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Wealhtheow's Reviews > The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1)
by Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland
by Stieg Larsson, Reg Keeland
Wealhtheow's review
bookshelves: didn-t_finish, battle-of-wits
Jun 16, 2010
bookshelves: didn-t_finish, battle-of-wits
Recommended to Wealhtheow by:
greg
Read from June 16 to July 15, 2010
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist is charged with libel and decides to take some time off from his magazine. Instead, he works to find what happened to Harriet Vanger, the young niece of a wealthy CEO. Meanwhile, punky hacker Lisbeth Salander has her own investigations, which presumably eventually have something to do with Blomkvist and the Vanger family. I don't know, because I couldn't bear to finish this. It usually takes me about a day to read a book. It took me an entire month to slog through less than 300 pages of Larsson's bullshit.
His writing is simultaneously ridonkulously sensational (chapter after chapter of escalatingly SHOCKING! sex acts) and brain-numbingly boring. Page after page of stilted, unbelievably dialog. Constant info dumps in place of action or dialog. Larsson repeats himself on pretty much ever page; nothing is hinted at or unsaid, everything is reiterated. Blomkvist and Salander make no sense as human beings; in 250 pages, I knew more about their computers than I did their inner lives or even, how they talked. I kept slogging through this because everyone rated it so highly, but I seriously do not get why. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Is it all one big parody or something?
His writing is simultaneously ridonkulously sensational (chapter after chapter of escalatingly SHOCKING! sex acts) and brain-numbingly boring. Page after page of stilted, unbelievably dialog. Constant info dumps in place of action or dialog. Larsson repeats himself on pretty much ever page; nothing is hinted at or unsaid, everything is reiterated. Blomkvist and Salander make no sense as human beings; in 250 pages, I knew more about their computers than I did their inner lives or even, how they talked. I kept slogging through this because everyone rated it so highly, but I seriously do not get why. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Is it all one big parody or something?
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Reading Progress
| 06/21/2010 | page 165 |
|
26.0% | "Not liking this at all...Blomqvist unlikable, Salander an object to be viewed, plot is just infodumps. This had better pick up soon; I'm tired of the endless paragraphs of characters getting coffee, walking out into the snow, arranging their files, eating lunch, etc. DO STUFF." |
| 07/15/2010 | page 184 |
|
29.0% | "'The family consisted of about a hundred individuals, counting all the children of cousins and second cousins. The family was so extensive that he was forced to create a database in his iBook. He used the NotePad programme (www.ibrium.se), one of those full-value products that two men at the Royal Technical College had created and distributed as shareware for a pittance on the Internet. Few programmes were..." 1 comment |
| 07/15/2010 | page 242 |
|
38.0% | "And....rape scene. And I'm done!" |
| 01/23/2014 | marked as: | read | ||
Comments (showing 1-10 of 10) (10 new)
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Jul 16, 2010 06:24AM
I can't decide if I'll ever read this, partially because I can't decide which will be worse: liking it or hating it.
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You absolutely nailed the problems with this book. Thank you. You saved me from spending any more time on it than I already have. I quoted and credited you in my review.
great review. You nailed it. Argh.
it's nice to see that I wasn't the only one who didn't like this book...it took FOREVER to read. That usually is the #1 sign that it's not doing it for me.
The novel brings to light what is so wrong with this world...that almost everyone is taking crazy pills and lives in someone else's bullshit. Why read a book if it so painful to finish unless you're getting paid to slog through it? That's what's wrong with this world, not Larsson's book.
Well said - wish I would have read your review before trying to write my own. You stated it perfectly and concisely!
Thank you Angela!
I have put this book down due to long annoying back story and overly descriptive writing.
Thank you for putting my exact thoughts in writing and publishing them here. The book was not worth reading and full of cliches. I read it in Swedish, so the fault is by no means only the translator's. I simply cannot understand the renown and success of this book. - Penina Mezei
Thanks for confirming that the Swedish version isn't that much different, Penina! Too bad!
