Friday, August 14, 2009

Jen's little update

I've finished one more book on my list! I've spent the summer buying a house/fixing up said house/moving into same, so reading has unfortunately fallen down my list of priorities...also now I can't find the books I want to read, since they're all in boxes. Soon I'll have organization again, and I'll post more often.

This past week I finished Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It's a slow-burn thriller--took me a while to get into it, but once I did, I really wanted to know what happened. There are some parts to this book that are not for the squeamish: there's some sexual abuse, gory details about murders, and some truly ugly (personalities, not looks) characters. The first part of the book is *not* about the girl with the dragon tattoo, so at first you wonder where the title came from. But Larsson ties the plot threads together very nicely, so it all makes sense in the end.

Since this is a translation of a book originally published in Swedish and I'm not Swedish myself, I missed some of the references, and had to actually look up what the nickname of one of the main characters meant. And I had no idea where most of the places were--obviously I didn't learn my Swedish geography! I noticed that this book had an ending a la "Return of the King"--just when you thought everything was wrapped up, there are still fifty pages left! But it works, somehow. Larsson answers questions you forgot you had from the beginning of the book and leaves you wanting more. Luckily, he turned in two other manuscripts before he died, so your cravings can be satisfied.

If you like murder mysteries, give this one a try. Of course, you're not even sure if there *has* been a murder at the beginning, which is part of the fun.

6 comments:

Moonrat said...

would you say it's worth all the hype? becuase there has been an AWFUL lot of hype.

Briony said...

I have it in my TBR pile - I'm a sucker for a hyped up book, and like Moonrat said, this trilogy has been HYPED.

It sounds intriguing though, I can't wait to read it!

ImageNations said...

thanks for your consistency in posting. never read it but believe it would be interesting. why don't you rate your books? so that we would actually know what you think of it? I do.

Anonymous said...

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Leslie said...

Moonrat...I read this book a while back and I agree with her review. Not sure what she'll say, but I don't think it's worth all the hype. In other words, don't buy it and don't rush to read it. IMO, I've read much better mystery/thrillers like Elizabeth George, for instance. And if I remember correctly, it had an unsatisfying ending...I think it left me with questions BUT the author has died so there you go...hope that helps :)

Leslie said...

Hmm...I just saw that Briony commented about the book being part of a trilogy. I'll have to check that out - that might cause me to change my remark about being left hanging.

Sorry if I'm not making sense, folks. A couple nights w/o sleep will do that to you. I remember a few interesting and ick moments, lol, but like Jen said..slow to get into and it just wasn't all that to me.