The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1) in Between the Lines

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)

Stieg Larsson,

Reg Keeland (Translator)

Start date: June 1, 2009

Finish date: June 30, 2009

Why we're reading this: Voted as group read for June 2009.
[close] Voted as group read for June 2009.

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Jul 22, 2010 Chloe rated it liked it

Shelves: mystery-crime-thriller, not-owned, 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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Dec 29, 2009 Roy rated it it was ok

I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about. Larsson's debut novel and its two sequels have topped Best Sellers lists for what feels like forever. As has happened previously with mega hits such as Harry Potter and The Da Vinci Code, curiosity won out. I was simply incapable of letting the cult phenomenon pass me by. Nobody wants to be the only person at the literary water cooler who hasn't read the book that's dominating the conversation. I was not overwhelmed when finally getting around to ...more

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May 04, 2010 Val rated it it was ok

Shelves: mysteries-thrillers

I would give this book 2.5 stars if I could-- it's just not good enough for 3. I am mystified why it has received the acclaim it has. I have read many mysteries and thrillers that were far superior.

That being said, the beginning is interesting. I like the way the characters are introduced but once it gets into the Vanger family history it becomes boring beyond belief. I plodded away at finishing it because I had chosen it for book club. (Sorry friends.) If I had know what I was getting into, I ...more

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Aug 18, 2009 Joanne Nolan rated it really liked it

I really liked this book. I had a very hard time putting it down and read the last half of the book in one sitting. Definitley ups and downs that were not expected. There were a couple of rather graphic scenes that are lingering in my memory, but other than that, very well written.

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