Rating: 2.5 Stars*
As far as a mystery thriller goes,
it was quite good and I would say it was well written. I suppose it had
everything that a person who likes mystery thrillers to have; plenty of sex,
murder, and suspense. To say this book takes a sudden turn for the gruesome
would be an understatement. But I suppose when writing a mystery thriller,
that’s sort of the point. In that respect, I can understand the shift in tone.
One thing is clear, the mystery is so twisted (as one would expect) my skin
crawled and I felt a bit disturbed at how sick the case became -which, I
suppose that's exactly what you want to achieve.
You will not put the book down. It
has a bit of a slow start, not picking up until the halfway mark (~300 pages)
but I don't think that makes it bad. It was slow to action but once it was
introduced, the pace quickened tremendously.
The characters were interesting.
Specifically, the main protagonist reminded me a bit of a James Bond type of
fellow. While I have had little exposure to James Bond, I noticed some striking
similarities, or as how I viewed it, some common action-man tropes. Blomkvist,
while no suave Britain spy, proved to be very popular among the ladies. He also
was very apt when it came to dodging bullets due to previous military training,
was good in bed, had an attractive physique, was just ‘too kind’ and ‘good’,
and intelligent. He also 'charmed' the extremely unattainable Ms. Salander.
Which brings me to discuss her. I
liked Salander. She had an interesting backstory, or at least what was revealed
in the first book, and she obviously stood apart from everyone else. I liked
her uniqueness. That being said, while she proved to be the most unique
character, she did disappoint me. It’s fine to make characters have problems,
to have issues; to basically be imperfect. Imperfection is what makes character
interesting. But, while that may be the case, I am not at all enthused with the
romantic turn she takes in the last 200 to 100 pages in the book. If Blomkvist
proved to be something more, then perhaps I wouldn’t mind, but Blomkvist is
such a dull standard mold that I can't help but roll my eyes when, of course,
she too has fallen in love with that man.
I have no problem with sex-which as
the book promises, there was plenty of- but I felt oftentimes the sex was only
there to spice the story instead of having real potency to the plot. Sure, the
serial raping and consequent horrific murders of the women inadvertently would
involve atrocious sexual acts, but the rest of the sex littered throughout the
pages seemed... not crucial to the story plot. Even the unfortunate events that
Salander was forced to partake in were argued to demonstrate her psychology and
how she deals with situations when threatened, I still felt like there could
have been a much more reasonable and less scarring way to do accomplish this
that did not involve her being so brutally sexually abused.
Overall the story was written fine
and provided an interesting case that I wanted to see the conclusion of. I was
more interested in the case involving Harriet, however than the wrap up with
Wennerstrom and even though he was important, I did feel my concentration
beginning to strain the last 80 pages or so.
*Keep in mind this is my own
personal rating. I'm much more into character development and while I enjoy a
good mystery, having I suppose I enjoy a more adventure based one.
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