The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson: A Review

By Stieg Larsson
Copyright 2010
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Cost $27.95


I read and enjoyed The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest but not in the same way I enjoyed Larsson's other two novels.

In this novel, we find Lisbeth Salander hospitalized following injuries she suffered at the hands of her father. But in typical Salander fashion, her father suffered equally from the damage she inflicted upon him. The novel continues where the second novel left off---with Salander accused of multiple murders. This novel however follows Lisbeth Salander as her guilt or innocence is proven and she tries to regain her life---pre-guardianship, pre-psychiatric evaluations, and pre-Zalachenko.

One thing this novel has working for it is that it is familiar. Salander is still silent but deadly. Blomkvist still sticks his nose into his stories well beyond that of a reporter. It even continues to ring of Larsson and his penchant for detail--right down to the type of sandwich his characters eat and when.

What works against this novel, and is completely different from the others, is the beginning. It opens with too much background information. The beginning of the novel consists of either a flashback in time or a description of events that occurred in the second novel. If you've already read the other two novels, like me, then the beginning tends to drag. If you haven't read the other two novels then the information will seem unnecessary in order to enjoy the book (per a friend of mine). I found myself waiting for the book to catch up to present day and take me on the adventure I knew lay in store.

And thankfully it did....eventually. And when it did, it became the page turner that made the first two novels bestsellers. Overall, I would definitely recommend the book but buyer beware you will need a dose of patience to reap the benefits of a good read.
I give it 3 1/2 stars out of 5.

Happy Reading!

I'd love to hear what you think. Have you read it? What did you think? Am I on point or completely off in space somewhere? Of course, I mean with the review. I already know I'm off in space with everything else.

A Review: "The Girl who played with Fire" by Stieg Larsson

“The Girl who played with Fire”, the second novel in the Stieg Larsson trilogy, did not disappoint. This novel, more so than the first, truly follows the main character Lisbeth Salander. By way of a triple homicide we find out who Lisbeth is, where she comes from and the source of her odd behavior. Don’t get me wrong. Mikael Blomkvist still plays a pertinent role in the series but while the first novel was Mikael’s story, this one is all Lisbeth’s. This novel is full of twists with at least two that left my mouth hanging wide open. As with Larsson’s first novel, the beginning is all setup but then you reach a point where you can’t put the book down. I lost sleep on several occasions reading this novel. On at least one occasion my husband urged me not to take the book to bed, to which I reluctantly agreed. I truly enjoyed reading “The Girl who played with Fire”. It deserves 5 out of 5 stars. Sometimes I read a novel or see a movie and I think ‘this movie/book would have been perfect if this or that was changed’. I would not change a thing about ‘The Girl who played with Fire”. If you haven’t already, I recommend reading it--stat. I, however, am off to read “The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest”.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" review: From a chicklit lover perspective

I recently read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by the late Stieg Larsson and here are a few of my thoughts on it. The beginning of the novel took me much longer to read than I anticipated due to my lack of knowledge of all the author's Swedish references to parliament, cities and the like. I have traveled abroad but the only thing I can tell you about Sweden is 1)Stockholm is the capital and 2)Elin Nordegren was born there. However, once I got hooked on the lives of the characters and the story, I was hooked. By the last three hundred pages of the 600+ page novel I could not put it down. I had at least one sleepless night during the reading of this novel. I had to know who the killer was and why, which I did not guess by the way. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" was a very good read as you have probably heard a thousand times before already.

The part of the novel that affected me the most as an avid chicklit reader and lover was the ending. Not to give it away but as a chicklit lover I need a happy ending, the happily ever after, but the end of this novel ripped my heart out. I sat there reading the final paragraph without so much as taking in a breath. In all the reviews I have read regarding this novel no one even mentions the ending. For a true chicklit reader, I should have been warned. I'll have to see what the next novel brings for Lisbeth. For now, I am off to pick up "The Girl who Played with Fire" and "The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" since I mistakenly did not buy all of his novels at once.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" definitely deserves all of the much publicized hype--4 3/4 stars out of 5!