Review of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo"

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Whoa...finally finished a book though I stayed up until 3:30 reading the most intense part. The sexual assualt featured throughout the book and the theme of women's issues are what bring it from standard, good mystery novel fare to actually substantive reading. I shouldn't have read the most intense parts at night - I tend to be extremely sensitive to accounts of physical and emotional abuse, and there were a few moments I actually had a physical reaction to what I was reading (trembling, starting to feel sick). I don't think anyone could read this book without having a new take on, or at least fresh reminder of the brutal violence that happens to all kinds of women the world over, every day.

The characters aren't very complex, with the exception of Lisbeth Salander, the main woman character with a mysterious past (sounds like we get to find out about it in the sequel, "The Girl Who Played with Fire").

One notable recurring line (but not a spoiler) from Salander is "woman-hater" or "he just hates women". I guess since it was written in Swedish, I can't be sure this was the author's intention, but in English it's a nice retooling of the "man-hater" meme that is used to dismiss feminists and feminist convictions.

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