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The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

(Millennium #3)

Stieg Larsson,

Reg Keeland (Translator)

4.22 · Rating details · 666,715 ratings · 29,382 reviews

The stunning third and final novel in Stieg Larsson's internationally best-selling trilogy.

Lisbeth Salander - the heart of Larsson's two previous novels - lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She's fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she'll be taken back to Stockhol ...more

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Hardcover, Borzoi (US), 566 pages

Published May 23rd 2010 by Knopf (first published May 2007)

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Feb 22, 2010 Joel rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2010, series, translated, this-is-most-irregular, detective-y, vote-getters, audiobooks

These books really shouldn't work. Stieg Larsson is a very weird writer. He likes to tell us absolutely everything someone is doing. If Stieg wrote the story of my morning, it would go like this:

"Joel woke up around 7:45 a.m. and looked at the clock. He decided he didn't need to get up yet and hit the snooze button. When the alarm sounded again, he dragged himself out of bed and used the toilet. He brushed his teeth and then dressed in a blue striped shirt, black tie and flat front dress slacks These books really shouldn't work. Stieg Larsson is a very weird writer. He likes to tell us absolutely everything someone is doing. If Stieg wrote the story of my morning, it would go like this:

"Joel woke up around 7:45 a.m. and looked at the clock. He decided he didn't need to get up yet and hit the snooze button. When the alarm sounded again, he dragged himself out of bed and used the toilet. He brushed his teeth and then dressed in a blue striped shirt, black tie and flat front dress slacks he'd purchased on sale at Kohl's. He made himself a cup of coffee, fired up his 13-inch Macbook laptop and checked his email. He had 14 messages. 11 of them were advertisements from various mailing lists or spam emails encouraging him to enlarge his penis. One message was from his mother and two more were shipping notices for books he'd purchased from Amazon.com. He read the note from his mother but decided to reply later. He then deleted all the messages but the two from Amazon and closed his laptop. He sat on the couch and stared into space, drinking his coffee and thinking."

Most writers would probably start the scene several paragraphs later, when I finally get to work (that's where the real excitement happens! I check even MORE email!). (Plus it turns out I'm not even a main character.) But for some reason, this style is, I don't know, endearing instead of annoying. I love the way he tells us every time Mikael has a cigarette or what he likes on his sandwiches. And hey, at least I know what brand of cell phone everyone is using.

It's kind of weird how the series wound up being not at all what I was expecting. Book one was closest, a serial killer story that was nevertheless a weird mash-up of political potboiler and are-the-lambs-screaming-Clarice murder fun. But then book two was mostly about the internal politics of the Swedish police and media industries. And the big climax of the trilogy comes down to an incredibly extended legal thriller, Grisham-style. I assume. I've never read a John Grisham book.

But really, everyone knows why the books work, and it's because of the characters. Stieg approached the whole trilogy as a sort of manifesto about the injustices heaped upon women in Swedish society, and illustrates them via a host of compelling, level-headed, fairly well-rounded women who are fun to read about even when they spend every other page having sex with the Stieg stand-in. Everyone loves Lisbeth, of course, and this installment does a good job of fleshing out her back story and explaining how exactly one winds up a tattooed, antisocial computer-hacking genius with an insatiable hunger for revenge and Billy's pan pizza.

This is an excellent wrap-up to Lisbeth's story and the trilogy, leaving exactly one thread hanging, and a small one at that, which is remarkable considerng it's number three in a planned run of 10. It leaves Mikael and Lisbeth in a great place, and pays off pretty much everything that was established over the previous two books. That it does so with a histrionic courtroom scene, all the better.

I don't read legal thrillers but I love courtroom scenes in movies, especially when judges say stuff like "I'm going to allow it, but you'd better be going somewhere with this." No one says that here, but only because apparently you can do whatever the fuck you want in a Swedish courtroom without bothering to talk to the judge at all. On the bright side, a flustered prosecutor does break out another old chestnut --"This is highly irregular!" -- that almost makes up for it.

So, yeah, I'm a little sad that Lisbeth has stalked off to that big Ikea-furnished apartment in the sky to join her creator. And I wish Stieg didn't eat quite so many of the fatty sandwiches and Billy's pan pizzas he loved detailing so much (hey, write what you know). If book 4 never emerges from that mythical laptop, though, this is a pretty good place to end things.

