A review by ed_moore
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Thus concludes the oldest book on my TBR, which I have had intention to read for at least 5 years when thriller was my go-to genre. Stieg Larsson’s thriller ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ follows journalist Mikhail Blomkvist and his unlikely partner, hacker Lisbeth Salander in their freelanced job to find the missing niece of a industrialist tycoon CEO who went missing 40 years prior, the case closed as an unsolved mystery. It also follows a side plot of a corporate legal battle which highlights the faults of capitalism as a system. It was an extremely engaging story throughout, as the case with most mysteries as clues begun to emerge me progressing through the book much faster, and some moments succeed in sending literal chills down my spine. The mystery was really well written and full of twists, though it is impossible to ignore how harrowing the book was. Larsson writes extremely graphic and detailed scenes of rape and torture that are extremely uncomfortable to read. Each part of the book is epigraphic by a statistic about women and sexual violence in Sweden, which is extremely important in addressing the crisis beyond being in fiction, and in most cases the sheer size of the statistic percentages were tragic. (Men are disgusting.) I end on that note as it is the primary message of the novel, though the mystery was engaging it was an extremely uncomfortable and illuminating read. TW’s are crucial with this one. 
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