The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Trilogy, #1)

by Stieg Larsson

[clementine]

I've had this book on my Kobo for months now, and, trapped in a hotel room with no Wifi and very few books left on my Kobo to read, I started it. I didn't have much interest in it before and had only loaded it on at someone's urging. So, I was definitely pleasantly surprised by it!

I thought the story was fantastic. It was so well paced, with Lisbeth and Mikael's stories starting separately and then eventually colliding. The entire mystery and investigation was very interesting and exciting, despite the fact that it wasn't actually very action packed until the last third or so.

All the different characters, relationships, and subplots were handled really well, and at no point was it ever confusing. Even with all the Swedish names, some of which were pretty similar to an untrained foreign eye, I was able to keep everything separated. The whole mystery was a bit twisted and convoluted, but it was surprisingly clear and easy to follow. I also liked how the characters' relationships with others were woven into the story. At no point did it feel forced or irrelevant to the story, or like any of those scenes were drawing me away from the main plot.

There are definitely some issues of plausibility here - I mean, how likely is it really that nobody else would have noticed Harriet's expression in the photo in 37 years, especially when they've been investigating obsessively? How likely is it that nobody else would have ever noticed that the murders happened near Vanger factories? There were also questions left unanswered, like what exactly happened to Eva after Martin was exposed? Nothing huge, but I wasn't totally satisfied by the end.

The writing style was okay. Nothing great or impressive, but not terrible. I don't know how much of its mediocrity can be attributed to the translation, but it wasn't great. Overall, that's how I feel about the book - enjoyable, well-crafted, exciting, but not amazing.