...more

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Oct 24, 2009 Grace Tjan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, mystery-thriller

What I learned from this book (in no particular order):

1. You can use duct tapes to close up serious wounds; they keep the blood in and the germs out.

2. You can be shot in the head and STILL have photographic memory, though annoyingly, you will forget the solution to that pesky Fermat's Theorem that you have just discovered.

3. Congenital analgesia is a useful condition to have for mafia henchmen and Bond villains.

4. Muscular, one meter eighty-four tall Latina policewomen who can out-wrestle a ma ...more

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Aug 01, 2013 Jayson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: author-nordic, 500-599-pp, read-in-2011, genre-thriller, format-translated, genre-mystery

(A-) 82% | Very Good
Notes: A predictable outcome with no real surprises along the way, but characters are well drawn and the pace never slows.

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Nov 26, 2011 Shayantani rated it it was amazing

I thoroughly enjoyed this series. Highly recommended!

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Aug 13, 2014 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-to-film, nordic-noir

”Salander was afraid of no-one and nothing. She realized that she lacked the necessary imagination--and that was evidence enough that there was something wrong with her brain.”

Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth Salander in the excellent Swedish trilogy. She takes the bad girl goth look farther than even Joan Jett.

Even if Lisbeth Salander had been raised in a “normal” environment of a white picket fence, with a swing in the backyard, a dad flipping burgers in a haze of barbecue smoke, and a smiling, ...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Will Byrnes rated it really liked it

This is the third (completed) novel of what Stieg had hoped would be a ten-volume opus. At the end of the last book, Lisbeth Salander had been shot by her evil and well-toasted natural father, a former Soviet spy who had been granted immunity in Sweden in return for handing over information. We pick up the story here as she arrives at an ER with several wounds, including a bullet wound to the head, with the bullets still inside.

description

Stieg Larsson - 1954 - 2004 - image from Rollingstone

Don’t even try ...more

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Feb 06, 2014 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: swedish, crime-mystery, literature, 21th-century

Luftslottet Som Sprängdes = The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3), Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is the third novel in the Millennium series by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. It was published in Swedish in 2007.

The first three novels in the series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005), The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006), and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets' Nest were written by Stieg Larsson before being shown to a publisher and were published posthumous ...more

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Feb 13, 2013 Melissa ♥ Dog/Wolf Lover ♥ Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own

Another short review due to glitches on GR!

Lisbeth is recovering in the hospital but she has to go to court because she is being charged with the murder of her rapist. Who cares if she did in my opinion.

Mikael and the gang are also trying to get things pinned on Lisbeth's evil father and such as well.

Lisbeth goes to trial to prove she's innocent in this matter. She's just too cool.

Fin ...more

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Apr 02, 2015 Kai rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: finished-series, queer, owned

“If love is liking someone an awful lot, then I suppose I'm in love with several people.”

This book is utterly outstanding. The whole trilogy is. Just totally, absolutely wrecking and mindblowing.

It's two years ago that I read The Girl Who Played with Fire, probably four since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I wanted to read book 3 right after book 2, but I went abroad for a year and didn't find the time to read it. When I returned I shied away from the sheer size of this book: 850 pages. Whenev “If love is liking someone an awful lot, then I suppose I'm in love with several people.”

This book is utterly outstanding. The whole trilogy is. Just totally, absolutely wrecking and mindblowing.

It's two years ago that I read The Girl Who Played with Fire, probably four since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I wanted to read book 3 right after book 2, but I went abroad for a year and didn't find the time to read it. When I returned I shied away from the sheer size of this book: 850 pages. Whenever I encounter a book this huge, I think of all the other books I could read instead.
After I finished All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (a book I can't recommend at all) I didn't know what to read next, but I was in the mood for a dark and twisted thriller or crime novel. And I finally decided to pick this one up.

I never thought Millenium #3 would pull me in like this. I mean, I knew that book 1&2 were amazing, but as I said before, a few years had passed since I last read them.
The characters alone are fantastic. While Blomkvist is a bit of a cliché, Salander is more than fascinating and the characters around these two have lots of depth. The size of the cast and the many POVs could easily be confusing, but Larsson gives them such shape and character that they are easily recognisable and very compelling. This whole book wouldn't work if it didn't have so many characters telling its story.
The plot twists killed me (and not only me). The story is captivating enough, but Larsson manages to surprise and shock you again and again and you never ever see it coming. That's the point, I guess. But still, Stieg Larsson is fantastic.
The writing has a few flaws. His dialogues, especially when there is lots of info-dumping, always go down the same way. At times, when his dialogues turn romantic, they turn cliché-like and slightly unrealistic. But I'm inclined to oversee that, especially when a book is as good as this one.

