The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg LarssonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
3 1/2 stars, really.
I'm finding it difficult to quantify my feelings about this book. On the one hand, it's very dense; a lot happens and not all of it is necessarily related. On the other hand, it's a slow burn, and takes awhile to really get going (Blomkvist and Lisbeth don't even meet until the midway through). On yet another hand, the reveals are horrifying, the murder(s) terrible, and Blomkvist's eventual triumph over his adversaries gave me not a little glee.
I think part of my problem with the book, if it can be called a problem, can be put down to cultural differences; Larsson wrote in Swedish, for a Swedish audience, and adopts literary methods--such as third-person omniscient--which have been out of vogue in American and British literature for awhile. At the same time, if he hadn't written it in that manner, a lot of the situations that Blomkvist and Lisbeth found themselves in wouldn't have entirely made sense to me.
Friends tell me that the trilogy does get off to a slow start but the next two books are phenomenal. I'll take them at their word and expect great things from the next two.
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