The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was our June selection, and it's the first book I've managed to read, other than the one I chose myself. It is part political novel, part spy thriller, part journalism investigation, part love story.
That was followed by The Girl Who Played with Fire and then The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. They were a little hard to get into at first, mainly because they were translated from Swedish. I had a hard time figuring out any monetary references (finally looked up a currency exchange website so I could get a grip on how much money we were talking about), and the names threw me. I had no idea how to pronounce most of them, and I like hearing the names in my head. And there were A LOT of names. I was also frustrated because I wasn't familiar enough with the geography of Sweden (okay, I know NOTHING about the geography of Sweden) to understand the characters' movements.
Sometimes the books bogged down in a little too much detail. The intricacies of Swedish politics and law became burdensome, as did the specificity of descriptions of food, drink, and clothing. I guess the editor felt bad about cutting some things, since the author died not long after he delivered the three manuscripts. (Wouldn't that pretty much suck?)
That being said, however, I thoroughly enjoyed all three books. They became the kind of book I couldn't put down, and I was so eager to read the third one that I downloaded it to my Kindle rather than wait a day and make a trip to the library. (Yes, I have another Kindle. More on that at a later date.)
Nurse Jane, I have the first two books for you, and I will be happy to send them to you, if you haven't already got them.
They weren't an EASY read, so I'm resting my brain with a John Grisham novel. Don't tell him I said that.
No comments:
Post a Comment