Thursday, February 16, 2012

Book Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

If you are a latecomer to the Stieg Larsson phenomenon, here, briefly, is the deal: Larsson was a Swedish journalist who edited a magazine called Expo, which was devoted to exposing racist and extremist organizations in his native land. In his spare time, he worked on a trilogy of crime thrillers, delivering them to his Swedish publisher in 2004. In November of that year, a few months before the first of these novels came out, he died of a heart attack. He was only 50, and he never got to see his books become enormous best sellers- first in Sweden and then, in translation, all over the globe.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the 3rd installment of the trilogy; its predecessors, which i call Book 1 and Book 2, have already sold a million copies combined in the US and many times that abroad. All 3 books are centered on two principal characters: a fearless middle-aged journalist named Mikael Blomvkist, who publishes Millennium magazine and a slight, sullen, socially maladjusted, tech-savvy named Lisbeth Salander, the "girl" of the books' titles, who, in addition to her dragon tattoo, possesses extraordinary hacking abilities, a photographic memory and a twisted, complicated past.


To me, the 3rd book is good but not as good as the 2nd one. It is pulse-racing, action packed and intellectually structured. However, it threw me off on how a number of new characters were added. It was like a revelation with a lot of complicated details. It was all about Lisbeth and the long kept secret about her father. It shows that despite Lisbeth being "asocial" she had friends who stuck with her till the end. The trial is my most favorite, that fucking Teleborian, haha! But for some reason i was a bit bored in some parts of the stories which is an unexpected  feeling. And i really find the Blomvkist- Figuerola love affair, GROSS. But nevertheless, it was a story that I would never forget.

This book review is rather sentimental than fun, why? I was left with a feeling of remorse and sadness with the fact that Stieg Larsson has died even before all the success happened with both the books and movies. I had questions in mind: If Larsson is still alive, would he have written a 4th book? With all the success, would he have been inspired in writing more books? Sad.

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