The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) in CPL's Book a Week Challenge

May 18, 2012 Sunny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nook

There is a conflict between what I selected for 'my rating' and what I'm about to write under this 'what did you think?' section. That's because there are so many little things I COULD pick on, but at the end of the book, I was still left feeling good about having read it. Whenever I run into this issue, I find it best to resort to my favorite review style - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good:
*This book becomes a serious page-turner about half-way through. Once you get past the ridiculous There is a conflict between what I selected for 'my rating' and what I'm about to write under this 'what did you think?' section. That's because there are so many little things I COULD pick on, but at the end of the book, I was still left feeling good about having read it. Whenever I run into this issue, I find it best to resort to my favorite review style - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

The Good:
*This book becomes a serious page-turner about half-way through. Once you get past the ridiculous amount of information that Larsson feels compelled to share about every character - well, it gets pretty exciting. I mean, I just finished this book yesterday, and enjoyed it so much that I stopped on my way home to pick up the second book in this series from the library.
*Lisbeth Salander is holy cow, freaking awesome. I don't know what it is about angry, violent, computer-geek, anti-social chicks that make me immediately think - 'Yeah! Root for her!' - but there it is. Maybe it's because I wasn't a "bad" girl in my youth, but there are aspects of Lisbeth's personality that I would not be ashamed to emulate.
*I was left totally guessing up to the climactic whodunit explanation. I think I suspected each character at some point in the story.

The Bad:
*The first half of this book did not grab my attention. I actually started this book about two years ago, and didn't get past the prologue and first chapter before losing interest. This is my biggest gripe about the book - the only folks who know how great the story is are the ones who are willing to torture themselves with 200 pages of set-up.
*The title of this book tells you exactly zero about the story. Lisbeth (yes, she's the title character, of course) plays such a minor role in the first half of the book that I wonder why this title was picked. Maybe the title was intended as a red herring? Ah, well. It's a minor gripe.
*The writing was not as crisp as it could have been. It wasn't horrible - remember, I'm already preparing to read the next book in the series. But, it felt as if much of the information was superfluous and it took Larsson way to long to set up various scenes.

The Ugly:
Sexual assault, rape, child molestation. All of it. ...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Janet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I was a bit surprised at how much I liked this book. I really had put off reading it because Scandinavian Noir really doesn't appeal to me as a genre. I also am dubious of books that are so overly hyped and, really, nothing I had heard really made me HAVE to read the book. I'm glad I did now because it was a quite absorbing tale. No, it's not at all cozy and has some parts that made me a bit squeamish but I'm glad he made most of it come right in the end. He does tend to get bogged down in detai ...more

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Sep 30, 2010 Allyson rated it it was ok

Although I found parts of this book entertaining, I think it was generally over-hyped. I did not ever get caught up and have that "I can't put it down!" feeling. I think Larsson had too many story lines in one book, some of them with quite obvious outcomes. This story could have been told in 200 fewer pages and still got the point across. ...more

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Apr 07, 2010 Melinda rated it it was ok

Just couldn't get into it. ...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Shari rated it really liked it

It was slow to start, but then as the story line developed I literally could not put the book down. Waiting patiently for book two from the library!!!

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