The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the Book Review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a 24 year old hacker named Lisbeth Salander. She suffers from Asperger Syndrome (look it up with my BFF Google to know more about it) and has been under the care of guardians assigned by the government of Sweden since she’s thirteen.

Lisbeth looks young for her age because of her underdeveloped breasts and her height. At first glance, most people would think that she’s still in her teens. But in reality, she works as a freelance researcher for Milton Security. She’s sort of like an anorexic Nancy Drew with excellent computer skills.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo doesn’t just evolve around her. There’s also Carl Mikael Blomkvist, a financial journalist who has just been convicted of libel. His reputation is going down the drain along with Millennium, where he is publisher and part-owner.

That’s when Blomkvist got a call from industrialist Henrik Vanger, who is the head of a family owned conglomerate. The old man wants him to be his ghost writer for his autobiography. But that’s just his cover. His real job is to find out what really happened to Vanger’s grand-daughter Harriet, who was last seen alive 36 years ago. But before Vanger’s meeting with Blomkvist, he has hired Salander to do a background investigation on the journalist.

And this is how the unorthodox partnership of Blomkvist and Salander started. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a fascinating novel that is hard to put down. Stieg Larsson knows how to keep his readers in suspense and forget about the time.

Stieg Larsson not only delivered an interesting novel, he also managed to open the readers’ eyes on the disgusting sexual violence against women that’s still prevalent in today’s society. Some scenes might be too graphic for some but it is needed to feel the brutality of the crimes committed.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo also tackled the collapse of the stock market due to unscrupulous acts and lenient supervision from the authorities. The novel also took on racism as Larsson writes about some Vanger folks being part of the Nazi movement.

Although The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had several subplots and issues, Larsson managed to weave them all together leaving no holes and every questions answered. Hopefully readers get the message the author wanted to convey.

I was a bit frustrated when I reached the final page of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. With all the mysteries solved and a ghost from the past resurfaced, I wanted a happy ending for the protagonists of the novel. Maybe it’s Larsson’s way to keep the reader yearning for more and read the next book of the trilogy, which is The Girl Who Played with Fire.