The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Millenium #1)

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Average customer rating 4.8 (44 comments)

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In my opinion, this is the best book in the trilogy. I mean, after all, it is called "The Girl Who..." and I just feel like this is the only book that really and truly focuses on Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is a great character, and many people can relate to her. This is always difficult for authors to achieve, but it's nice when a reader can connect with the main character. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a wonderful read.

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The details in this book are amazing. The landscape is brought to life in the descriptions of places that the main characters go to. I find this book very entertaining, a little fantasy, drama, thriller and shows what interesting characters Stieg Larrson has come up with. Dont plan on putting this book down when you start reading it because it will catch you and you will have to buy the other two in the trilogy!

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Really enjoyed. very good plot

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The story line kept the reader wanting more, the ending not as I expected. When I finished reading this book I had to rush out and purchase the other two books which were as good as the first. My husband even read all three within days.

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A wonderfully written, suspense filled mystery with great character development and many twists and turns in the plot. A real page turner! Loved Lisbeth Salander's character.

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Enjoyed the entire series. Too bad there won't be any more.

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This book was a most unexpected surprise read! I did not read it when it first came out because I thought the subject matter was not really my cup of tea. After some time, I finally gave in to curiosity because everyone was talking about it and asking if I had read it. I picked it up thinking I would give it a few chapters and if it didn't grab me, then I was prepared to quickly drop it and move on -- at least then I could say I gave it a try and shed my guilt. I was hooked from the first pages and thoroughly enjoyed the entire journey. It was my summer read and quite a treat. I enjoyed meeting all the characters and visiting locations that were new to me. This book had all the elements I consider for a great book -- a real 'page turner'. I enjoyed it so much that I immediately followed it with both the second and third books in the trilogy. That says something because I never do that!

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What a fantastic book - I've already jumped to the next book in the trilogy. I'm late to the "Girl with/Girl who ..." series, but what an excellent thriller and strong female protagonist. Love it!

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Larsson's writing is exceptional - exciting and descriptive.

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Great book. I can't wait to see if the movie is loyal to it. Am very excited about reading the sequels.

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Very good

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I really enjoyed this book. It is a good mystery and makes you very interested in Swedish culture. Lisbeth is a likable character in a way that reminds you of an animated character you liked in childhood, except there is nothing childish about her actions or her life. The story unfolds in both a slow and dramatic way. Read it!

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It is a very thrilling story! I was reading it almost without a break ;-)! I fully recommend this book to you, if you like mysterious plot and detective stories full of surprising and breath-taking findings, this is IT!

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great book

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very interesting book, I like the humor thrown in here and there. Also the care of the subject matter

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This book is amazing. Once I started reading it, I did not want to put it down. It keeps you interested from beginning to end.

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Excellent thriller. Plot details thouroghly valid (except I can't comment on the somewhat confusing Swedish names, history and geography). Hacking portions definitely realistic (as a network technician I can speak from experience). I only wish there were more novels of this caliber in the literary world - time will tell.

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Great series that moves along a a fast pace, so they are a fairly quick read despite the number of pages.

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The tension keeps building throughout the book

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Evocative, suspenseful, original and brilliant. It is a pity that Larsson is not around to write more books.

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Quirky, tension, great characters, a can't stop reading book!

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Go Lisbeth Salander! It's been a long time since I cared about and worried about a character as much as I did Lisbeth Salander. This was beyond "a page-turner." Overall, it's the condition of women, taken to the extreme. That's the underlying theme of the whole trilogy -- the mistreatment of women. Someone once said, "Women are the [inserted universally prohibited word here] of the world."

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Sure took a while to get into it, but then you can't put it down!

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Great mystery story with lots of twists and turns. Interesting characters and brings current social situations into the mix.

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Very good book, well written, captivating and well paced.

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For someone that would not go out of her way to pick a "thriller" ... Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" kept me up at night, turning the pages of this unique, creative novel with great anticipation & a pounding heartbeat - loved it ***** 5 stars!

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Excellent book. Dark topics and twists in plot. The characters are well established and engaging. Although there are many disturbing elements in the story, they area well written and described, but are not graphic. Also gives a deep look into Swedish news and financial reporting.

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The question "What would Pippi Longstocking be like when she grew up?" inspired this author to create a series of extraordinary, can't-put-it-down books. Larsson originally intended to write ten, but his untimely death stalled the series at three. I hope he left notes for the rest and someone of his caliber takes over.

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Just one more guy that thinks that this is an AMAZING book. I LOVED it! Its so good I feel like I should go to Sweden just so I can put flowers on Stieg Larssons grave to say "Thanks".

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This book will keep you awake all night - you can't set it down.

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This book was just amazing. I don't get to read a whole lot of books, but this one was cool.

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Once I got past the first 60 pages, I couldn't put this book down until I finished it.

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An unusual girl, a foreign country, and a hero who is stumped by the girl. I found this book an intriguing page turner.

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The characters are what drives this story - but the story is compelling as well. I read it more than one sitting only because I started it late at night. A great read.

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This book gives us a new kind of hero - quirky, smart and living life her way!! It was so refreshing to observe her life and marvel at her solutions to life's problems.

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I could not put this book down. Although at times fairly disturbing, I found the storyline gripping, the writing style compelling, and the characters irresistible. Lizbeth Salander gets under your skin. Where's the next book? I need it now.

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Absolutely unique characters and intriguing storytelling. Larsson drew me in and kept me spellbound to the point that immediately upon finishing this book, I had to go out and purchase the sequel(in hardcover no less) and am waiting impatiently for the third. How unfortunate that these will be the last offerings from this talented author.

