Book Review- Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The first book to be read on Kindle that I am temporarily calling mine....was the international best seller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (translated into English of course).

I read about half of it between adding wood to the campfire and snuggling into my sleeping bag so that all that could be seen of me was my forehead, eyes, and the tips of my fingers occasionally as i pushed the page turn button.

This book started off as a relative enigma to me. My friend Annie from Nano had read it and briefly sung praises about it. But it was in the middle of Nano when we're all actively concentrating on our own novels to be. So i didn't pay it much mind at the time. Not to mention...i'm not into paying $20 for a book. That's just not me. I have to have already read the book and be totally in love with it for me to want to spend that kind of money for my own copy.

The last book that was an international best seller that i caved to the hype on was the Harry Potter series. And i was very pleased with the results. So when going through the list of 55 books, i pause and thought to myself "what the hell?" and pressed the OK key. I only vaguely knew that it was a crime drama, but i had no idea as to the details of the crime.

Pacing wise, the story took a long time to gear up to give the reader an idea of what the story was going to be about. However, without much of that, you wouldn't understand the motives behind the characters later in the story. The main male character Mikael Blomkvist, seemed very human. No amazing talents of deductive reasoning, or x-ray vision. Just a normal every-man, caught up in something that's bigger than he realizes. The main female character, the one everyone thinks of, Lisbeth Salander, was complex and faceted, and at the same time, well...logically created...is the best way i can describe her. She is definitely NOT an every-woman. And the roles they play in the story help weave what could be a simple crime novel, into a intricate creation that i honestly couldn't predict. Short of halfway through the book though, i was riveted.

The voice used for writing was very matter of fact. It simple explained how things were and what was going on without adding additional drama to the thoughts of the characters. I was surprised that everyone was referred to by their last names by the writer, but not by each other in the dialogue.

A small point of warning: This story is not for the faint of heart. The translated title for part one is "Men who Hate Women" and it is very much fill with misogynistic themes. I don't know if the author feels that way personally, but many of his characters treat women with varying degrees of mistreatment, as i would define it. There are brutal descriptions of scenes that made me angry and horrified, and at one point, i had to stop and remind myself this is fiction.

I'm going to stop reviewing this book now because i don't want to inadvertently ruin it for anyone. All i have left to say is that this was an excellent find, and i can't wait to get my hands on the next books in the trilogy.

Meanwhile, i'm starting the Swedish movie with Michael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace on my Netflix to see how it compares to the book. I hope anyone who reads it finds it as interesting as i did.