Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire is the second installment in the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's thrilling trilogy about hacker Lisbeth Salander and journalist Mikael Blomkvist.  The two haven't seen each other in a while and are brought back together by three murders.  Lisbeth is the prime suspect, and she is hiding out from the police and other people who are trying to find her.  Blomkvist, determined of her innocence, sets out on his own investigation to discover the truth behind the murders and Lisbeth's troubled past.  Does the sex trafficking expose one of the murder victims was writing have something to do with the killings, and Lisbeth herself?

I loved the first book, so I pretty much knew I'd love this one too.  Larsson's a fantastic writer and keeps me on the edge of my seat as I'm reading.  I don't have a ton to say about this book because I don't want to give anything away.  And to be honest, I was too engrossed in the book to remember to take notes as I read!

I once again adored the characters.  A former boxer comes into the picture and ends up being really awesome.  I love him.  Lisbeth's friend Mirium Wu is in this book again and I love her strong, feisty, no-nonsense attutitude.  I also loved the chemisty between the detectives.  They seem to get on like a family, some are cranky and rude and some are tight-knit, but they all have to work together to try to solve the murders.

Then there's the bad guys.  They scared me because they seemed so real.  And I'm a tiny girl, so I wouldn't stand a chance against any of them (unless of course I could outsmart them with my genius brain.....).  The hulking Ronald Niedermann, who can't feel pain andis built like a monster is one person I'd NEVER want to meet.  And Zala is freaky too, probably just because we spend most of the book wondering who he is.

Blomkvist and Lisbeth have almost no one-on-one interaction throughout this book.  Salander, as I mentioned above, is in hiding, so they do most of their communicating through computers.  Even so, I still loved the relationship between the hacker and the journalist.  Blomkvist has a tender spot for Lisbeth even though she's sometimes a total jerk to him.  He wants to look out for and protect her, even if it means keeping information from the police.  Lisbeth, on the other hand, tries desperately to distance herself from Blomkvist.  She's sort of flattered that he wants to help her, but weary of the feelings she has for him.

This story ended with a bang and was really unexpected, in a good way ;)  I didn't see it coming!  The story continues in book three, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, which I cannot wait to read!  I think I'll wait a few months to pick it up though.  As I've said many times before, I hate it when a great series comes to an end!  I often try putting off the ending as much as possible!  Plus, my "end of serie" emotions are going to be in overdrive because I'm currently reading the last book in the Pellinor series.  *gasp*  I almost had a heart attack just thinking about it....

And now to the SAAB quotes.

I have to admit, I was really worried the whole book would pass without one quote.  After all, it's a whopping 724 pages long, and I didn't see the word "SAAB" for the first time until page 670!!  Part of me wonders if I just accidentally skipped over some....And I have one little question for Ms Salander-when you bought your car, WHY was it not a SAAB??  They are only like the greatest car ever! 

And a drumroll please.  *DRUMROLL*

~SAAB Quotes~
Page 670: "He has a license for a moose rifle and a shotgun.  He has two cars, a Ford and a SAAB, both older models."
Okay, it's kind of funny that he moose rifle and the SAAB live under the same roof.  I do adore that this person has an older SAAB model.  The older SAABs, like mine from 1999, have hatchbacks and are a lot cooler looking than the newer models.

Page 684: "There were no livestock.  She saw that the barn contained three cars-the white Volvo from Auto-Expert, an old Ford, and a somewhat newer SAAB."
Sure.  Put the lovely SAAB in a barn.  I see how it is.  My Henrick (a.k.a. the name of my car, named after Swedish hockey player and former Buffalo Sabre Henrick Tallinder) would be furious if I left him in a barn.

Happy reading and go out and get yourself a SAAB*!  *wink*

*My neighbor sells used SAABs and Volvos amongst other types of vehicles, so if you live in the WNY area, hit me up ;)  You know you want that SAAB!!


Title: The Girl Who Played With Fire
Author: Stieg Larsson
Date of Publication: 2009?
Number of Pages: 724
Genre: Fiction
Source: personal copy (borrowed from mom)

Book Blogger Hop

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly hop hosted by Crazy-for-Books and is a way for bloggers to find other great blogs to read and make new friends in the blogging world.

This week's question is:
Post a link to a favorite post or book review that you have written in the last 3 months.

My response:
I have two favorites I think.  I really loved reading The Gendarme, and I think I did a pretty good job describing its greatness in my review, which is here.  But I also really like my review of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (if nothing else but for the awesome SAAB quotes I was able to supply at the end!).  I'm excited to start hopping to all the blogs I follow and seeing what you've all posted!  I also can't wait to get out there and discover some new blogs!

I realize also that I have posted pretty much nothing all week!  I am so sorry and I feel like a failure.  I have a review done of The Jungle which I'll probably end up posting later today.  School has just been getting most of my time, and I've been exhausted and feeling a bit under the weather (which is, ya know, what happens when it's in the 90s one week and then the next it's in the 50s and 60s!), and I was barely on the Internet this whole week.  I did get quite a bit of reading and knitting done though :) 

Hope everyone has a really awesome weekend!  Have any plans??  I'm taking Gramma to dialysis tomorrow, which I've learned to love, not only because Gramma feels way better because of it, and I get to spend time in the car with her, but I also use the 3 to 4 hours in between dropping her off and picking her up to just catch up on my reading and blogging and blog visiting.  Sunday is probably going to be lazy!  I'm so tired right now that I'm wondering if maybe I'm anemic.  (I'm not....but I always do wonder when I get this exhausted!)

