The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Liked the investigative parts, did not like the action parts. (Perhaps because I watched the movie first.) I liked that it was Swedish, liked some of the unusual word and phrase choices used in the translation, which seemed quite good. I kept thinking of it as being set in Norway, since I've been there, and not to Sweden.

There is one cringe-worthy description of computer hacking in it, in which the target's laptop is copied into the cloud in a byzantine way and then their desktop is made to display the computer in the cloud, which the attacker can somehow snoop on better than on the laptop. This reminds me of when I'm listening to the news and they get to a tech story, and it's just so obviously wrong that it's clear nobody who understands the subject has had anything to do with it. And then I wonder how wrong the next story, about medicine, or finance, or whatever really is. But hey, this is fiction, so it gets a laugh and a pass.

I enjoyed this not because of the violence, but because I was constantly reminded how well Noomi Rapace played Lisbeth Salander in the films. I had seen all three Swedish movies from the series (American versions are currently in the works) before picking up the book and so far they seem to be as good or better than their print versions.

As far as the storyline goes, there were several moments when I had to let out a vocal cheer for Salander - I'm a sucker for badassery. I typically get bored with books after 200 pages, but Larsson kept my attention on almost every page.

I won't say too much more as there are plenty of other reviews that outline the good and the bad parts of the book. Other than piquing my interest a little bit about Swedish culture, I didn't walk away from the story feeling like it touched the depths of my soul - I reserve 5 stars for books that can do that.

Check out Molly's review for an excellent Goodreads discussion about the book. Thanks also to her for mentioning the Joan Acocella piece in The New Yorker.

This does suck you in, though not immediately. I was reading along, interested enough, but not seeing why people said that they couldn't put it down -- and then I couldn't put it down. It's not all that well-written a book. It should have been edited down quite a bit. Here's an example of an unnecessary information blob:[return][return]"The family was so extensive that he was forced to create a database in his iBook. He used the NotePad programmed (www.ibrium.se), one of those full-value products that two men at the Royal Technical College had created and distributed as shareware for a pittance on the Internet. Few programs were as useful for an investigative journalist. Each family member was given his or her own document in the database."[return][return]The whole book is like that. It makes it all the more impressive that he manages to build suspense. The protagonist, the journalist Blomkvist, is smart and physically fit to a degree that's not unbelievable. The young woman with the tattoo, Salander, is not believable. For example, she's supposed to be inept at dealing with people, so much so that she's stuck as a ward of the state requiring a guardian even though she's an adult, living on her own, and supporting herself. She's presented as being incredibly bad an interacting with people. At one point, Blomkvist decides she must be on the autism spectrum. But then she turns around and successfully handles costumes, makeup, accents, and manipulates people into doing what she wants. [return][return]Salander's magical computer hacking is over-the-top, but the part that seemed the most implausible to me was her international network of fellow hackers who are perfectly competent, trustworthy, and work free of charge.[return][return]Oh, well. Suspenseful thrillers generally violate reality right and left. I really enjoyed reading it.

Flat out, hands down AWESOME. And I am not a big mystery/thriller reader either. I read this because I heard really good things from a lot of people and Larsson's "Millennium" trilogy seems to be the hot thing in the book world at the moment, but I did not expect to like this book as much as I did.

One thing I can say about it is: Girl w/Dragon Tattoo is way better than the sum of its parts. As in, there are bits and pieces that (in any other book) I would have been critical of. Characterizations that (handled any other way) would have been cliche. Plus, the whole who-did-it? plot is not my favorite to read. But, taken all together, it works in Gw/DT. It kept me interested and (at the end) enthralled with page after page after page.

And you really can't ask for more than that from a book.