The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) in Queereaders

Jul 22, 2010 Chloe rated it liked it

Shelves: not-owned, mystery-crime-thriller, library_book, scandinavia

Let it never be said that I am immune to the international hype machine. Previously this pernicious influence has led me to a mixed bag of authors and books from Tom Clancy, She's Come Undone, Harry Potter, and Three Cups of Tea to the Sookie Stackhouse books, Stephen King's Dark Tower series and The Life of Pi. Needless to say, I am leery in my approach to books that everyone and their sister is reading and try to put off reading them until the furor dies down and people are able to evaluate th Let it never be said that I am immune to the international hype machine. Previously this pernicious influence has led me to a mixed bag of authors and books from Tom Clancy, She's Come Undone, Harry Potter, and Three Cups of Tea to the Sookie Stackhouse books, Stephen King's Dark Tower series and The Life of Pi. Needless to say, I am leery in my approach to books that everyone and their sister is reading and try to put off reading them until the furor dies down and people are able to evaluate their quality outside of the bandwagon effect.

With the third book in the series having just been released Stateside, film adaptations of the first two books garnering numerous plaudits from critics and the inevitable American remake preparing to suck what life there was from the Swedish original, there seems little hope of waiting for the hubbub to subside anytime soon. Love her or hate her, Lisbeth Salander is going to be a part of the cultural lexicon for the foreseeable future.

As half of an investigating duo trying to unravel the forty year old mystery of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, there are few tropes overlooked in making Salander the epitome of "badass antisocial hacker who lives by no rules but her own." Tattoos, piercings and a distrust of law enforcement do not a heroine make. If they did, Portland would be the most peaceful city in the world. Her cartoonish aspects aside, I do have to admit to a certain fondness for her (eep- does that make me as paternalistic and creepy as her security firm employer?) and I relished the scenes where she interacted with Mikael Blomkvist, the dour and discgraced financial reporter that composes the other half of this detecting duo.

With the plot functioning as a boilerplate murder mystery with few surprises, it is instead the interaction between Blomkvist and Salander and the entertaining peak into Swedish life that kept me enthralled page after page. Larsson thrills on the little details of day to day life; no chair is simply a chair when he can make it an Ikea chair, characters are never just reading a book but instead are reading an Astrid Lindgren book, no one ever uses a mere laptop when they can use the iBook G4 Titanium. While this constant labeling of objects drags a bit at the beginning, and gave me flashbacks to American Psycho, it also provided a higher degree of detail than you would expect from a run of the mill beach read.

This book isn't Great Lit as I've come to understand the term, but is still a cut above your Harlan Coben or James Patterson mystery-of-the-week. Yet, as best-seller shelves everywhere can attest, most people aren't looking for Great Lit. We're looking for a distraction, for a world that isn't this one to dive into for a short time. Those looking for something to occupy their minds while slowly simmering at a beach could do a lot worse than The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and I fully intend to read the next two books in the series. ...more

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Jan 30, 2011 David rated it really liked it

Shelves: hideously-vile-protagonists, read-in-2011

I have nothing particularly original to say about the publishing phenomenon that is TGWTDT. The first 50 pages dragged somewhat; then it took off like a rocket and kept me riveted for the remaining 500 pages. The book's particular strengths are tight plotting and skillful pacing; the prose/translation is serviceable at best, though Larsson is quite effective in creating a mounting sense of dread as the story progresses. Characterization is less convincing - in particular, neither of the two main ...more

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Mar 02, 2010 Chris rated it really liked it

I'd been meaning to get to this book for sometime, but it wasn't until I found out that the Gene Siskel Film Center would have a special one day showing of the Swedish movie on March 6th that I got some fire under my butt to start reading. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to see a movie based on a book until after I've read the book. Alas, read as I would between classes, studying, and work, I still had about 25 pages left to the book when sat down in the movie theater.

First the book: A ...more

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Jan 04, 2010 H.A. Fowler rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery, crime

Absolutely loved it, to the point that my sleep schedule was totally thrown off for a few days because I couldn't stop reading. It's a really bleak, harsh book with an ending that hit me like a punch in the gut, but the hype is not far off. Totally outside my usual genre, but great stuff. ...more

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Dec 17, 2009 Rachel rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

Exciting and fast paced. It turns out most of the readers in my family had loved this one so I decided to check it out, even though I'm not really a mystery reader. But it was good, and I read it in a day, which was all I really wanted. ...more

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Feb 15, 2011 cat rated it liked it

Shelves: 100-in-2011

2011 Book 20/100

Well. I finally read it. I hesitated for many months, given what I had heard of the graphic sexual violence portrayed, and for sure, the Swedish title of the book "Men Who Hate Women" is a far more apt one then the Americanized "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". Yet I found far less sensationalized accounts of such violence and far more victims empowered to fight back in myriad ways than in any random Jonathon Kellerman book, for example. Which made me pause and wonder about the way th ...more

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Apr 15, 2010 Sean rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery, non-us, translation, suspense

Too long, too wandering, too unfocused, too many plot threads. Parts of it were fun, though.

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Jul 19, 2009 Saul rated it really liked it

ok, it's a kriminalroman (criminal novel), the first in an incredibly popular swedish trilogy. basically, criminal novels are like donuts: delicious while you're eating them, but ultimately pretty nutriontionally empty. on the other hand, this one kept me highly entertained for at least three days straight. and the bisexual(?) autistic(?) hacker girl who's the main character is a pretty awesome character. (i have a crush on her.) good for the beach, or a long plane ride. ...more

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Oct 10, 2010 Kristen rated it it was amazing

......can't...put...it...down.....

okay, I really loved this book. It took me about 50 pages to really get into it, but after that I was definitely hooked and couldn't stop! I loved these characters, and the story was brilliant.

I read the prologue of the second book, though, and I know I cannot handle another book with such explicitly written sexual violence. It's just too much for me to take! So, I am sad to abandon this series after the first book, but I don't want to immerse myself in somethi ...more

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Nov 30, 2011 Dan Langley rated it liked it

I enjoyed this book until the final 30 pages or so. Without spoiling too much, the main mystery is solved but then there is still 30 pages of tedious secondary mystery.

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Dec 10, 2009 Lord Beardsley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read2010

Guilty Pleasure times a billion! Even the most "mainstream" fiction in Sweden makes what is considered "cutting-edge" in English seem like child's play. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is to Sweden what The Da Vinci Code is to America...except The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo discusses subjects such as misogyny, violence against women, evils of big business, makes a statement about the current place capitalism owns in the global society et al. There's a reason why people are obsessed (and yes, Li ...more

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May 12, 2010 Renee rated it really liked it

Shelves: own

While I don't usually read this genre, I was hooked as soon as we meet punk hacker Lisbeth Salander. What starts as a seemingly failed corporate investigation turns into a fascinating mystery about a wealthy family who has a web of dark secrets waiting to be uncovered. ...more

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