The Girl Who Played With Fire–Stieg Larsson

Book: The Girl Who Played with Fire
Author: Stieg Larsson
Publisher: Vintage Crime
630 pages (Trade Paperback)
My Rating:



Lisbeth Salander has vanished into thin air leaving Mikael Blomkvist wondering what happened in The Girl Who Played with Fire, the second installment of The Millennium Trilogy. Blomkvist has returned to his position at Millennium and is working on a new story involving human trafficking with researchers Dag Svensson and Mia Johanssen. The sex trade is an insidious but thriving business in Sweden and the researchers are about to blow it wide open and name key players in the trade. When Svensson and Johanssen are found murdered, Lisbeth Salander is the prime suspect. Not believing that Lisbeth would commit murder, Blomkvist decides to investigate what happened to his friends and try to clear Lisbeth’s name.

It’s been quite awhile since I picked up the Millennium Trilogy partially because I have sort of been waiting for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest to come out in trade paperback so my set will be complete (yes, I am one of those people that doesn’t like mismatched books). I broke down because several people I knew were reading The Girl Who Played with Fire and I thought it would be fun to talk with them about it. It turned out to be a good book for discussion as we talked about Mikael and Lisbeth as characters as well as some of the supporting characters in the book. There is definitely a need to suspend disbelief in this book just as there was in the first book. One of the main issues people have had with books that I’ve spoken to don’t believe that Lisbeth has Asperger’s Syndrome. I think The Girl Who Played with Fire explores Lisbeth’s behavior much more and makes her less of an enigma than she was in the first book.

The sex trafficking was also a really interesting topic for Larsson to write about since it is such a taboo subject but is so pervasive in society. While it was written in a fictional/thriller style, I think it did bring light to a very serious topic that needs to receive more attention. The book reminded me a little of certain scenes from the movie Taken starring Liam Neeson. I also like how he wove the story together to bring Lisbeth and Mikael onto the investigation together despite Lisbeth being pursued by the authorities. The book also kept with the theme of “men hating women” which makes the books fit together like a puzzle and continually sheds new light on Lisbeth.

I should also note that Lisbeth’s guardian, Bjurman, makes an appearance in The Girl Who Played with Fire. I was hoping that Larsson wouldn’t let that story go by the wayside since it was one of the most memorable storylines in the The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. A mild spoiler alert here: I thought the storyline between Lisbeth and Bjurman came to a really satisfying conclusion in this book.

The only problem I had with the book was the end. One of the final scenes left me scratching my head. For the sake of not spoiling the book for those of you that haven’t read it, I will withhold the specifics, but I will say that I found the end really unbelievable and had to really suspend disbelief to not completely groan at the end. Even with this part, I really enjoyed the book overall and definitely recommend it to those of you that enjoy thrillers.

After I read this book, I watched the Swedish film of the same name. While I didn’t like it quite as much as the first film, it was still really well done. Mikael Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace are amazing actors, and I still can’t quite wrap my finger around the idea of an American film. For one, the books are SO Swedish that I really enjoy listening to the Swedish language in the film even if I can’t understand more than a few words of Swedish! I also think the actors embodied the characters so well in the film that there was no need to make a new version of the film. Yes, it does give Sweden more publicity which I am happy about because for the few days I visited Stockholm some years ago, I fell in love with the city. I would love to go back someday and see more of Sweden. Hopefully a blockbuster American film will show people that Sweden has some excellent writers and amazing culture and beauty. Other than that, I recommend that people see the Swedish version of the film. It’s good to branch out and see how other countries make their films. They usually have such different flavor that I tend to really enjoy them. The major complaint I have about the film in general is that while the book tied Mikael and Lisbeth together quite well, it definitely worked better on paper than it did in the movie. There was a disconnect between Lisbeth and Mikael because they had almost no scenes together in the entire film—the book ties  them together through written word much more effectively than a film ever could. Other than that, it was really well done and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I highly recommend The Girl Who Played with Fire as a great read and a good movie.

