I'm not sure how to talk about this book without also talking about the previous book in the Millennium trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I finished that book right after Xmas. Maybe even on Xmas day. I decided to read it simply because so many people were talking about it and as the address says... I am a Pop Culture Whore of sorts. I had a very difficult time with that book. So much of it was BORING. I felt like it took FOREVER for the story to get going and get interesting. I didn't care about stupid Mikael Blomkvist or Henrik Vanger and his desire to know what happened to his niece Harriet. Lisbeth was more interesting, but they kept switching back to stupid Mikael. Finally, 3/4 of the way into the book or so the character threads coalesced and the story finally, FINALLY got interesting.
I decided that the previous book had ended satisfyingly enough that I should check out the next book so I picked it up at Costco and gave it a try. Thank goodness I did! This was the first actual page turner of 2011. I could not put this book down. It was interesting and engaging from the get go and I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of the ride. Lisbeth Salander is a fun, fucked up mess of a character and I recognize parts of her from women in my life.
Are there problems with these books? Sure. We could get into a discussion about the boob job, and the fact that Blomkvist is a total Gary Stu (the male equivalent of the probably more recognized term Mary Sue). However, I don't care. The book was fun and I loved every page of it.
I really do need to come up with a definition for good for me. Is it anything that isn't my normal science fiction/fantasy genre? Or is it more strict -- classics or non-fiction? Is any non-fiction book good for me-- Kristin Chenoweth's memoir is on my reading list where is that gonna fall? I'm really not sure.
This was the first book in 2011 that I read completely in print format.
No comments:
Post a Comment