

Loading... The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005)by Stieg Larsson
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Many friends have read this book and gave it high recommendations. I saw the American version of the movie and just loved it and especially the character Lisbeth. This lead me to read the book, since I was lost in the beginning and then literally on the edge of my seat by the end. Not surprisingly, the book was similar for me and there was a time when I thought I'd put it down or just skip ahead to the "good" stuff. I liked how the movie was a little different in parts and I liked how the book filled in some pieces that I didn't follow in the movie. I still am a huge believer in seeing the movie first and enjoying that and then reading the book because the book is always better! I would have given it more stars if it started alittle faster... ( ![]() A girl has been missing for 40 years in a sort of locked room mystery cold case, in which the room is an entire island essentially inhabited by one very rich family. The current patriarch of the family, who has been obsessed with the disappearance of his niece since the even occurred, hires an investigative journalist in a last-ditch effort to uncover the truth. The journalist has his own problems and mysteries to solve, as does the eponymous freelance hacker/PI who is first assigned to investigate him and then joins the search for the truth behind the missing girl. Wow. The hype for this one is well worth it. So many mysteries to solve and secrets to uncover, and the side plots are just as fascinating as the main one. That characters are all vibrantly crafted as well. I loved every minute of it. I've only just got around to reading this! Good, bordering on brilliant, but do wonder what the fuss is all about (multiple versions of films etc). I know there is currently a love affair going on with Swedish and Scandinavian books/films (as if they have only just discovered it themselves, but.....). Anyway it is good. It'll be interesting to read the other books in the trilogy. Like how the Swedish-ness was kept (there was no attempt at changing Kroner for US dollars for instance). I enjoyed reading this book. It had some parts in it I would rather not have read, but the I really like mysteries and this one, even though I was able to deduce some of the ending, was well done. I am looking forward to the next one. For a book hitting nearly 600 pages, it was a good read. I had a little trouble at times keeping track of secondary characters, but it wasn't overly challenging. The plot was stretched a bit, but I didn't guess most of it and while I don't usually read suspense/mystery/detective novels, the few times I do I typically figure it out long before...and that's on much shorter books. The details in Larsson's book got a bit gruesome at times, bordering on too much - not Palahniuk level - but even so, maybe worse in a way because I didn't expect it. Will I read at least the next book? Yes, I think so. And by then, I'll be invested enough regardless of how much I like/dislike it to probably finish up the trilogy.
[Richman reviews several Scandinavian novels, including Larsson's.] Why have readers taken to these writers? The novels are not formally innovative: With a few exceptions, these are straightforward whodunits, hewing closely to conventional models from the English tradition. Nor does their appeal depend on a "relentlessly bleak view of the world," as a writer for the London Times has put it. Bleak worldviews are not particularly hard to come by in crime novels, no matter what country they come from. What distinguishes these books is not some element of Nordic grimness but their evocation of an almost sublime tranquility. When a crime occurs, it is shocking exactly because it disrupts a world that, at least to an American reader, seems utopian in its peacefulness, happiness, and orderliness. It’s Mr. Larsson’s two protagonists — Carl Mikael Blomkvist, a reporter filling the role of detective, and his sidekick, Lisbeth Salander, a k a the girl with the dragon tattoo — who make this novel more than your run-of-the-mill mystery: they’re both compelling, conflicted, complicated people, idiosyncratic in the extreme, and interesting enough to compensate for the plot mechanics, which seize up as the book nears its unsatisfying conclusion. The novel offers a thoroughly ugly view of human nature, especially when it comes to the way Swedish men treat Swedish women. In Larsson’s world, sadism, murder and suicide are commonplace — as is lots of casual sex. (Sweden isn’t all bad.) The first-time author's excitement at his creation is palpable, strangely, in the book's sometimes amateurish construction. There are frequent long digressions in this big book (more than 500 pages) in which he laboriously fills in back-story details. Then there is the Vanger family; what might have seemed like a bit of fun gets out of hand as easily more than 20 people with the surname Vanger are mixed into the story. To his credit, though, he always regains control and restores momentum. Belongs to SeriesMillennium (1) Belongs to Publisher SeriesFarfalle Marsilio (130) Heyne (43245) Áncora y Delfín (1124) Is contained inHas the adaptationIs abridged inIs parodied inHas as a reference guide/companionHas as a studyHas as a student's study guide
The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger, a young scion of one of the wealthiest families in Sweden, gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist, recently at the wrong end of a libel case, to get to the bottom of Harriet's disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker, possessed of the hard-earned wisdom of someone twice her age--and a terrifying capacity for ruthlessness--assists Blomkvist with the investigation. This unlikely team discovers a vein of nearly unfathomable iniquity running through the Vanger family, an astonishing corruption at the highest echelon of Swedish industrialism--and a surprising connection between themselves.--From publisher description. No library descriptions found.
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)839.738 — Literature German and Germanic Literature in other Germanic languages Swedish literature Swedish fiction 2000-LC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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