1 / 5 books. 20% done!
This is my first book for Zee’s Nordic Challenge


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It Begins! The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

Last week I posted a “review” of Middlemarch by George Eliot. I don’t really call it a real review per se because it was more about my experience reading it as a read-a-long with Lydia from The Literary Lollipop and my Shelfari friend, Ellie. After four months of reading Middlemarch, we finally finished and Lydia is now hosting a read-a-long of The Count of Monte Cristo for get this…the next 5+ months! Is this daunting? No! It’s only five chapters a week and the last one was so much fun that I can’t wait to start this one.

Lydia will be using the Modern Library edition of The Count of Monte Cristo which was translated by Chapman and Hill in 1846. This is the unabridged version that is most widely available and includes the Oxford Classics publication.



I will be using the Penguin Classics edition of the book that was translated by Robin Buss in 1996 and updated in 2003. It includes some portions that were removed in the Chapman and Hill version and includes updated language. I chose this version because searching around the internet looking for which version was the most complete translation, the Robin Buss translation seemed to be the most complete. So, if you are looking to read this, you might want to pick up both copies and determine which is most important to you—the updated language and less omissions or the preservation of the Victorian language and the original translation.


To get us in the mood to read, here are a few tidbits about the book and Alexandre Dumas:


The Man:

• Dumas was a popular writer and wrote for money (he was paid by the line…hence the LONG 1200+ page The Count of Monte Cristo) so he was dubbed, “Alexandre Dumas and Co.”
• His work was frowned upon by those in serious literary and art circles because he wrote for pay.
• George Eliot thought that ‘the French’ [writers] looked for melodramatic situations and characters rather than dealing with everyday life which she felt revealed human nature (taken from A Note on the Text in the Penguin Classics translation). –After just finishing Middlemarch and reading this in the notes, I feel this is an especially satisfying way to spend the next read-a-long! hehehe
• The lack of respect for Dumas in literary circles has most likely contributed to the book not being retranslated very often.

The Book:

• The Count of Monte Cristo is a precursor to other detective novels—the man who finds the truth and uses it to prosecute the wrongdoer.
• Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have some of the same elements in their work that is contained in The Count of Monte Cristo
• The story of Edmund Dantès is inspired by the true story of a man named François Picaud who was denounced by his friends as an English spy shortly after he became engaged to a woman named Margeurite.
  • The plot was concocted by a cafe owner named Mathieu Loupian who was jealous of Picaud’s relationship with Margeurite.
  • Picaud was a servant to a rich Italian cleric while in prison and became very close to him. The cleric died and left his money to Picaud and also told him where to find a hidden treasure.
  • Picaud was eventually released from prison and found the treasure and began to investigate who betrayed him so he could exact his revenge.

See?! The truth IS stranger than fiction! Does this make you want to read the book any more than if you hadn’t known these things? A few people have told me that they are intimidated by Dumas, but I find him to be one of the more accessible classic authors. It’s most likely due to him being a writer for the masses rather than a writer for the art.

If you have any interest at all in the intrigue, betrayal, and revenge of this novel, head over to The Literary Lollipop EVERY Wednesday starting October 13, 2010. We will be reading this book in five chapter increments. Totally doable! Easy peasy! I hope you’ll join in. The story is just fantastic! I know this because as some of you know, I accidentally read the abridged edition some years ago. I felt I had to remedy my error.)!

Steampunk Challenge

Steampunk Challenge

October 2010 – October 2011

What?!!! Another challenge you say? Yeah, exactly. I’m not exactly passing with flying colors on my current challenges, but this isn’t school and I can do what I want so here it is.

Rikki from The Bookkeeper is hosting a Steampunk Challenge that will run from October 2010 – October 2011. She has had a wonderful response in the comments from fans of the steampunk genre so I’m getting some good ideas of what to read for this challenge.

What exactly is steampunk? Well, Rikki used the New Oxford American Dictionary on her blog and defined it as,

“a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.”

I keep seeing super cool steampunk cakes and even steampunk wheelchairs so you know what? I’m game!

This genre looks awesome so I can’t wait to start. My first book will be The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi which I’ll be reviewing in October. Please leave me a comment if you have any other recommendations for me. I’m going to start off with a goal of 5 steampunk books over the next year, but if I love the genre I might even read more!

If you are interested in signing up for the challenge, click HERE to go to Rikki’s blog and sign up! It’s going to be heaps fun!

Oh, and I can’t leave off without showing you this awesomeness which partially inspired Rikki and I to talk about doing a Steampunk Challenge!