Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres

I found the depiction of Salander to be pretty ableist. I think it was obvious she was autistic but she is painted as an antisocial freak. The sexual assault and violence was extremely jarring and I wish I had read a warning before reading the book. The ending left much to be desired and half of the plot felt like a drag when it wasn't about the main mystery

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pineconeprovolone's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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gagne's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

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epeolatri's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

3.0

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bubothereader's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Do you ever read a book that you enjoy, but you also want it very far away from you when you finish it? The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was that book for me. It's mysterious, well-written, and intriguing. But, it's also traumatic, triggering, and brutal—probably the most trigger warnings I've ever put on a book.

I thought Larsson wrote strong characters, created a spooky atmosphere, had great pacing, and had fine writing (though it might be better in its native Swedish). But, I can't get past how graphic this novel is. Some scenes are still scarred in my head and I wish I'd never read them. I skimmed over it where I could, but he also wove important plot points into those scenes, so they weren't entirely avoidable.

And though there are parts of Lizbeth Salander that I like as a character, I woefully dislike that he had Blomkvist refer to her as having Asperger's Syndrome (an outdated term, but not sure if it was when this was written). Larsson wrote her VERY stereotypically for autism if this is the case. As an autistic myself, who's also been through loads of trauma, I find it disgusting to paint this violent stereotype—it's not true, even with PTSD. And even if it is true for some, using her as a character with these characteristics makes neurotypicals feel like all autistics are like this (and she's not an own-voice) or make autistics feel mislabeled and unseen.
It's so frustrating to continue having this harmful narrative spread. It's what causes us to get held against or will, or worse.

Finally, an incest plot. I'm sorry. I can't. If you have to stoop to incest to make your plot interesting, you've got the wrong plot. The characters were horrific enough—at that point it just felt gratuitious.

I really found the mystery intriguing. But, I can't continue with the series for the aforementioned reasons.

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beabookish's review against another edition

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

2.0

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_gabrielle's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

The violence men act against women doesn’t come from nowhere. It isn’t the result of insane psychopaths who are nazis and rape their children and have sex dungeons that they kidnap and kill women in. It’s the result of a culture that tells ALL men women are the “safety valves for everything that goes wrong in their lives”. Women’s bodies and experiences are sexualized to the point of normalization. To the point that it looks like nature and not culture are the root of our sexuality.
Constantly talking about breasts
Salander is written as bisexual only to fetishize her. She “much prefers men” …it’s only to make her cool and interesting and hot to the reader
Every male character is attracted/fantasizes about salander even the “good ones” all of whom are old enough to be her father
There is no female character with dialogue (beside briefly Isabella) who is not described sexually and wants to sleep/does sleep with Blomvquist
Salander throwing herself at Blom and him accepting…. The book is about the sexual violence men enact against women. Even the “good guy” looks at this CHILD who is clearly fucked up and thinks yeah i should fuck her. I’m not taking advantage of this broken girl in any way. He even mentions he’s old enough to be her father and salander tells him he’s one of the good ones. THE GOOD ONES DONT FUCK BROKEN 24 YEAR OLDS MORE THAN HALF THEIR AGE.
Author clearly sees himself as Blom
You can’t write a book trying to bring to light the sexual violence enacted against women while simultaneously reinforcing the culture that creates and enables this violence. Women do not exist to be the providers of men’s sexual satisfaction. By writing a book that portrays every single female character in a sexual light; By writing salander in a way that is “strangely” irresistible to every man that comes across her; the author calls out the symptom of the problem while writing a book that reproduces the root of the problem. It’s a display of liberal male privilege that he gets to call out the “bad guys” and make himself the “good guy”. But both are participating in the same behaviour only to different extremes.

Federici quote: We have the responsibility of making the sexual experience pleasurable for the man. This is why women are usually less sexually responsive than men. Sex is work for us, it is a duty. The duty to please is so built into our sexuality that we have learned to get pleasure out of giving pleasure, out of getting men aroused and excited. Since we are expected to provide a release, we inevitably become the object onto which men discharge their repressed violence. We are raped, both in our beds and in the streets, precisely because we have been set up to be the providers of sexual satisfaction, the safety valves for everything that goes wrong in a man’s life, and men have always been allowed to turn their anger against us if we do not measure up to the role, particularly when we refused to perform.

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amylouise12's review against another edition

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Hated the writing style, disliked the plot and hated every single character

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