So, after 5 weeks of trying to finish The Girl Who Played With FIre....I finally did it! Honestly, the last 200 pages flew by. It was Larsson at his best. Point of view being changed from Salander to Blomkvist and back again. Suspenseful. Full of action. The good stuff, you know?
Overall, I found the book to be a drag until the end. If you're a reader who enjoys details, character development, and can stand an author deviating from the plot for hours at a time to delve into other non-essential information, then this is a good mystery book for you. For me, I found it rather annoying and almost painful to muck through.
The Girl Who Played With Fire receives a 6/10 with 4 points deducted for the 400 pages of BORING I had to endure.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The Girl Who Played With Fire - pg. 560
So for the past 4 weeks, I've been TRYING to finish The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. By this tone, you should be able to guess that I'm not exactly enjoying this book. It's nothing like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a book I adored!
So, let's be clear: The Girl Who Played With Fire is the "sequel" of sorts to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It features the same characters, added some new ones, but it focuses on Blomkvist and Salander as always. These are two interesting characters with a lot to give if done right. And in general, Larsson does a great job of building upon their characters. Except it's too much. Way too much.
The first 400 pages of this 700 page novel is all background! Half of it doesn't have to do with anything regarding the plot of the story. There's not only 100 pages of character building for Salander, but another 100 pages for Blomkvist (who basically doesn't do anything except work and obsess over Salander who has snubbed him after their encounter 2 years ago). Then, once something DOES happen (a murder...or 3), then Larsson decides to give the reader insight into all the detectives involved in the case. BOOOOOOOORING!! Nobody cares! That would have saved another 200 pages of grinding through the book.
So now I'm at pg. 560...pretty much at the end of the novel and NOW things are picking up. I should have just flipped through to pg. 500 because the previous 400-500 pages were WORTHLESS. What I will say is that The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, the sequel to THIS novel, will NOT be on my reading list anytime soon.
So, let's be clear: The Girl Who Played With Fire is the "sequel" of sorts to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It features the same characters, added some new ones, but it focuses on Blomkvist and Salander as always. These are two interesting characters with a lot to give if done right. And in general, Larsson does a great job of building upon their characters. Except it's too much. Way too much.
The first 400 pages of this 700 page novel is all background! Half of it doesn't have to do with anything regarding the plot of the story. There's not only 100 pages of character building for Salander, but another 100 pages for Blomkvist (who basically doesn't do anything except work and obsess over Salander who has snubbed him after their encounter 2 years ago). Then, once something DOES happen (a murder...or 3), then Larsson decides to give the reader insight into all the detectives involved in the case. BOOOOOOOORING!! Nobody cares! That would have saved another 200 pages of grinding through the book.
So now I'm at pg. 560...pretty much at the end of the novel and NOW things are picking up. I should have just flipped through to pg. 500 because the previous 400-500 pages were WORTHLESS. What I will say is that The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, the sequel to THIS novel, will NOT be on my reading list anytime soon.
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