hour of listening, I realized that I didn't have enough patience and picked up a hard copy of the book. I couldn't stop reading for seven straight hours. Stieg Larsson's style is enrapturing, every scene leads you onto the next, and you're always wondering what's going to happen, how this information ties into that. … more
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About the reviewer
Kellydeee
Member Since:
Jul 4, 2010
Last Login: Oct 12, 2010 05:36 AM UTC
Last Login: Oct 12, 2010 05:36 AM UTC
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About this book
Amazon Best of the Month, September 2008: Once you startThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there's no turning back. This debut thriller--the first in a trilogy from the late Stieg Larsson--is a serious page-turner rivaling the best of Charlie Huston and Michael Connelly. Mikael Blomkvist, a once-respected financial journalist, watches his professional life rapidly crumble around him. Prospects appear bleak until an unexpected (and unsettling) offer to resurrect his name is extended by an old-school titan of Swedish industry. The catch--and there's always a catch--is that Blomkvist must first spend a year researching a mysterious disappearance that has remained unsolved for nearly four decades. With few other options, he accepts and enlists the help of investigator Lisbeth Salander, a misunderstood genius with a cache of authority issues. Little is as it seems in Larsson's novel, but there is at least one constant: you reallydon'twant to mess with the girl with the dragon tattoo. --Dave Callanan
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
ISBN-10:
0307269752
ISBN-13:
9780307269751
Author:
Stieg Larsson
Genre:
Mystery & Thrillers
Publisher:
Vintage
Date Published:
September 16, 2008
Format:
Hardcover
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