It could have been a little darker and dramatic though. Most of the time I felt almost safe. Larsson could have had me more on edge. The main characters had too much power and too much evidence in their hands. I knew they would win, I never even doubted it, and a little doubt would have made this book even more exciting.

Still, this book is perfect. I'm so excited to watch the movies now.

Find more of my books on Instagram ...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Lyn rated it really liked it

After finishing The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, the last of the Millennium Trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson, I have a great desire to order a tray of sandwiches and coffee, fire up my 13 inch MacBook Pro, and order some Ikea furniture online.

Larsson’s crisp, journalistic, almost report-like prose is endearing rather than tedious and just as after finishing the first two, I greatly lament his passing for the selfish reason of not being able to look forward to more of his work.

This summe ...more

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May 28, 2010 Kemper rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-mystery, thriller, scandinavian-mayhem, legal

Lisbeth Salander, we hardly knew ye.

It seems like a particularly cruel joke that Steig Larsson died shortly after getting a deal to publish his Millennium Trilogy. Would he have continued on with these tales of Salander and journalist Mikeal Blomkvist if he would have lived? Unless the rumors are true about Larsson’s long-time girlfriend having a laptop with a fourth book saved on it stuck in a safety deposit box somewhere as she fights with his family over the cash cow this series has become, w Lisbeth Salander, we hardly knew ye.

It seems like a particularly cruel joke that Steig Larsson died shortly after getting a deal to publish his Millennium Trilogy. Would he have continued on with these tales of Salander and journalist Mikeal Blomkvist if he would have lived? Unless the rumors are true about Larsson’s long-time girlfriend having a laptop with a fourth book saved on it stuck in a safety deposit box somewhere as she fights with his family over the cash cow this series has become, we gotta assume that this is the last we’ll see of Larsson’s dynamic duo. And it is a crying shame because Salander has quickly become one of my all-time favorite characters.

This one picks up almost immediately after the events of The Girl Who Played With Fire, and I can’t say much about the plot without spoiling that one. (Anyone interested in this series should read them in order if at all possible.) As the title indicates, Salander started an almighty shit storm in the last book. The anti-social, brilliant, violent, revenge-driven hacker has managed to kick off a constitutional crisis that shocks the Swedish government to the very highest levels and threatens numerous deserving douche bags with exposure of past crimes. Atta girl, Lisbeth!

Meanwhile, Blomkvist recruits a number of unlikely allies as he tries to save Lisbeth by publishing her true story as he plays a variety of dangerous cat-and-mouse games with the people trying to shut her up for good. Of course, his biggest headache will be convincing the pain-in-the-ass Salander to cooperate in trying to save herself.

Oddly enough, each book in the trilogy reads like a different type of genre story. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a traditional whodunit mystery with modern twists. The Girl Who Played With Fire was more of a fast-paced action thriller. And this one reads more like a legal suspense novel, including an incredible trial scene. There’s an overall arc to the three books with events from the first one not paying off until near the end of this one, but they have three distinct personalities.

Despite being over 550 pages, it reads quickly, but it isn’t flawless. There’s a sub-plot with Blomkvist’s friend and sometime lover Erika Berger being the victim of a stalker as she struggles with a new job as a newspaper editor that seems out of place with the rest of the book.

And there’s two other things holding this novel back. First is that the heart of the these books is the character of Salander. While Blomkvist and the supporting characters are all engaging enough, it’s Lisbeth that made these books a cut above the normal mystery/crime thrillers. But circumstances here keep Salander out of the main action for most of the story. It’s a shame that we didn’t get more of her in Larsson’s last book.

Second, even though Salander and Blomkvist are the main characters, in the three books, they’ve only got to work together directly for about half of one novel. They get very few scenes together other than that, and that odd couple aspect was a great part of the first book and their unlikely friendship is a key driver to the plots of all three novels so it’s weird to realize that they spent more time apart than together.

Despite these points, I still loved these books and their slightly off-beat structure. I only wish that Steig Larsson was alive and sitting in Sweden on a pile of money as he churned out more of these terrific thrillers ...more

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Oct 30, 2009 Georg rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: crime, english

It seems to be unfair to rate the two first Millenium-novels by five stars and then give only three stars for the last one. On the other hand it is not fair to write two brilliant books and then publish a 600 pages long epilogue without much of a new story, either.

