{"id":136827,"date":"2015-03-23T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danversreads.wordpress.com\/?p=136827"},"modified":"2016-05-17T14:33:15","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T18:33:15","slug":"rachel-reviews-stieg-larssons-millennium-trilogy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/?p=136827","title":{"rendered":"Rachel Reviews Stieg Larsson\u2019s Millennium trilogy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"girl<\/a>Since seeing all three Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson\u2019s Millennium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/a><\/em>, The Girl Who Played with Fire<\/a><\/em>, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet\u2019s Nest<\/a><\/em>) as well as David Fincher\u2019s Oscar-winning adaptation<\/a>, I\u2019ve felt no real need to read the books \u2013 until I kind of joined a book club and then quit after I\u2019d already started reading the first book\u2026 and, man<\/em>, I was hooked. Larsson writes with such intensity that his characters come off as three-dimensional entities, living and breathing Swedish citizens who just happen to be ten years older now <\/em>than they were when his novels were published. The plots are engaging and suspenseful, too, making you sit still for four hours straight just to gobble down the climactic third act.<\/p>\n

\"girl<\/a>But Larsson\u2019s execution is terrible, especially in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/em><\/a>. His writing is unnecessarily specific, referencing real news stories in Swedish history (which require footnotes) and the specific hard- and software his characters use (down to the RAM capacity on an Apple iBook and the working URL for a download to the free program mentioned in the text). I don\u2019t know about you, but this level of detail is insufferable when you\u2019re trying to follow a fast-paced political thriller. In writing The Girl Who Played with Fire<\/em><\/a> and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet\u2019s Nest<\/em><\/a>, however, Larsson either stopped with the incessant descriptions or else I stopped noticing \u2013 because, again, engaging and suspenseful plot. Does this mean Larsson got better <\/em>at writing? That someone like an editor stepped in and said, \u201cHey, this kind of needs to stop\u201d? Or did he just overly explain everything he needed to (overly) explain in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/em>? (All of the above???)<\/p>\n

\"girl<\/a>To me, the Millennium trilogy is a great, fun three-part read but not necessarily something I\u2019m going to love years down the road or even re-visit. From watching the movies, I knew what all the major twists and plot points were \u2013 both within each individual book and also throughout the series \u2013 but I was still so <\/em>unbelievably engrossed in the novels\u2019 plots that it ended up not really mattering. I still had to know what happened and argued with myself over what I needed more: sleep or to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet\u2019s Nest <\/em>last 100 pages. (Sleep, alas.) Even if Larsson has his quirks, there\u2019s something to be said for nail-biting suspense and engaged reading, and not everybody can write to the level of detail he attains while still wrapping you up in good old noir. That takes considerable talent, and, as I keep mentioning, Larsson has<\/em> that talent \u2013 I just wish he could have perfected it a bit before he passed away.<\/p>\n

All in all, the Millennium trilogy (which just got optioned for a fourth book<\/a>!) gives readers three fantastic examples of a psychological suspense-thriller with some solid mystery thrown in. You can<\/em> theoretically read The Girl Who Played with Fire <\/em>and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet\u2019s Nest <\/em>without also reading each\u2019s previous novel(s), but why would you? You learn things in Millennium\u2019s first installment that you\u2019re expected to know in its second and third. And, although each of Larsson\u2019s books are<\/em> stand-alone stories, they fit snugly within a larger narrative, exploring the lives and relationships of the same characters over multiple years.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, if you\u2019re a fan of crime-drama, mystery, or kick-ass females, the Millennium trilogy is worth a read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since seeing all three Swedish adaptations of Stieg Larsson\u2019s Millennium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet\u2019s Nest) as well as David Fincher\u2019s Oscar-winning adaptation, I\u2019ve felt no real need to read the books \u2013 until I kind of joined a book club and then quit after I\u2019d already started reading the first book\u2026 and, man, I was hooked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":136828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,80,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-rachel-reviews","category-staff-review"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6V6sR-zAT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":138780,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136827\/revisions\/138780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danverslibrary.org\/readthis\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}