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A review by themermaddie
The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz
1.0
i don't have the words to express how much i hate this book. it is somehow even worse than the last book, and exceptionally boring on top of that. the plot itself shouldn't be boring but it is so incredibly dry, it seems to drag on forever.
it's a joke that the continuations are called "lisbeth salander" novels when she's barely present in any of them, relegated to an almost mythical mary sue figure in her own novels. this is basically a superhero story where lisbeth somehow always comes out on top without very much difficulty at all, whether it's through magical hacking tricks or physical strength (even though she's literally 90lbs and 4 foot 11). this is barely the shell of the original lisbeth; all of her nuance and strict morality are absent in this version, it's not even fun to watch her win because none of it counts for anything. i hated how even lisbeth's iconic dragon tattoo was co-opted so it's also rooted in her trauma; i'm pretty sure the tattoo she got for bjurman in the first book was stated to be her only tattoo with meaning. that's such a small nitpick but it ticked me off that lisbeth was suddenly so sentimental and enraged over the image of a statue. gah.
it's not like lisbeth's absence is filled by excessive mikael either. for sweden's most famous investigative journalist, mikael is so useless here. all the evidence just seems to fall right into his lap, or else people just seem to offer him clues because of his fame, which is like, what's the fucking point. i don't want to read about a journalist who doesn't even investigate bc ppl are bending over backwards to help him so they can get into the next issue of millenium.
i'm confused by the portrayal of women in this book. the original trilogy had a staunchly feminist message, with lisbeth being the woman who hates men who hates women. but the men were still portrayed as real people with both sympathetic and detestable traits so they were realistic, as opposed to the new series' complete lack of subtlety. the writing spoon feeds you exactly what you're meant to feel about what character at all times. it's cheap and lazy.
erika and malin were done so dirty, they're basically just women that mikael has sex with sometimes, when malin isn't literally solving the mystery for him. you can't tell me that malin couldn't have solved this with the same resources.
faria's whole storyline .... what is there to say. men who beat women for religious reasons are bad? islamophobia is bad? what is the point here. it's not that i'm opposed to explorations of different areas of misogyny, but make it make sense. yes, this fits "men who hate women" but faria's brothers hated her for extremist religious reasons, which doesn't seem to go anywhere in the end except to say that the abuse of muslim women is bad, actually.
it makes the resulting team up of benito and bashir extra weird, considering how much it's emphasised that bashir considers all women stupid whores, i hardly think he'd debase himself like that. and what purpose was benito supposed to serve anyway? not to be funny but salander is my girlboss queen and deliberately provoking the boss lady in prison is dumb. i kinda get what the intention was, to give lisbeth a rival in prison, but it was cartoonish and unrealistic. it was the equivalent of the fight scene in a disney movie where the dumb oaf of a villain throws punches at the protagonist who ducks them with their hands clasped behind their back. it was an uneven fight with no stakes and thus held no weight.
i feel like this book really tried to be like "here are other reasons people can hate women, for example muslims and other women can also hate women" when the whole point of the original was to call out the misogyny and sadism in many ordinary looking men, thinking they can have their money and wives and children with white picket fence lives while discreetly ordering child porn on the side; lisbeth is here to make these men fear for their lives. the psychology of those fucked up men was such a big part of the originals, and this book rly said "look minorities can also be misogynists!" LISTEN. i'm not about to call benito my girlboss queen but it just felt out of place.
i don't even want to talk about the twin conspiracy plot. it was so boring. i presume that the next book will feature camilla and some aspect of this experiment, but i will not be reading it. government conspiracies about twin experiments aren't new, and neither is anything this book. why did any of this happen. what was the point. none of this mattered. "government corrupt full stop" is so boring why are you so BORING
i feel like i've lost several years of my life reading these continuations. i was going to just suck it up and read all of them to at least be able to judge them on their own merits, but i think i would genuinely cry if i tried to read another lagercrantz book. this book made me hate myself
it's a joke that the continuations are called "lisbeth salander" novels when she's barely present in any of them, relegated to an almost mythical mary sue figure in her own novels. this is basically a superhero story where lisbeth somehow always comes out on top without very much difficulty at all, whether it's through magical hacking tricks or physical strength (even though she's literally 90lbs and 4 foot 11). this is barely the shell of the original lisbeth; all of her nuance and strict morality are absent in this version, it's not even fun to watch her win because none of it counts for anything. i hated how even lisbeth's iconic dragon tattoo was co-opted so it's also rooted in her trauma; i'm pretty sure the tattoo she got for bjurman in the first book was stated to be her only tattoo with meaning. that's such a small nitpick but it ticked me off that lisbeth was suddenly so sentimental and enraged over the image of a statue. gah.
it's not like lisbeth's absence is filled by excessive mikael either. for sweden's most famous investigative journalist, mikael is so useless here. all the evidence just seems to fall right into his lap, or else people just seem to offer him clues because of his fame, which is like, what's the fucking point. i don't want to read about a journalist who doesn't even investigate bc ppl are bending over backwards to help him so they can get into the next issue of millenium.
i'm confused by the portrayal of women in this book. the original trilogy had a staunchly feminist message, with lisbeth being the woman who hates men who hates women. but the men were still portrayed as real people with both sympathetic and detestable traits so they were realistic, as opposed to the new series' complete lack of subtlety. the writing spoon feeds you exactly what you're meant to feel about what character at all times. it's cheap and lazy.
erika and malin were done so dirty, they're basically just women that mikael has sex with sometimes, when malin isn't literally solving the mystery for him. you can't tell me that malin couldn't have solved this with the same resources.
faria's whole storyline .... what is there to say. men who beat women for religious reasons are bad? islamophobia is bad? what is the point here. it's not that i'm opposed to explorations of different areas of misogyny, but make it make sense. yes, this fits "men who hate women" but faria's brothers hated her for extremist religious reasons, which doesn't seem to go anywhere in the end except to say that the abuse of muslim women is bad, actually.
it makes the resulting team up of benito and bashir extra weird, considering how much it's emphasised that bashir considers all women stupid whores, i hardly think he'd debase himself like that. and what purpose was benito supposed to serve anyway? not to be funny but salander is my girlboss queen and deliberately provoking the boss lady in prison is dumb. i kinda get what the intention was, to give lisbeth a rival in prison, but it was cartoonish and unrealistic. it was the equivalent of the fight scene in a disney movie where the dumb oaf of a villain throws punches at the protagonist who ducks them with their hands clasped behind their back. it was an uneven fight with no stakes and thus held no weight.
i feel like this book really tried to be like "here are other reasons people can hate women, for example muslims and other women can also hate women" when the whole point of the original was to call out the misogyny and sadism in many ordinary looking men, thinking they can have their money and wives and children with white picket fence lives while discreetly ordering child porn on the side; lisbeth is here to make these men fear for their lives. the psychology of those fucked up men was such a big part of the originals, and this book rly said "look minorities can also be misogynists!" LISTEN. i'm not about to call benito my girlboss queen but it just felt out of place.
i don't even want to talk about the twin conspiracy plot. it was so boring. i presume that the next book will feature camilla and some aspect of this experiment, but i will not be reading it. government conspiracies about twin experiments aren't new, and neither is anything this book. why did any of this happen. what was the point. none of this mattered. "government corrupt full stop" is so boring why are you so BORING
i feel like i've lost several years of my life reading these continuations. i was going to just suck it up and read all of them to at least be able to judge them on their own merits, but i think i would genuinely cry if i tried to read another lagercrantz book. this book made me hate myself