600 pages look like a long story, but if you skip the 300 cups of coffees Micke and his friends make, stir and drink, if you skip the complete index of the Stockholm city-map and if you skip the subplot of Erika and her stalker (which ...more

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Dec 01, 2009 David rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I loved the Millennium trilogy. I hate that I've now read every novel written by Steig Larsson. ...more

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Jun 13, 2010 Ellen rated it it was ok

Shelves: mysteries

Edited to include link to Nora Ephron's very funny piece ("The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut") from The New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/0...

  D E P R E S S I O N…

  D E P R E S S I O N…

You’re probably depressed when, in the space of 3 or 4 weeks, you leave the house only when absolutely necessary, and read about 30 books – 90% of which are crap, including 15 books by Harlan Coben, a grade Z mystery writer. Even worse, you read Coben’s entire Myron Bolitar series, which is the equivalent of reading the same book nine times in a row. If you could survive it, shooting yourself in the head the same number of times might be more productive.

Of course, this helps explain my initial hostility toward David Foster Wallace's title essay, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” because—given the same assignment—I probably would have clocked just as many hours in cabin 1009, creeping out only to take far less brilliant potshots at the touristas. I get agoraphobia, and Wallace's coping strategies were just a little too familiar.

Among this book wallow, I read The Girl Who Kicks the Hornet's Nest, having read Stieg Larsson’s first two books a couple months ago. Larsson’s third book is akin to re-watching a long movie, with a somewhat predictable and semi-satisfying ending. You know what’s going to happen, so it’s just a matter of letting it unfold. Unfold may be too kind a verb. I need a verb here that conveys time passing very slowly – a bit like Marvell’s description of time in the first third of “To His Coy Mistress” when the would-be lover muses on the possibility of according two hundred years apiece to properly adoring his mistress’s breasts.

There’s really no way to spoil this book given that its outcome is pretty damn evident, but rather than provoke complaints I’ll provide some quiddity.

The Godfather I, II, and III : Forgive me for writing ill of the dead, but come on. I thought the Godfather was the male bible! You go to the mattress, you don’t sit with your back to a door, and you learn life’s lessons of violence, murder, and mayhem. For example, you figure out that if someone, like Lisbeth Salander, who can apparently do anything and makes Rambo look like an ineffective twinkie, is *theoretically* immobile you put a guard outside her hospital room, and YOU DON’T HAVE HER PATHOLOGICALLY WARPED & EQUALLY DANGEROUS FATHER TWO ROOMS AWAY. Did you learn nothing from these movies, Larsson?

Sandwiches: To borrow from My Cousin Vinny, the bad news about cholesterol has not yet reached Sweden. They eat sandwiches – morning, noon, and night, and these aren’t ordinary sandwiches, but sandwiches that are serious contenders for KFC’s double down. Throughout the first two books, and for the first third of the last book, we get a steady array of sandwiches complete with descriptions of their ingredients. One sandwich – toast with orange marmalade, cheese, and avocado – sounded so interesting that it prompted one of my few ventures out of the house so that I could get the ingredients. As awful as it sounded, it’s good. ...The others, though. Gawd. Cheese is the primary ingredient. How about a nice sandwich of cheese, caviar, and a hard-boiled egg? Cheese and liver sausage? Cheese and pickles? Cheese and liver pate?

However, the regularity with which the sandwiches surface seems to be a narrative crutch. Larsson hauls out the sandwiches whenever his characters need to ponder something ponderously. It also gives Kalle Blomkvist something to do when he’s not boinking the main characters.

Despite the serious editing needs of the third book in particular, I enjoyed the trilogy. Lisbeth Salander is an interesting character, and her slim presence in the third book contributed to its sluggish pace.

Larsson’s books are escapist literature to be sure, but a few steps up from Harlan Coben. 2.5 stars.
...more

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Jul 18, 2019 Ken rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

The Millennium trilogy are an exceptional set of books.
It’s such a shame that Larsson wasn’t able to see the impact his characters made, but what a legacy to leave behind.

