Book Review Wednesday by Kim

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
By Stieg Larsson (2004)

Review by Kim

Everybody else likes this book, but everybody else is not curling up under their covers halfway across the world from the safety of their mother's assurance that they can go safely back to bed because it was just a bad dream.

It's a crafty little book; it sucks you in with no disclaimer that it's going to get incredibly psychologically graphic just at that point where you really can't put it down. And, until then, I found it reasonably agreeable. It certainly reads fast and keeps you mindlessly intrigued, rather like a Dan Brown novel. You enjoy the ride, though don't end up drastically enlightened in the end. Great for flights on United.

The story follows a couple different characters, which keeps things chugging nicely along. I'd call Mikael Blomkvist, the journalist I suspect author Stieg Larsson of living vicariously through, the protagonist and he was my favorite character, if not my newest role model. He's contacted by Henrik Vanger, an odd duck of an old rich guy, to solve a family mystery regarding the disappearance of Vanger's great-niece decades previously, and the plot goes from there.

Lisbeth Salander is the title character who ends up assisting Blomkvist on his quest, among various other personal and professional exploits such as fictional characters are wont to get themselves up to. Corporate politics, a long-standing love affair and trip to that far-flung continent down under all play their roles in the story. And, really, what more do want besides an illusory trip to precisely the place you already are?

Someone to tell you it is illusory, if you're anything like me.

Thanks Kim, for another fantastic review! I'm trying to work out a way to con you encourage you to do this on a regular basis.