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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson-Book Review.



“Normally seven minutes of another person's company was enough to give her a headache so she set things up to live as a recluse. She was perfectly content as long as people left her in peace. Unfortunately society was not very smart or understanding.”


Apparently the original name for this book is "Men Who Hate Women"....which I think would be a more fitting title based on the storyline.


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 unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.


I enjoyed reading this book, and after about 200 pages I could not put it down.


I don't read a lot of mystery/thriller books so this was an exciting read for me. I don't think it's a perfect novel-there were bits and pieces I didn't think needed to be in it, which made the story drag a little bit for me, but I still think it's a good book. I was fully invested and didn't want to stop reading until I knew what happened. I thought the author did a good job with the characters too, especially The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.


The writing isn't great, it's pretty straightforward even though there's a lot of information overload at times, but I think there is more than enough plot to pull the story through despite the writing.


I also watched the movie right after (the one with the yummy Daniel Craig ) and it was good, but I think the book was better. They left out and changed a good bit of it, some of which I thought were integral to the plot, but I know its not easy summing up such a big story in two hours. I'll be watching the other versions as well because I've heard great things about them.


Overall I am happy that I read this book. I wasn't planning on reading the second book but I've been seeing a lot of reviews saying it's the best one in the trilogy, so I may take the bait!


This book is part of my Top 100 Books of All Time Challenge.



MOVIE TRAILER FOR THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

 


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