Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Girl Who Played with Fire

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson

13 reviews

syllareads's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

The second book in the Millennium series, this time in an English translation instead of a German one! Right off the bat, I noticed some clunky phrasings and weird mistakes that I'm jotting down to translation errors instead of anything else - I have no way of actually looking this up though since I, unfortunately, don't speak Swedish (the original language). Despite that, it was a pretty enjoyable read with some sentences that made me scream in delight at the author's inclusion of them.

"So Dag Svensson was about to expose police officers."
[...]
"No," Blomkvist said. "He was about to expose criminals, a few of whom happened to be police officers."

The Girl who Played with fire takes place about a year after the conclusion of the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Again, we follow Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander into a new case both of them are thrust into - one because he works with a reporter whose case might or might not have gotten him killed; and one because her past is running to catch up to her.

Some things about phrasings in this book made me squint a bit ("dyke" as a word exclusively used for "lesbians" for example, some unfortunate phrasings about mentally ill people) but overall, this was yet another hit for me. Larsson has a way with social problems that makes it clear what his opinions were of that before his untimely death in 2004. He's sure to frame police officers not as the angels or simply hardworking people other criminalistic novels like to do, but as people; people who can be as flawed as some of the people they're chasing, if not more. I have to say I have to laugh at people criticizing exactly this move; to me, book one pretty much sold Larsson's healthy hesitation when it comes to "the men of the law". Both of his protagonists are either neutral towards the police force (Blomkvist, tho he does express some disdain towards the police and their attitude towards "amateurs" looking into cases), or outright refuse to seek help with them (Lisbeth, whose stance towards the system is made crystal clear in this book). The fact that people still expected this book to then show police officers only from their best side is laughable to me.

I am not sure what to think of the ending itself - it felt a bit abrupt and I'm honestly stumped as to

how Lisbeth survived that??

I am however very much looking forward to book 3, which I bought a used copy of just yesterday for fairly cheap. Larsson's characters have endeared themselves to me even more now that I read book 2, and I can't wait to meet them again!

I have to say, though: I'm not the biggest fan of his action scenes (which might also be why I didn't like the ending that much). Larsson excels with his quieter scenes and his social critiques throughout his novels; action isn't his forte imo. Nonetheless, 4 stars seems adequate enough for the entire book (and so far series)!

Content Warnings

jnn314's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I don't think this storyline was quite as compelling as the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (i.e. Men Who Hate Women (I'll never understand why the translators nixed the original titles)). However, it does speak to the perspective of a woman who has been wronged at every turn and could not count on the systems in place to properly protect her. It is a powerful revenge story that will take you on an adventure. My only gripe with it, really, is that it was a bit slow going for a while. Given that it is over 700 pages, there may have been room for some compressing of events. The ending, though, was worth it all.

Content Warnings

nila's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

What a ride.

There's probably lots of things to be critical of in this book, but I'm writing this in the immediate aftermath of having finished this and it was AMAZING.

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