The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By: Stieg Larsson

Series: Millennium Trilogy, Book 1

Published: 2005 - English version in 2008

# of pages: 631

Official description:

Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into a complex and atmospheric novel, with an unpredictable style, intriguing scenes, and giant twists to the plot in many places.

Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of iniquity and corruption.

It also could be described as another thriller with romantic affairs, that Salander cannot cope with.

My opinion: It took awhile for me to become interested in this book. It wasn't until about 80 pages in that I started enjoying it. I think it may be that way with most readers. The first part concentrates on the character Mikael Blomkvist's financial journalism career, so unless the reader is interested in financial affairs, this part won't be interesting. Although as soon as the mystery started unraveling I was hooked! I'm surprised I enjoyed this book so much because it's very violent and graphic. There's a theme of sexual abuse and violence against women.

However, I loved the mystery. It was intricate, but not too complicated. I was able to work out a couple of the pieces, but the whole thing wasn't spoiled. I couldn't put the book down because I just had to know what happened next!

The only thing I disliked is how there's a story within a story. There's the beginning and end which concentrate on Blomkvist's financial journalism career and then there's the middle, which consists of the mystery. Thankfully the mystery makes up most of the novel, but then again, that makes the end feel especially out of place. I felt like the book had already ended, but I still had to read a lot more before the actual end. It didn't tie together very well.

Why I gave this book 5/5 stars: Very well written (and translated since it was originally written in Swedish), good character development, unique and thought provoking subject matter.

Other reviews:
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