Another Good Book

So during our fantabulous Knobels Family Camping Trip, I was able to finish another book, this one called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. Larsson is from Sweden, and the story takes place there, which makes for some interesting places, names, and situations. Once I had wrapped my head around the pronunciation of words, however, I found myself deeply engrossed in this thrilling novel. The story centers around a missing heir to a Swedish industrialist's fortune who mysteriously disappeared thirty years ago. Now, the missing girl's uncle, who has been haunted by her disappearance for all of these years has hired an experienced journalist who was wrongly convicted of libel, named Mikael Blomkvist, to come and live on the small island he inhabits and work on the case for a year. By the end of the story, the journalist receives help from a past juvenile delinquent orphan named Lisbeth Salander, who has incredible skill in obtaining information about just about anyone, though her means may be questionable. The ending is completely unexpected, and the book is filled with danger, suspense, cleverness, and even some sex, and it is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. If you can't enjoy a good sexual-deviants-getting-what-they-deserve scene, then The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo may not be for you.

The only complaint that I would really vocalize is the fact that Larsson does a lot of telling, rather than showing. His descriptions of places and people can get a little listy, and there were paragraphs where I thought to myself, he definitely could have thought of a better way to do this, but the story speaks for itself, and this list0like characteristic of his writing does not detract from the novel as a whole. I probably wouldn't really have noticed it if I hadn't taken a creative writing class this past semester. The novel does start off a little slow, but by after the first 100 pages, you will be hooked. And don't let the length of the book defer you, it goes by just like that *snaps fingers* and when it's over, you'll wish you had hundreds of more pages to read. Thankfully, Larsson's next book in the series will be coming out this month, and I really can't wait.