The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
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Ok, I think I finally get the hype about this series. This book was GOOD. I loved that it was a Lisbeth book and we finally got to know significant details about her background. I loved how strong and moral she is in spite of her screwy life and having absolutely no one to count on. Add in some quirkiness, a warped family tree, and even potential autism spectrum issues, and you have the makings of a strong female lead. Lisbeth Salander is unequivocally, unapologetically bad-ass. I don’t want to give anything away, but that climactic grave scene? Epic.

Mikael Blomkvist remains the same chauvenistic jerk we met in Dragon Tattoo, but at least he’s mostly in the background here, emerging only to meddle in private matters and play the hero whenever he gets the opportunity. Nothing new was really added for him in book 2.

Also, as in book one, there are still too many undeveloped minor characters and lots of boring police drama which make the middle drag a bit, but the beginning and end sections are strongly plotted and fast-paced. The Girl Who Played with Fire is definitely worth a read, even with its cliffhanger ending (I tend to hate those, but didn’t so much here). I actually cheated and began The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest last night before beginning my review  of book 2 today and think I’ll probably be scoping out the subtitled Swedish movie version before long 🙂

Hooray for books I like for a change!

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