I just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson last night.  I have been meaning to read this book for a while now because everyone that I had talked to about it said that it was an amazing book.

For a 600 page book, I read this rather fast because it was hard to put down.  I have to admit that I did actually start it about 2-3 months ago, but only got 10 pages in.  It is rather slow starting, but once you get into Larsson’s writing story and into the plot line, it really is hard to put down.  It’s hard to believe that fiction writing was only a hobby for Larsson!

While there are many intersecting story lines in this book (which is part of what makes it interesting), the main plot is about the Vanger family, a prominent family and corporation in Sweden.  Mickael Blomkvist, a financial journalist, was hired by the head of the Vanger, Henrik, family to investigate the disappearance and presumed murder of Harriet Vanger.  The only thing, Harriet disappeared 40 years ago and her body was never found.  Henrik has spent the last 40 years and is obsessed with Harriet’s disappearance.  He is close to death and wants to try one more time to find out who in his family killed Harriet.  Blomkvist recruits the help of Lisbeth Salander, a computer hacker and PI, to help with the research.

While I did think that Blomkvist was an interesting character, Lisbeth really was the focus.  She has a mysterious past that we only get to see snippets of.  She’s a brilliant computer hacker and has a photographic memory.  She stands up for herself and doesn’t take any crap.

I have heard some criticism that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a misogynistic book.  But I think it could be considered kind of the opposite of that: that it had a feminist tilt because of it’s commentary and criticism of misogyny.  There are definitely characters in the book that are misogynistic (the Swedish title of the book is, in fact, The Men Who Hate Women).  But the main characters, who we see the story through, are not misogynistic and definitely have feminist leanings.  While I did not always agree with Blomkvist and Salander’s feminism, I do think that they could be considered feminist.

I should add a disclaimer though: there are some MAJOR trigger warnings in this book.  There are detailed and graphic descriptions of multiple sexual assaults.  On top of that, there murder, incest, and animal brutality.  These are only portions of the book, but they are definite parts of the plot.  You can skip over the descriptions and still fully enjoy the book.  But if these descriptions are not something that you think you can handle, I would not recommend reading the book.

I thought this was a great book and I can’t wait to get into the next two books in the trilogy.  I would recommend this to anyone who thinks that they can handle the trigger warnings in the book.