Will I love The Girl Who Played with Fire?

This book was very dark. I’ve seen it marketed as a thriller, but it doesn’t serve that role very well in my opinion–there are long sequences where the protagonist shops for an apartment, buys furniture, naps, eats pizza, etc. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but personally I enjoyed the leisurely pace. The frequent references to Swedish culture and the current events of the day made it feel like the characters were really in Sweden (only natural since the author was Swedish himself.) And the ending was pretty satisfying.

The heroine of the engrossing series, Lisbeth Salander, is a very fine computer hacker but has difficulty relating to others. Together with the journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she investigates crimes and corruption in the government.

I like the fast pace and interesting themes of these books. Lisbeth, who seeks justice for herself and others, is a very original and psychologically flawed heroine. What I don’t like is that in this series a major villain is the very bad child psychiatrist whose ‘treatment’ of Lisbeth was not to talk with her but simply put her in isolation and restraints.

In contrast, in… show more.