Just like I mentioned in my previous reviews for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire it was ironically the fourth book to get an adaptation to be the tipping point for me to finally pick this series up, but I’m glad that I had given a 10 year space between watching the Noomi Rapace movies and readi ...more

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Feb 01, 2020 Tim rated it it was amazing

Love these stories by the late Stieg Larsson and this is no exception! 9 of 10 stars

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Jan 07, 2012 James rated it really liked it

Shelves: 3-multi-book-series, 1-fiction

Book Review
4+ of 5 stars to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third book in the trilogy written by Stieg Larsson shortly before he died. The series has been picked up by another author who's published book 4 and set to release number 5 later this year. This is my second favorite of the series, as nothing can compare to the first one, as it focused on family history and genealogy. Lisbeth is so tragic. And you want her to get revenge. And what happens to her over the course o Book Review
4+ of 5 stars to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, the third book in the trilogy written by Stieg Larsson shortly before he died. The series has been picked up by another author who's published book 4 and set to release number 5 later this year. This is my second favorite of the series, as nothing can compare to the first one, as it focused on family history and genealogy. Lisbeth is so tragic. And you want her to get revenge. And what happens to her over the course of a lifetime, let alone the last few years, is more than anyone one person should endure. No one ever should, but to inflict this on a single woman for no reason other than who her father is... awful, but it makes for intense and fantastic drama. This is a thriller of all thrillers. And when she's a victim and can't do anything to protect herself for a big piece of the time, it's a good thing she's made some friends along the way. These are not easy books to read... unparalleled violence, but an amazing pay off, assuming you are cool with getting exacting revenge in just the same violent, nasty ways. And I am, especially given what has previously happened to her. Larsson must plan his books for months... floating tons of ideas around his head, trying to decide the perfect moments to drag readers through every possible difficult moment, praying we can get satisfaction, and then... it finally happens, and you love it... but still want even more. Great series of books. Big fan of the work. Recommend to anyone who can take the brutality, sexual content and gore that comes with it.

About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.

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Nov 21, 2008 Manny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: swedish-norwegian-and-danish, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts, older-men-younger-women

I didn't like the second volume of the trilogy as much as the first, so I was initially wary about this book. But after the first few chapters, I was reassured. Despite some obviously implausible elements (even in Sweden, would you really keep two people who had tried to kill each other on the same corridor at a hospital?) it is extremely gripping and well-written.

Having now finished the book, I can confirm that, although it's not quite as good as the first one, it is indeed a fine end to the se ...more

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Oct 09, 2018 Lana *Lifeinwordsandlyricscom* rated it it was amazing

Ok, I went from wanting to hug Lisbeth in previous book to high fiving her in this one. Blomkvist did ok too. Ok, he did more than ok, he can have his cookie. Can they have more interaction already? And now that that chapter of her life is over, what's next?

I should probably binge the swedish movies again before reading the next book, Hollywood versions were a drag and a new one from what I hear just plain sucks.

Over and out ...more

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Jan 14, 2011 Thom Dunn rated it really liked it

Shelves: espionage, a-own-hardcover, scandia, journalism, europe, 2011

Mr. Larsson, wherever you are, thank you for your magnificent story telling which, like your life, ended too abruptly and much too soon.

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Dec 24, 2020 Teodora rated it really liked it

Shelves: mystery-crime, on-app, feminism-and-strong-women

*threateningly swings baseball bat* We might have a severe problem if I don't get my answers for why did The Girl Who Played with Fire end like that.

4.45/5 ⭐

As with the previous two books, this one was something that just kept my heart beating madly in my chest!
In the classic Larsson style, this book was a spot-on thriller.
And may I say once again that I love Lisbeth Salander?
Yep, I do. One of the best characters I've ever come across! ...more

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Feb 10, 2012 Matt rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

The final instalment of the Millennium series picks up where Book 2 ends, as the main characters are in some real trouble. While some may say this is the 'best of the lot', I venture to say that Books 1 and 3 are in a tight race for this honour. It does tie up some important loose ends, but it does leave some really wide open questions from getting their deserved answers.

We get a legal sense of the Swedish system in the third book (I will be vague for those who read reviews of the entire collect ...more

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May 31, 2010 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, whodunnit, owned

Sarah Null woke up at 8:00. She showered, dressed, and went into the kitchen. She made some coffee and sandwiches, then she went into the living room and sat in the armchair. She opened up her Sony Vaio laptop and checked her email. There were several emails from Meghan Fang and a few from the girls in her book club. The rest were mainly junk: email coupons and the like. It wasn't until after reading her email that she logged into Goodreads.com. She took a sip of her coffee and began to write he Sarah Null woke up at 8:00. She showered, dressed, and went into the kitchen. She made some coffee and sandwiches, then she went into the living room and sat in the armchair. She opened up her Sony Vaio laptop and checked her email. There were several emails from Meghan Fang and a few from the girls in her book club. The rest were mainly junk: email coupons and the like. It wasn't until after reading her email that she logged into Goodreads.com. She took a sip of her coffee and began to write her review.

