I have been avoiding this curiously titled book for a long time. When Kid produced a paperback version and asked me, “Donate or keep?” I put it on my physical reading queue (as opposed to my digital one on my Kindle, in the form of sample downloads).
It began slowly and it took a long time for the main characters to meet each other. The setting was creepy, cold, dark, and foreign. I cringed at several scenes that were quite graphic and violent. They are fully capable of giving people nightmares or keeping them awake at night. If this were a movie (and it is), it would match the horror of Se7en.
Although it gripped me all the way to the finish, I am not clicking my Amazon account to acquire the next two books from Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy. I guess this one felt a bit too intense.
Herr Larsson died before publishing the trilogy and he delivered the manuscripts at the same time. All together, they sold nearly 30 million copies worldwide. But there will be no more Lisbeth Salander stories, at least not from the same author.
The original title of the book is “Men who Hate Women.” I actually think that’s a better title. I avoided the book for its feminist reputation. I was quite wrong, at least for this one. It depicted many men that hated women, but did not preach or lecture on feminist ideologies at all.
As a computer guy, I was quite amused by the technologies and the clear preference for Apple laptops. Top hackers, such as Salander, should be using a Linux box. Her magical hacking skills became too convenient a solution. Her shrewd manipulation of corporate financing and money laundering was too. For a anti-social, under-educated (albeit talented), lone hacker. That’s not quite believable. But I am being nerdy here.