The Kari AnnAlysis

Mikael Blomkvist, a once prominent financial journalist, now has a name of mud, with a new conviction to seal the deal. But a once in a lifetime opportunity has landed on his doorstep. A very wealthy industrialist hires Blomkvist to do a little investigative journalism to see if he can find what happened to his beloved niece, decades ago. She went missing, without a trace and it’s the one thing he wants before he dies. Blomkvist takes up the offer, mainly because of a bribe of info on the man who caused his conviction. And he has a little help along the way from tattooed hacker Lisbeth Salander.

Oh what an emotionally draining book. I’ll start by saying that within the first 100 pages, I was ready to put this book in the graveyard about every 10 pages. It was very dull, with a bunch of legal and financial mumbo jumbo. I am a journalist, so normally stories with and about journalists I can follow. This completely went over my head. But I was told to keep with it. I did and couldn’t stop reading after page 100. The boring work chatter ended and the investigation got hot and heavy.

The investigation was riddled with old police reports and new findings that kept me gripped. I had to know who killed Henrik’s niece, or if she wasn’t dead, what happened to her. Through the book, I had dozens of guesses as to who the killer was and was actually very surprised and pleased with how the story wrapped up.

But then, the book fell in the trash again for me. The last 100 pages were much like the first 100. It was back to work for Blomkvist and back to skimming for me.

Plus, this book took me forever to read. I just couldn’t get through it. I wanted to keep reading and finding out what was going to happen, but it took me so long to get there and so long to wrap up. I never spend more than 3-4 days on a book. This one took more more than a week.

I’ve sat thinking about this review for a few days, trying to determine how I really felt about it. Salander, the girl with the dragon tattoo, captivated me, but I wanted more.I know that her personality is dark and she is quiet, but I wanted her to liven up and just let me in. Maybe the next couple of books do that. I can’t determine right now though when/if I will read them. What I may do is just watch the movies from here on out and then if I like the second movie, I’ll read the second book. I hate to watch the movie first, but I just don’t know, if the next books are as dry if I can handle them. I’m an action from beginning to end girl. I lose interest easily if you can’t tell.

I loved the 300 pages, but the other 200 were blah and really turned me against the book. I give The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo 3 and a half bookmarks. This is first time I’ve ever given a half, if you can tell how torn I am.

Now other than the hype I had heard, I originally wanted to read this series because of the history of the author. Stieg Larrson died in 2004 of a heart attack. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published in 2005. Larrson wrote when he got home from work and never really pushed to get published until shortly before his death. Complete scripts for his first three books were found in notebooks and on computers. Outlines for a fourth and fifth were found and it is believed he wanted to make this a 10 book series. (Info Courtesy: Wikipedia) I imagine myself being an old woman, with dozens of books written, none published and someone finding them when I die and me becoming a NY Times Bestseller in death. Hopefully, it happens before, but if not, when I die, I hope someone remembers this and conducts a thorough search

ISBN: 978-0307269751
Published: American: Sept. 16, 2008
Author Website
Kari got this from B&N Nook Store