The preceding paragraph is exactly the kind of tedious detail which is written all throughout The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. It may have been that way in the previous two books also; however, it did not bother me as much in those as it did in this one. I took to counting the number of times the characters had coffee and sandwiches -- an even dozen, in addition to all the other times when the author told us the other things his characters ate for dinner and the more than a dozen times they just drank coffee. I just don't care what a character has for dinner.

The book picks up minutes after The Girl who Played with Fire leaves off, and while there are parts of it that are very fast-paced, there are many more parts that drag. Much of the plot is centered around a secret "Section" of the Swedish Secret Police. The reader is let in on the secret very early and the book is really more about watching the characters figure it out than about mystery or suspense. The lengthy chapter where the history of the Section is explained to the reader is very boring and dry.

I wonder if the flaws of this book were the result of two things: first, that Larsson was a journalist and not a novelist and therefore wrote way too many "facts" and, as I have said before, pointless details; and second, that he died before the book was published and therefore the books did not go through the same editing process that they would have had the author still been alive to rewrite.

Among some of the things that could have been edited: the aforementioned chapter on the Section, the subplot in which Erika Berger has a stalker which has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever with the rest of the story and seemed to exist solely to give Berger something to do, and the romance between Mikael and a cop named Monica Figuerola. I have no problem with romantic subplots and love interests as a rule, but I do get annoyed when they seem to come out of nowhere and feel forced (when Mikael says he is falling in love with her, I wrote "Really?" in the margin).

On the positive side, when the book stuck to the main plot and the action, it was much more enjoyable. But I think it would have been better as a 300-page book.

Also: people in Sweden have weird sex lives. ...more

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Aug 14, 2020 Shruti rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thrillers, favorites

The best of the best. ...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Meredith Holley rated it it was ok

Shelves: motherless-daughters, punching-tour, needs-a-sassy-gay-friend-real-bad, up-hill-both-ways-in-the-snow, monsters, reviewed, morally-superior

I find this entire series very unenjoyable, but I appreciated what I felt were academic analyses of consent and power in the first two books. Because this third installment failed to present any academic point, there was really nothing for me here. The attempt was clearly to say something about how, traditionally, women have actually fought in wars, not stayed on the sidelines fainting and tending to wounds like, I don't know, some people expect, but really the story was more about how cool wome ...more

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Jul 11, 2018 Barry Cunningham rated it it was amazing

The third and final volume in the series, more like part two of The Girl Who Played with Fire, but I am not complaining these books are brilliant, fabulous story line with wonderful and colourful characters. Lisbeth Salander is a marvellous invention by the author, a very unlikely heroine, but credible all the same. I found this series totally gripping and almost unpredictable. I recommend these books to anyone who likes a good read, but especially those that like crime thrillers.

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Oct 26, 2015 Fabian {Councillor} rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own-paperback, all-the-books-i-own, year-2007, thriller-and-suspense, read-2016, reviewed

Goodbye, Stieg Larsson. I have only gotten to know your books more than eleven years after your untimely death, but they will continue to have a thought-provoking impact on me and my reading experiences.

The "Millennium" series is one of the most famous Scandinavian thriller books, but only attained its status after the author's early death. While dealing with the disentanglement of a complex mystery, it can also be described as three novels full of social criticism, full of character studies and ...more

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Dec 09, 2013 Bionic Jean rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, mystery-crime, read-authors-i-l

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the final part in Stieg Larsson's hugely popular "Millennium" series, and it pulls all the threads together from the trilogy. This is surprising, because apparently Larsson planned the series as having ten installments, but due to his sudden death, only three were completed and published. There is also another incomplete part, but it is difficult to know what the author intended to do next.

The main character in the saga is Lisbeth Salander, a woman in her The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the final part in Stieg Larsson's hugely popular "Millennium" series, and it pulls all the threads together from the trilogy. This is surprising, because apparently Larsson planned the series as having ten installments, but due to his sudden death, only three were completed and published. There is also another incomplete part, but it is difficult to know what the author intended to do next.

