The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo book series review

The summer is the perfect time to catch up on all those books you wanted to read during the school year but never had time to. For me, there’s nothing like grabbing a book and laying on the beach all day reading as the sun warms your skin. You feel relaxed and at ease. The best part is there’s no pressure to finish the book in a certain amount of time. So, grab a nice long read and take a seat.

This summer one of the first few books I picked up and read after months of wanting to read them was the Millenium book series. Also known as “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” series. For those who are not familiar with this series. There are three books in the crime/mystery book series - “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” - written by Stieg Larsson, who is a Swedish author and journalist. All three books were written in Swedish and translated into English. The first book was published back in 2005 and since then has become an “international bestseller.” The other two books were published shortly after in 2006 and 2007. Years later, Swedish crime journalist and writer, David Lagercrantz, continued the series and published the next two books - “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” (published in 2015) and “The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye” (published in 2017). The next book of the series which will be written by Lagercrantz is due to be published this coming August!

As it now stands, the Millenium book series is credited as one of the best-selling book series in history. It not only is credited among young adults as a best-selling book but as of 2009 “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is also a movie. This version is not as well known as the 2011 remake. I have not seen either movie, but IMDb users rated the 2011 movie a 7.8 out of 10. It is rated R because of the explicit scenes from the book that are portrayed in the movie. If you have read the books, you know what I’m talking about, but if not you need to find out for yourself. Based on the reviews, the books are better than the movie. You’ll just have to wait for my next post to see what I think of the movie. Until then let’s dive into the first three books of this book series written by Larsson.

The first book “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is the most well-known book out of the series because it was made into a movie. When I picked up this book, I didn’t even know there were two more books after it by Larsson, yet alone two more written by Lagercrantz. I didn’t find out until I picked up the book and flipped through the final pages that told you to go read the next two books of the series. Because I enjoyed the first book, I wasn’t disappointed there were more books to follow in the series. I will say there were many pros with this series and how Larsson wrote the book; however, there were many aspects of his writing and technique I did not enjoy.

For those who know nothing about this series, I’ll give you a quick synopsis of what happens in books one through three. If you have read them, please feel free to skip to the next section.

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Book 1: The first book introduces the two main characters

Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist is an investigative journalist for the political magazine Millennium. Salander is a young social recluse who works for Milton Security’s private investigative division. The book follows Blomkvist and Salander’s troubles as they both are hired by industrialist Henrik Vangar to unravel the forty-year-old murder mystery of his niece.

Book 2: The next book of the series takes a turn as you get to know more about the main character Salander, whose back story so far in the series is much of a mystery. In this book, it follows her life as she goes on the run after being accused of three murders. After Salander’s help in solving the forty-year-old murder mystery in the first book, Blomkvist makes it his mission to find out who the real murders are and to clear Salander’s name.

Book 3: The next book of the series picks up where the last book left off. Salander is in the hospital after the unfortunate events of the last book which lead her to be shot and buried alive. The police hunt for her is no longer the police’s biggest worry as she is no longer a suspect which means the real murderer is still out there. This book dives deeper into Salander’s past as she recovers and her trial awaits her.

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With every book, there are always positives and negatives. Let's start off with what I liked about this book.

First, the plot was very engaging and not like any other I have ever read. I enjoyed the mystery aspect of the book but also focused on the character’s relationships in it. This was no love sappy book. The relationships that the characters developed were more real than a love sappy book’s relationships. I don’t know how to describe it but the book showed the more sexual side of relationships. It showed how the characters were humans with sexual desires. They owned up to their mistakes in relationships and didn’t hide who they “fooled around” with. The relationships, most notably Blomkvist’s and Berger’s, differed from the stereotypical relationships you would see today. If you haven’t read the books.

Berger and Blomkvist are co-founders of the magazine Millenium. They are close friends who occasionally sleep together but have no emotional desire to be in a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. All the meanwhile, Berger is married. The crazy thing is her husband knows about the whole ordeal between her and Blomkvist and accepts it as it is because he knows nothing will ever happen more between them. And Berger has assured him that...

It’s a very interesting dynamic but I like it a lot. This brings me into the whole idea of the characters in the book. I enjoyed this series because Larsson thought out the characters and their traits and brought them to life throughout the series. One thing he did well with writing the book was switching between the character’s perspectives. He would write in the first person but bounce from one character to the next, so you got to know the thoughts and feelings of every character. I like when authors do this because it allows you to better connect to the characters and feel like you’re part of the story.

As much as I loved this series, there were times I had a hard time getting through the chapters. If you didn’t know, the books are on average 630 pages give or take. That’s a lot to read. I don’t mind long books because it allows for more character and plot development, which I believe is key for an engaging story. The one thing I didn’t like with Larsson’s writing style was that the story took a while to develop. This was a problem with the first book because Larsson had to introduce everyone and establish a frame for the plot. I would have liked if Larsson moved the plot along a little faster because the book was not very interesting at points. I had to wait until the good part, which was hard because the book was so long. Resulting in me having to wait 200 pages until the real action happened. Overall, this was the only problem with the first three books. Again, it was mainly a problem with the first one and in some parts of the other two books. But once the book started rolling and stuff was happening the book was a very easy read.

In conclusion, I would probably rate the first three books of this book series an 8.5/10. I enjoyed the plot and the characters; I thought the ideas were original. However, I think the books dragged on which made it hard to want to keep reading. If you end up reading these books just know a good part is going to eventually happen, you just have to be patient and keep on reading. You also definitely don’t want to skip ahead because there’ are a lot of minor details you could miss that might be important later on in the book.

I hope you enjoyed this post and check out this book series this summer! I’ll be back next week with a review of the 2011 “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” movie. Also, let me know if you have any good summer reading suggestions. I’m going on vacation this week, so I’m looking for some new books to read.

xoxo,

Rachel P.