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I loved this book!! From the first page I was hooked and I could hardly put it down....rushed out to buy The Girl Who Played with Fire the day it was released and can hardly wait to read The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. I was very pleased to find out they are going to release the movies in the United States.....although it won't hold a candle to the book....

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I loved this book and immediately searched for and read The Girl who played with Fire. The characters continued in the second book .....I have not read the third book but will soon!

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I know that many people really like this, and all of Scandinavia and Northern Europe is swamped with displays hawking copies of all three books in the series in multiple languages. There were aspects of it that I liked. At its best, it was weirdly like an amalgam of Heinlein's Citizen of the Galaxy with the gory parts of Kellerman's The Butcher's Theater. Overall, however, it simply alternated between flat and vile. The characters are dimensionless and largely interchangeable. They all sound alike. This first volume is a long revenge fantasy in several parts, unsatisfying because it is unrealistic. In this way it reads structurally and thematically like romance or pornography, despite the lengths it goes to to establish its realism through historical and technological detail. It almost seemed like a collaboration rather than the work of a single author due to repeated abrupt changes of focus and level of detail. Unfortunately, the most detailed and consistent descriptions are of brutal rapes, which the narration ostensibly decries but lingers over lovingly. The effect is that of pornography that arouses the writer while he is writing, or the pornography of earlier eras that attempts the pretense of medical case report. I am not a reader who tries to figure out mysteries. I'm not good at it, and I enjoy being surprised. I was largely unsurprised here. Note to author: Exposition along the lines of "X is very rational; oops, no he's not, he's a big old freak; why is that, well, who can say?" is really unsatisfying and contemptuous of your reader. There are a number of other irritants and inconsistencies, but I will not spoil this for anyone who wants to read it. But don't get me started on professional ethics. I could write a treatise. Do reread Citizen of the Galaxy, toss in a little Kellermanesque sexualized snuff, and buy one of Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking books instead. They, too, are ubiquitous in Sweden.

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The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is one of the best mysteries I have read in a long time. Steig Larsson does an excellent job of building the suspense. The book is well-written and it provides twists and turns. As one mystery is resolved, another begins. He keeps you guessing throughout. An overall excellent book.

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It takes a little bit to get going, but once it does, Whoa Nelly! My apologies for being cliche, but this book truly is a page turner! I read it in one weekend, even staying up WAY past my bedtime to finish. I couldn't go to sleep not knowing how it ended. Well written, with a complex plot and wonderful character development. This is a must read. Pick up a copy today, but forewarned, you may not put it down until it lets you.

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Odd characters and page by page intrigue - I loved it. There are parts that actually made my heart race and my adrenaline rush!!

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Compelling, smart punk chick (4.25*s) Seldom does one get introduced to a character as compelling as Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year old social misfit, and private investigator for a security firm, of extraordinary strength, resourcefulness, and capability. The root of her childhood trauma is never quite clear, but she has been under the protection of the state since her teenage years because of her reclusive, anti-social, and indifferent behavior and the convenient diagnosis of retardation. What she is, is a computer hacker extraordinaire with a penchant for detail and memory that is way off the charts. She is small – maybe ninety pounds soaking wet – but her whole punk motif – clothes, body piercings, tattoos, etc – is a warning, well heeded, of inner toughness. Early in the book, her guardian, supposedly her protector, discovers that the payback for crossing the line with Lisbeth can be ruthless. Carl Blomkist is a financial journalist for the leftist magazine Millennium, but his conviction for libeling a Swedish capitalist Hans Wennerstrom has put both his and the magazine’s future in considerable jeopardy. He knows that he must leave the magazine for some period of time. But Blomkist’s predicament is an opportunity for Henrik Vanger, an aging, retired head of a vast Swedish business empire, to renew his forty year obsession with unraveling the mystery of the disappearance of his brother’s grand-daughter Harriet from the family’s remote island compound. As Blomkist later discovers, it is Salander who does an amazingly detailed background check on him before he is hired by Henrik. As Blomkist burrows down into the evidence maintained all these years, as well as grasping the extent of the dysfunctionality of the entire Vanger clan, he realizes he needs a research assistant. Who’s better than Lisbeth Salander? Forty-something Blomkist is a nice guy: friendly, capable, and open-minded. He’s been in an open relationship with his married co-publisher Erika Berger for twenty years, which gets sorely tested when he moves from Stockholm for the foreseeable future to conduct his investigation. That affability is needed in his dealings with the antagonistic Vanger’s. He and Lisbeth, in sifting through old photographs, newspaper articles, and even references to Biblical passages, finally start to make inroads on a case thought to be unsolvable, much to the consternation of some. Blomkist’s understated charm does not go unnoticed by Cecilia Vanger, as she openly seduces him. More surprising and complex is the edgy relationship of Lisbeth and Michael, which tests her distrust of men. The pace of the book is good and the story lines of Harriet’s disappearance, the fortunes of Millennium, and the potential for finally nailing Wennerstrom are interesting. But Lisbeth and Michael make the book. The atmospherics of the Swedish island landscape with its perpetual darkness and cold lend a sense of foreboding. Some aspects are a little wearisome. The many Swedish names and terms can be difficult. And the author has a fondness for telling the reader about every pot of coffee made and consumed. In what may be called “bonus coverage,” a rather intricate scheme to incriminate Wennerstrom is somewhat mechanically tacked on to the end. The book leaves the reader wanting to know what the future holds for Michael and Lisbeth.