The main character in the saga is Lisbeth Salander, a woman in her twenties with a photographic memory and exceptional computer skills. She is an appealing character because she is highly intelligent to the point of genius, but childlike in appearance with poor social skills, and tenacious in the extreme. Mikael Blomkvist, also features prominently in all the books. He is an investigative journalist and publisher of a magazine called "Millennium." It does seems as though Larsson has written himself as Blomkvist, since the character has a history similar the author.

This is the longest of the three books at over 1000 pages, and deals with similar themes; in part it is a gritty thriller, in part an expose of rank corruption throughout governments, the media, the health services… the reader feels that no institution is free from Larsson's critical eye. It is also shot throughout with the author's morality and conscience. He pins his colours to the mast very early on, and we know from the start who we are rooting for. This, I feel, is where a great part of the trilogy's appeal lies. Nobody could really claim that Larsson is a great writer. He typically starts a chapter with what a character has for breakfast (the descriptions of snacks become very repetitive) or the clothes they are wearing. Description is minimal, unless it is a route on a map taken by a character, or an account of a company's hierarchy. Dialogue is excessive. There are too many characters, many of whom are sketchily drawn and clearly mere plot devices. The only characters with heart are the handful of females, with the exception of Blomkvist.

This is perhaps one of the occasions where it helps if the works are looked at in terms of the author's life, as with some classic works. It is documented that Larsson, when he was 15 years old, witnessed the gang rape of a girl. This led to his lifelong abhorrence of violence and abuse against women. He is said to have never forgiven himself for failing to help the girl, and that this inspired the themes of sexual violence against women in his books.

In addition, before his career as a journalist and novelist, Stieg Larsson was mostly known for his knowledge of and opposition to racism and right-wing extremism. He was a graphic designer, yet he was so expert in the area that he used to lecture on right-wing extremism for Scotland Yard. It is said that during the last 15 years of his short life he lived under constant threats from the right-wing extremists he was investigating in real life (Swedish Neo-Nazis and racists.)

Larsson's longtime partner wrote that,

"the trilogy allowed Stieg to denounce everyone he loathed for their cowardice, their irresponsibility, and their opportunism: couch-potato activists, sunny-day warriors, fair-weather skippers who pick and choose their causes; false friends who used him to advance their own careers; unscrupulous company heads and shareholders who wrangle themselves huge bonuses."

It also evidently went a fair way to salving his conscience with what he perceived - however unjustifiably - as his betrayal of women when he was only 15.

But does it make for good fiction? Frankly it pulls both ways. Clearly there are advantages in having such strong female characters to counterbalance all the drippy pink heroines continually obsessing about their appearance, who continue to flood our bookstands. And having a strong ethical feel to the books means that the reader will forgive an awful lot of waffle, and explanation about the technical structure of an organisation. We are pushed into rooting for the right outcome. And approaching the final chapters, there are parts set in a courtroom which are certainly gripping. But we have ploughed through an awful lot to get here.

So what is my final verdict on the series? Frankly I wouldn't bother, unless you have a lot of time on your hands. There are better reads. ...more

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Jul 08, 2019 ~Jo~ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: strong-female-protagonist

In comparison to the first two books in the Millennium series, this one was pretty weak. I feel like I didn't get a full serving of Lisbeth in this one, and quite honestly, I'm still hungry.

Unfortunately, Lisbeth Salander spends the majority of her time in this book in a hospital bed, recovering from being shot in the head. I mean, fair enough, but that meant we miss out on all the extreme and exciting stunts she pulls. Lisbeth Salander is such a fearlessly awesome character, and I love her atti ...more

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Aug 16, 2018 Abram rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, action-adventure

My Rating: 4.2/5
RTC

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✨Bookmarked✨: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: Austin, Rushali	80	24	8 hours, 51 min ago
Monica vs Lisbeth (SPOILER - DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED THE BOOK!)	24	678	Apr 29, 2020 09:18AM
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About Stieg Larsson

Stieg Larsson

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Stieg Larsson (born as Karl Stig-Erland Larsson) was a Swedish journalist and writer who passed away in 2004.

As a journalist and editor of the magazine Expo , Larsson was active in documenting and exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organisations. When he died at the age of 50, Larsson left three unpublished thrillers and unfinished manuscripts for more. The first three books ( The Girl ...more