Rating: 4 Stars
I would recommend: Persons above the age of 16 due to graphical nature of contents and anyone one who has a taste to mystery and thrillers.
Enter, the recently disgraced financial journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who has just been convicted of libeling a heavy weight financier, Hans-Erik Wennerström, and faces a hefty sum and three months in the slammers at Rullåker. His rapidly deteriorating career begins to turn around when he is approached by the the prominent industrialist Henrik of Vanger Industries as one last resort to unravel the mystery surrounding his great niece’s, Harriet Vanger, disappearance over forty years ago. In return, Vanger will provide Blomkvist with damaging information against Wennerström.
Blomkvist agrees, albeit reluctantly and skeptically. For one year he’ll be on Hedby Island while he goes about the business of the investigation, and scrutinizing the alibis of those of the Vanger clan that were on the island on the day Harriet had gone missing, as Henrik is convinced that one or more amongst his family is responsible.
Blomkvist goes under the cover story of ghost writing the Vanger family chronicle. He’s aided by the title character Lisbeth Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo. Salander is a social ward of the state, she’s antisocial, has no urge what so ever to submit willingly to authority and is covered with an assortment of tattoos along with piercings to complete the gothic ensemble. She also happens to be a genius hacker who prefers to dish out her own brand of justice and revenge upon those vile and ruthless users and abusers that crawl on the face of the earth, whom she despises with a passion to be reckoned with.
Together they delve into the depths of the Vanger family’s past until they find themselves very close to cracking this mystery open when someone begins to threaten them to get lost and keep away. Despite the looming danger, they proceed to finally discover the events that lead to Harriet Vanger’s disappearance and possibly her death.
When I’d first picked up The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo I didn’t know what really to expect, I mean I’ve read the blurb but the genre of crime fiction is relatively new to me. In the beginning, where it was elaborated how Blomkvist had landed himself in this spot was confusing to me mainly because of all of this financial mumbo-jumbo, so most likely readers savvy in this field are more comfortable here but I believe I got the gist of the situation after reading certain parts till my head hurt and finally putting in down for a short while before resuming.
The characters, on the most part, are believable and were three dimensional. Now I’ll zoom in a bit on Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is a truly intriguing personality; she’s distant and wants little to do with anyone else unless she really has to. Her general behaviour and intense dislike to abusers leads me to believe that she had suffered at the hands of one herself in her past. She won’t take nonsense lying down and her survivor’s spirit is one of the reasons why I admire her. There is something … something I can almost place my finger upon what that makes me so eager to learn more about her.
We learn of certain family members’ involvement with the Nazis during the Second WW and a little about Henrik Vanger’s stay in war time Germany. I thought this particularly interesting because I’m partial to even fictional accounts during that time in history.
I found this book surprisingly violent, with certain parts that had thrown me a little off balance but I had the feeling I’d better get used to it. I should have taken a hint to the snippets of statistics of abuse of women in Sweden, because it’s one of the themes later identified.
The fact that I had to put down and pick it up again numerous times before I got around page 270 to really get hooked, is the reason why I gave this book 4 stars. I know that lots of books start off by stretching and yawning before they finally pick up substantial speed but for me 200 and something pages is too much.
With that being said, overall The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo is a book truly worth reading and frankly if someone had told me it happened in reality I would stare in utter fascination and, at the same time, horror but nevertheless I would eventually believe him because the plot is believable. Who knows what dark secrets those huge empires quietly sweep under the carpet? How many women had suffered such unimaginably gruesome torture, with their screams that go unheard? This just makes me wonder.
*** I had originally posted this review on We Heart Reading, where I’ve recently had the honour to join the authors and contributors to share our love for one of mankind’s greatest inventions; books! Please do visit 🙂
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Hot Chocolate And Books 
‘In the beginning, where it was elaborated how Blomkvist had landed himself in this spot was confusing to me mainly because of all of this financial mumbo-jumbo, so most likely readers savvy in this field are more comfortable here but I believe I got the gist of the situation after reading certain parts till my head hurt and finally putting in down for a short while before resuming.’ – Wow what an accurate way to describe it – I was right along there with you! I gave the book three stars due to it being quite slow at point, but really great review!! 🙂
Thank you! I thought it was a good book and well deserved the five stars. I actually suck at reviewing, it’s only a few I believe I did okay but it doesn’t matter, right? Got everything out 🙂 I saw that you do a lot of reviewing and that’s cool, I find that the only time I find best to review is just right after I finish a book otherwise I hardly bother.
Very thorough review. 🙂
“her own brand of justice” is the karma I talked about. And I agree that Lisbeth had been abused before—there’s something intriguing about her character. A newspaper recently nominated Lisbeth the “most important character ever written”.
I must admit, though, that I don’t recall any financial mumbo-jumbo!
Thank you! More about her past is going to be revealed in The Girl Who Played With Fire and I’ve seen that somewhere today. Even though I think she’s kick ass and a generally good person I won’t go quick off saying that she is “the most important character ever written”, I wonder what’s their reason why they thought so.
Oh yes there was! In the beginning when Mikael was talking with that friend that eventually led him to trouble. Maybe you got what they were talking about that’s why you could see it. Mumbo jumbo if I knew any 🙂 I appreciate the pingback!
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Haven’t Read the Books, Loved the Movies
DJ-
You should try this one and if you like it you’ll likely enjoy the other two. I heard Larsson had unfinished manuscripts of this series. You know, a lot of people are telling me about how good the movies are and I haven’t seen them as yet 🙂
I have wanted to read this book, I have seen all the movies 🙂
I think you should really try it! I haven’t seen either version of the movies as yet. I’ve already begun reading the second installment, The Girl Who Played with Fire, but I’m not likely to finish with it soon – life really gets in the way a lot – we’ll get to know more about Lisbeth.
Thanks for coming by and taking your time to comment! 🙂 How were the movies? Which one did you think was best?
The books are on my to-read list I have, which is getting bigger every day lol. Good thing about books, you can understand the characters a lot more.
I’m not sure which movie I liked the best, they all were good, but they unfortunately I had to watch them in subtitles, they did not make them in English, but I think they are re-doing the movie so they are, but I am not sure. I hope they do though 🙂
Yes, I agree you get to know them way better than relying on actors to hopefully capture even a fraction of their personalities,
I know they made two movies out of this book, a Swedish movie and an English one with a different cast of actors. Did they make any with the two other books as well?