The Girl with the dragon tatoo - Steig Larrson

Feeona

A good trilogy to get stuck into. Excessive detail about gadgets characters were using was annoying alright (although the makers of the Hollywood version will have a field day raking in the cash from endorsements!)

Saw the first film in the trilogy and I think it was far better than the book. Changed some things around and it had less needless detail than the book.

politicsdude

saw the film thought it was cool

cynder

I hated the film, loved the books read all 3 in less than a week.:D

rebeve

Very predictable series

Eoin

I just finished the third one last week.

I quite liked the first one (if a bit slow) - while it was really predictable, the Swedish angle was a bit of a novelty. The second one was absolutely ridiculous, and the third one (aka "most men are bastards to women") wasn't great at all. As others have said, all of them seemed to go into absolutely needless detail which didn't add much at all, other than the word count.

ncmc

They could have done with some editing. I had to laugh at times during the first one when whole paragraphs would be devoted to the spec of the PC that the character was considering buying. And in the second book, similar treatment is given to a character's Ikea shopping list when kitting out an apartment.

That bit just took the biscuit, I know the author died shortly after finishing the 3rd book, but there is no excuse for the 2nd being so long and with so much pointless back detail. Did the publisher not have an editor???

I am reading the 3rd one at the moment and am really struggling with it. I am finding it so boring and repetitive. There is so much pointless back story on EVERY single character, I find that I am skipping pages of detail that I know will have no bearing on the book. I am half way through now and feel I have gone too far to stop reading, but am dreading ploughing through the 2nd half.

I thought the first book was enjoyable nonsense, the second only ok and so far the 3rd is utter tripe. I am so disappointed in these books, as a couple of people (who's opinion I trust) raved about them. I would put them on a par with the Dan Brown books, and no, I don't mean that as a compliment :cool:

nompere

ncmc wrote: »

I would put them on a par with the Dan Brown books, and no, I don't mean that as a compliment :cool:

I don't think that is entirely fair.

I think that Larsson has been poorly served by his editor, who should have eliminated large chunks, and his translator, who seemed to me to have very little "feel" for English, whatever about his Swedish. But I enjoyed all three stories and I liked Lisbeth as a character.

I read all three books during a seven day trip to Malta last Christmas and I wasn't ever overcome by the urge to hurl any of the books into the nearest bin, which is the reaction that Brown provokes. (I read Angels & Demons years ago, and thought it was rubbish, but had forgotten who the author was when The Da Vinci Code was published, and bought that as well. A few chapters in and I remembered my previous experience!)

mav79

Really enjoyed the three books just thought there were parts that dragged on too long.

LionelNashe

Finished the 3rd one a couple of weeks ago - I think the 2nd was my favourite of the three. As I mentioned in previous post and as others have mentioned, I was a bit bemused at the amateurish writing style in parts but I think the story and characters were more than strong enough to compensate.

I watched the 3 Swedish films of the books last week. I preferred the books. I think that the material would have been better suited to a TV Series (or three) than trying to squash each book into a 90 minute film.

Boo Radley

The trilogy is definately worth a read but has its niggles, not least that any reference to sex - of the non-violent kind - is mechanical and loveless. Found that pretty strange. Also Blomkvist is written only how a man could write him; all and any woman throws themself at him. A bit too James Bond in that respect.

All the niggles aside, it was entertaining, the 1st being the worst and the 3rd the best.

ncmc

Well, (finally) finished the third one during the week.

I wasn't ever overcome by the urge to hurl any of the books into the nearest bin, which is the reaction that Brown provokes. (I read Angels & Demons years ago, and thought it was rubbish, but had forgotten who the author was when The Da Vinci Code was published, and bought that as well. A few chapters in and I remembered my previous experience!)

I stand by my Dan Brown comparison! Several times (especially during the first half of the book), I felt like hurling it against the wall (I decided against it as I have an E-reader so it would have been an expensive protest )

I felt the second half of the book was definitly stronger than the first half. I enjoyed

the court case scenes

. However the first half of the book was unforgiveably slow. The level of pointless backstory and the constant repetiveness was extremely irritating and hard to read. There were also alot of side stories eg

The whole story of Berger at the newspaper and the stalker

that were entirely pointless. I thought that story would tie in with the main story somehow, but it had no bearing whatsover and served no purpose other than to bloat and already bloated book.

any reference to sex - of the non-violent kind - is mechanical and loveless. Found that pretty strange. Also Blomkvist is written only how a man could write him; all and any woman throws themself at him. A bit too James Bond in that respect.

I found that element made me slightly uncomfortable. As you say, the ordinary love making was extremely mechanical and passionless,

yet he describes the rapes in excessive and disturbing detail.

I think my problem was that I was expecting too much from them. I would recommend the first one to someone looking for some light fluff reading. But would (and already have) advised people to stay clear of the 2nd and 3rd.

Eoin

This is quite a funny read:

The Girl Who Fixed The Umlaut

-Trek-

First book was interesting, I really only picked it up because of all the hype surrounding it. Am about 1/2 through the second instalment and just cant force myself to finish it, I guess I cant relate to any of the characters or themes, nothing really reaches out to grab me and so, I really don't expect to be buying the final book.
And also beside all the sex, how much coffee can one man drink before he gives himself a seizure? After 3 cups I'm wired to the moon for the rest of the day.

-Trek-

eoin wrote: »

This is quite a funny read:

The Girl Who Fixed The Umlaut

LOL, that was class! now I would have no problem reading three books of that.

ncmc

Trekmad wrote: »

First book was interesting, I really only picked it up because of all the hype surrounding it. Am about 1/2 through the second instalment and just cant force myself to finish it, I guess I cant relate to any of the characters or themes, nothing really reaches out to grab me and so, I really don't expect to be buying the final book.
And also beside all the sex, how much coffee can one man drink before he gives himself a seizure? After 3 cups I'm wired to the moon for the rest of the day.

Haha, between the sex and the coffee, how do they get anything done! Also what's with all the coffee at nightime? And the sandwiches for every meal!

EverEvolving

You know what; I read all three books and loved them.

They aren't perfect and there is a lot of waffle, but they are almost the opposite of a subtle film that you don’t ‘get’ until the second watch – you want them to give you more so it doesn’t always warrant the second watch. The names and places are a bit annoying to remember but if you are like me, you will imagine the person, make the name sound like their personality and remember them from that.

I definitely recommend reading them.

LiamMc

When does this book start to get interesting?
I'm half-way through Chapter 11 and I'm still waiting for the book to start.
It's painful reading at the moment.