Reviews
First, let me clarify that this review is for all 3 books of the Millenium series.
I would say that this has been nothing short of publishing coup to stir up a frenzy for the 3 books, but what a pack of drivel….
Herr Larsson seems to living up his adolescent dream, of a supremely resourcesful, terribly talented, and an ulterior do gooder in every sense.
Picture this, the female protagonist is actually a pint sized female avatar of James Bond, Einstein, Newton, etc etc all rolled into one, who could simply memorize a password by looking at it being typed over somebody’s shoulders, can deduce the most complex mathematical solutions in minutes without any prior education (even Isaac Newton needed a while to figure out Differential & integral calculus), can knock the daylights off a double sized adversary (naturally).
And oh yes! There’s also the improvised version of the Jaws from James Bond movies, a super henchman with incredulous strength.
It is a bit of letdown really, because the first book in the series starts off very promisingly, and carries on through pretty much on track, a kind of Who Dunnit, before relapsing into a makebelieve finale.
A piece of advice, pick up the first book if you like, but steer cleer of the other two.
Posted by Jaideep in Amazon.com , 20 May 2012
3 comments on “Reviews”
Ya I totally agree. I loved Lisbeth in the first book: Quiet, enigmatic, skilful as a hacker, small but tough. However, Larsson pushed it too far in the second and third book, claiming that she solved Fermat’s Last Theorem without any prior education in Math. I understand that she was meant to be clever, but being someone who studies Math I feel kind of offended, because Fermat’s Last Theorem is arguably the hardest Math problem ever, and Larsson just wrote about Mathematics without having a single idea about what he was writing about. The theme of feminism was also undermined by the over-elaborated sexual fantasies in the second and third book.
Posted by Kaat in Singapore ,
Basically: Salander seemed too stretched and exaggerated in the second and third books. She was tiny, yet could defeat two grown men who made a living hitting people around. That I may accept, but don’t make her solve Fermat’s Last Theorem by herself too, without much prior knowledge in Math.
Posted by Kaat in Singapore ,
4/9/2018 Dear Mr. Larsson, My name is Gabrielle Pope, I am a junior at C.M.Russell High School in Great Falls, Montana. I read your novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and fell in love with your writing style. I have been struggling to find books that are at a mature reading level while also being able to keep my attention, and this book brings you through a whole roller coaster of emotions and psychological thrills. At the beginning I was kind of confused and it took me awhile to understand what I was reading. The different language kind of threw me for a loop, remembering the characters names that I didn’t really know how to pronounce sort of made it hard for me to remember, but once I got a hang of who was who and focused less on the individual words and more on the plot and underlying themes of the book it became way more interesting. I have been trying to find good psychologically thrilling books, because I am very interested in movies that have similar plots and couldn’t really find too many that I was very interested in until I found your books. I plan on reading the rest in the series because I found The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo so interesting. I started reading this it years ago when the movie came out and everyone read the book but I think that I was too young and immature to really embrace the true beauty in literature that was there. Like I said, this book takes the reader on a whole roller coaster of emotions. At first the book is kind of factual and spends a lot of time introducing, front loading who is who and a little about each person which was really nice because about halfway through the book all the characters start to come into play together. I spent the whole beginning of the book trying to figure where Salander fit in and then all of a sudden there was a huge click, it was like a switch went off in my head and that’s when I really fell in love with the book. I actually found myself rereading the whole beginning part of the book trying to figure out where I missed the part that the whole plot came together until I realized that it really doesn’t come together at first, the reader is left in a sort of organized chaos pretty much the whole Part 1 of the book. Now, after completing the book I know why you front loaded us with all the information about the people. You were kind of building up a profile of each person in an interesting way, and we learn this through their life stories whereas in most other books we see characters through the eyes of other characters, your writing allowed us as readers to decipher what we thought of each character as you simply just showcased who they were in the most neutral light possible. Not to mention the elegant way that all of these very, very different characters all come together in one story. Each character is so unique with their own set of beliefs but all similar somehow. It amazes me how thrilling and unexpecting the plot of this book is, as soon as I thought I had you figured out there is another turn in the plot but they are so strategically placed that it doesn’t feel choppy or hard to follow. One of my favorite quotes from this book is one said by Lisbeth Salander after she is told she can’t have control of her own banking account. I like this quote the most because it properly summarizes a big point in the book, the point of taking responsibility and being in control of your own destiny, on page 225 it says, “Taking away a person’s control of her own life - meaning her bank account - is one of the greatest infringements a democracy can impose, especially when it applies to young people.” I love reading when I am reading a good book and I found that I had lost the time and interest for reading until I picked up your book and I am forever thankful that I did. Your writing kept my attention throughout the entire book. I want to thank you for the time and attention that you not only put into every quirky detail that you put into your book but also the attention you took to read this letter. I would give this book a 4.5/5 rating and not a 5 because I think the beginning drags on a little longer but I am glad that I persisted through the confusion because the book ended up going in a full circle. I will share my love of the book to all who I think would be interested because I can honestly say that there was never a second wasted reading your writing. Sincerely, Gabrielle Pope