Bon weekend!

Weekend Reads

Back when I first turned my "Life in France" blog into a book blog, I used to do a weekly feature I called Weekend Reads, where I basically talk about what I've read that week, what I'm planning on reading the next week, and what's been happening in my life in general.  I liked this feature a lot and have decided to get it going again :)

So this past week I read a lot, but I was also really busy getting ready for school to start back up and with work.  I am almost finished with The Jungle, which is SO depressing but really good.  I finished The Gendarme, a new book that will be out this coming Thursday.  It was fantastic and I highly recommend it.  I'll be posting a review on Thursday!  And I lost my copy of The Time Traveler's Wife!  How, you might ask?  Beats me!  The only thing I can think of is that I put the book down somewhere in the big mess that was made when my sister was packing for her semester abroad, and after she left and we were cleaning up, my mom or little sis put the book somewhere.  I need to find it asap though.  I hate getting halfway through a book and then losing it.  (because yes, this has happened before!) 

This week my mom and I rented The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie!  The Swedish one, with subtitles.  It of course didn't live up to the book, and they had to change some things, and (obviously) shorten the story a bit.  And I was *quite* disappointed by the lack of SAABs in the movie.  There's one part in particular in the book where a SAAB plays a pretty big part (in my SAAB-obsessed opinion, anyway), and they totally changed that part in the movie to include NO SAAB at all!  But I did spy a few on the road throughout the movie ;)

This week, classes start at Buffalo State College.  I'm excited but also sad, because I won't be able to read nearly as much.  I also won't be able to work as much, which is nice, but also sucky, because I do need the money.  I do plan on finishing a few books next week, though.  And my knitting challenge starts on Wednesday, yay!

So that's it for this week.  I discovered some really awesome new blogs on the Book Blogger Hop this week and added them to my Google Reader :)  Hope everyone has a really great week, and OMG first week of September!!

Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo + My Love of SAABs

I'm just gonna jump right onto the bandwagon here and say "OHMYGOSHYOUNEEDTOREADTHIS!!!!" It definitely lives up to all the hype.

This first book tells the story of Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who is now in trouble with the law for libel, after publishing an article of "false" claims made against major corporation Wennerstrom. To save the magazine he's worked hard to create with friend Erika Berger, Blomkvist decides to take a break from journalism and move out to the country, where another big-business owner is paying him to find out what happened to a family member who's been missing for 40 years. Along the way, he is joined by the genius hacker and troubled young woman named Lisbeth Salander. Together, they must piece together the Vanger family mystery and hope that they don't get caught in the middle of something violent.

I adored this book and read it SO quickly! It's the kind of story that keeps you on the edge of your seat and prevents you from sleeping because you just. Cant. Put. It. Down. I loved how Blomkvist and Salander are trying to solve a mystery, and I found myself making my own guesses throughout their investigation. I also loved the mystery surrounding Salander and her past. Slowly in the next book, we start finding more info on her ;) The relationship between Salander and Blomkvist is also interesting. Salander is so antisocial, but there's something about her partner's personality that brings out her good side and gets her talking. I LOVE their chemistry.

There are some darker scenes in the book that were extremely well written, in my opinion. I'm sure a lot of authors would have shied away from these types of scenes because they are hard to read (and I'm sure even harder to write), but author Stieg Larsson didn't sugar-coat anything and told it how it was.

I LOVED the setting (of course the author was Swedish, so it only makes sense that this series takes place there)-it's a place I've never been to and never thought much of (except, of course, the fact that my beautiful little SAAB, whom I've named Henrik, is Swedish-and there are a few SAAB mentions in the book!!). And I, being a huge lover of travel and languages, have decided that someday I simply MUST visit Sweden and at least attempt to learn the language. And I'll probably be in bliss because of all the SAABs I'll see (assuming that they really are as popular in Sweden as I've been imagining all these years since falling in love with my own adorable Henrik).

One little cautionary note on this book for people thinking about reading it. The first chapter or so are kind of slow (or were for me anyway) because the book starts off with the background for the rest of the story (as it should, of course). Blomkvist is a financial journalist so there is a lot of technical information, along with a rundown of some financial things and economic things and whatnot. I obviously did not understand it, which is why I can't properly explain what it talked about. But I feel it was necessary because there were parts where I was like "Oh, this makes sense….I think….from what I read in the beginning.."

One thing of note that I loved and have to mention: Blomkvist is a big reader and is always reading/buying books/seeing what others are reading. It makes me happy!

So now that I've freaked my readers (and myself) out by my weird SAAB obsession, I would like to say on a more serious note that I truly wish Stieg Larsson was still here today to witness the HUGE success of his work, and to continue bringing us these fascinating and well-developed stories.

I'm in the middle of The Girl Who Played With Fire, and officially obsessed.

And now for good measure, some SAAB quotes from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (you totally saw this coming, didn't you?!):
Pg. 215: "As she set her rucksack on the ground to put on the bike lock, a dark red Saab began reversing out. She had her back turned but heard the cracking sound from her rucksack. The driver didn't notice and thing and, unwitting, drove off up the exit ramp."

Pg. 452: "At 19:42 the Saab that belonged to Ostergarden drove towards Hedestad."
I heart SAABs and I hope you do too! And I really hope you pick up this book if you haven't already!

Title: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
Date of Publication: 2009
Number of Pages: 600
Genre: Fiction
Source: personal copy