The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
Audio 20.5 hrs (16 discs)
published by Random House Audio
ISBN-13: 9780739384190

Type: {Airplane Read: makes time fly.}
Rating: {I’m Lovin’ It: Very entertaining!}

Why You’re Reading It:

• You’ve already read the first two books in the series and want to see how the series concludes.
• You just can’t get enough of Lisbeth Salander.
• You love powerful (almost action hero) female leads.
• There’s something about Swedish characters that you find refreshing.

What I Thought:

If you can remember, I loved the first installment of this series. The second book had me yawning, so I was hesitant to pick up the third – but I wanted to finish the series. I’m glad I did. This book had the same feel to it that the first one did. Lisbeth is back in action, her intellect and cunningness are prominent in this book. I cared more about what happened in this book than in the second, and I was entertained the whole way through – even with its serious length. There’s a trial, a pervy stalker, a fight scene, and a conclusion that will satisfy readers who have spent time with Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.

Simon Vance does a good job with the voices and keeps the prose rolling.

There’s not much more I can say about this book without giving plot points away as much of the plot is contingent of things that are revealed throughout the book. All I can say is that if you liked the first book, you’ll like this one too.

 

 

 

 

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Mass Market Paperback 724 pages
published by Penguin Canada paperback in 2010 (first published in 2006)
ISBN-13: 9780143170105

Type: {Airplane Read: makes time fly}
Rating: {Me Likey: Enjoyable! Particularly for fans of this genre}

Why You’re Reading It:

• You have read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and want to find out what happens next
• You realize that Lisbeth Salander is more awesome than the coolest beans ever and you want to hear more about her
• You enjoy crime mysteries
• You enjoy books set in Sweden

What I Thought:

This is the second book in the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson. In this sequel to The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, we are back with Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, and the rest of the staff at Millennium. Only this time, Lisbeth is the one who is wanted for murder. After two people are killed while invesigating sex traffiing in Sweden, Lisbeth Salander is fingered for being the dangerous murderer. Can she prove that she’s innocent? Can she hide form the law long enough to allow Mikael Blomkvist to uncover the truth? And who is behind these murders and allowing Lisbeth to take the fall? Find out in  The Girl Who Played With Fire.

Lisbeth, in my opinion, is a modern superhero. She is capable of doing things that, while not supernatural, are farfetched and exciting. And, in a way that we don’t have for more realistic characters, the reader never really loses hope that Salander will win in the end. What draws us closer to the story and keeps us there, is not only seeing if she does, in fact, win (which we actually don’t find out in this book — it ends in  a cliffhanger), but also how she will win. This is where the real entertainment lies. Larsson has done a wonderful job of creating a smart, feisty, strong female lead who is not only cunning in a refreshing way but completely edgy, thus making her unique. I could easily read ten of these books in a row if they were solely about Lisbeth Salander.

But, while Lisbeth Salander is still my favorite female character in a long, long time, this book was not what I was hoping it would be (and, in my opinion, not as good as the first in the series). Why? Well, let me tell you.

• The beginning has nothing to do with the rest of the book (maybe it comes up in the third installment?).
• There is no reason for the extensive math equations littering the book as far as I can tell (besides proving that Lisbeth is wicked smart… but did we ever doubt that?).
• There are too many characters in this book to not have a character list available (I almost made my own) and many of them had similar names… including Sala and Zala, who were two very different characters in the story.
• And in addition to all of the above, there is a good chunk of this book (at least 200 pages or more) that could have/should have been edited out.

Which parts would those be, Wallace? Oh, glad you asked.

• Well, the first section of the book, like I said above, had nothing to do with the story (possibly why they left it entirely out of the movie version save for one flashback where Lisbeth signs her real estate papers).
• All of the recapping conversations that happen in this book, where we have to read through pages of dialogue between characters who are being brought up to speed on the case, when we, the readers, were filled in seven conversations ago.
• Lisbeth, the best part of this series, is left out of the entire middle chunk… thus equalling quite a boring section. Not to mention we learn almost nothing that we couldn’t have learned in a good solid 50 pages.

But, Wallace, they had to lay out the story —  make it believable! Oh really? When we are already asked to suspend disbelief so often with all of the strange ways they conduct the invesitgation (allowing amateurs to be privy to police information, not charging people who are caught doing illegal things, completely basing their case off of what reporters are telling them) and also with who Lisbeth is general along with what she’s capable of… wasting all of that paper trying to give us background to make it more believable is a waste of trees. I’m just sayin’.

Let the burning at the stake commence.

(Just so you know, I’ll still be reading the third book… no matter what I still want to hear more about Lisbeth).