What readers think of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, plus links to write your own review.

The prologue grabbed me right away. The next several chapters are hard to stay with, but if you do, you will find a satisfying novel. There are numerous characters to keep track of but I did not have difficulty with that. I found the characters very well developed considering how many were in the book. Being the first novel of a trilogy, I am anxious to read the next two novels. Book clubs would have numerous areas of discussion with this book.

After several false starts, I eventually managed to get past the very slow beginning. (I trusted there had to be a reason why this book is a best-seller all over Europe.) Once I'd reached the halfway point, it was almost impossible to put this book down. I'll be waiting impatiently for the two subsequent novels.

Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander must surely be the Odd Couple of crime fighters. Lisbeth, the girl with the dragon tattoo, is not the main character, but she is far more interesting than Mikael. She is a quirky, scary-smart investigator who knows how to raise revenge to an art form. Mikael is a moral, compassionate, hardworking financial journalist who finds himself in dire straits when he is convicted of libel and defamation of a crooked financier. Coerced into looking into a cold case murder while waiting to serve his sentence, he eventually teams up with Lisbeth.

After a slow start, bogged down in background about Swedish financial history, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and raced through to its very satisfying conclusion. I am hoping that Mikael's character gains more dimension in the next two books of the trilogy. He's likable, but not fascinating.

This financial thriller set in Sweden has already achieved bestseller status in Europe and is the first of a trilogy delivered just before his death by a man who spent his life fighting racial and religious intolerance and exposing neofascism in Europe. The writing style rests firmly in the Ludlum, Grisham, Baldacci tradition but introduces a refreshing new voice.

Having never been to Sweden, I was initially challenged by unfamiliar names of cities, streets, magazines and other elements of modern Swedish life. But the story is exciting and smart and ultra contemporary, comprising a closed-room murder mystery, a dastardly financial villain, psychopathic descendants of Nazis and the girl in the title. She is in fact an extra mystery all in herself and as good as any Neal Stephenson heroine.

I got a bit of the feeling of a first novel but except for a few clunky sections, Larsson kept me turning the pages. I enjoyed his decidedly European take on love and sex. I suspect a bit of hype in the title, since the main character was a financial journalist and I was left feeling unsatisfied by the fate of the dragon tattooed girl. Hopefully we will see her again in the sequels.

From a person that read 20 books last year, this was my first book of the year. I think the middle 300 pages are the best and the rest could have shorten a great deal. --a decisive editor, yes
However, even those pages were very predictable, I thought. Once we discovered it was a serial killer in the family, it wasn't that big of a surprise that the serial killer had been abused. Then the confrontation with the serial killer ended to abruptly. And I knew from the beginning she wasn't dead. Overall, boring and predictable compared to other books I've read. I don't think I could force myself to read another book like that. I skipped paragraphs in the last chapter and I NEVER do that.

Since thrillers are not my genre of choice, I wonder how many of them require "willing suspension of disbelief" to the extent that Larsson does. One of the most tortured of the victims had a lovely marriage, is a devoted mother, and can function in the environment where all of the horror happened. She is wealthy, charming and ready to take on huge responsibilities. How does this magical transformation take place? In a psychiatrist's office daily for endless years during which time she needs drugs to sleep? We aren't told. She is too "whole" for the tortures she endured. Salander is the science fiction character whose brilliance and maneuvers require more of that "suspension." Are we really to believe that at this stage in her life she can have gratifying sex with a man? It is not enough to shock the reader with graphic details of the acts; the responsibility is to make us see what the torturers have done, how they have emotionally crippled and maimed the victims. Then a victim's recovery is more believable and appreciated. Then the emphasis is where it needs to be.

I love a long book rich in characters, challenging plot and layered with ideas, so I had great hope for this book. I was very enthusiastic for 1/2 of it thinking, AT LAST, a good book! However, it began to go downhill for me and continued on that path until the end.

Stieg Larsson's writing style and language skills are good and he started off with strong character and plot development. The story line seemed believable at first but as the various plots played out, I became less and less interested and engaged.

With the various threads to follow I thought it would knit together an exceptional good tale. The potential was there at first. However at the end I felt like the author was stretching to write just a long book with elements of mystery, intrigue, horror, love, sex/violence (anyone could guess the cat component!) Even the list of Vanger family members provided me with substance and I like that technique from an author. However, I did not develop a "relationship" with even the most central ones.

After a book passes the language/writing style/believability qualifications, I ask myself the following "test" questions: 1) do I care what happens to these people? I did not; 2) if I lost the book would I find another one so I could finish the story? No; 3) would I recommend this to a friend? No; and finally 4) would I read another book by this author? No. I will give this book to a friend, but it only rated a 3 at best with me.

The stilted writing, possibly the translation, is full of cliches,"cub reporter", and too many more to quote. The writer insists on advertising the computer hardware used by brand name and capacity details, which are out of date already. He seems to be trying to demonstrate that he is knows a lot about electronics. These are distractions to what might have been an interesting mystery. Character interactions are forced and artificial. The characters seem to be put in bed together to make it an adult book, The sex is described, not transmitted in the writing.

I guess I'll slog through the other "Girl" book because they were gifts. Maybe I'll return the unread one.

This book makes Stephen King look like Dostoevsky

After this... back to the classics.