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The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (2007)

by Stieg Larsson(Favorite Author)

4.17 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

030726999X (ISBN13: 9780307269997)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Knopf

series

Millennium

review 1: I love Lisbeth Salander so much, unlike in the american movie, she feels like a real person through all the three books, especially the last two, and the other characters are great too. I watch a lot of criminal shows and none of them views crimes through a gender perspective, altough almost all murderes are men and most victims are women, they show it like thats just how things are, I love that this book is different.
review 2: Let's call this review "The Boy who called Shenanigans on the Millennium Trilogy"This is one book series that is incredibly overrated, and knowing how popular it is and that my dislike of it is a minority opinion, this will be a longer review than usual.If you read my review for book #2 - THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE - I ended it with ... morethe statement that I was going into this book with lower than low expectations. Low expectations can often work as a miracle because then a book can surprise you. This book however MET my expectations. For the most part I was bored and annoyed with it - all except for one phenomenal chapter which I will admit to liking, but not enough to give the book a good rating.In order to reveal why I find this 3rd book to be a colossal failure, I must recap some feelings about the previous 2 books so stick with me here.First what I DID like about this series was the overall theme about strong women fighting against a male dominated society. It doesn't paint a picture that ALL men are bad, but uses specific examples of men abusing their power to abuse women, especially when that power is threatened. All the women in this series experience that whether it be Salander (the Girl in the title), Berger (protagonist Blomkvist's right hand person at Millennium)or the lawyer Giannini. The women aren't perfect either, but they are fighting for their lives in a society that is secretly - and in some cases, not so secretly - against them.Here is my biggest problem with this series, and with this book in particular - never at any moment do you feel that these characters are in any sort of danger. They are all so smart and always 5 steps ahead of the antagonists that they manage to get out of scrapes so incredibly easy. Even when there is a surprise, like with a moment in a restaurant in this book, what has come before leads the reader to feel no suspense or tension because these characters seem to get out of trouble without breaking a sweat so there is nothing to make you think that sequence will be any different.Book 1, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, is in retrospect the strongest of the three. It's a mystery with an intriguing dark tone and the one time I felt the characters of Blomkvist and Salander showed some vulnerability in their predicament. Blomkvist has a wrongful public disgrace hanging over his head and is in an environment where everyone is against him. Salander is beholden to a beast of a government official but manages to turn the tables on him and overcome her shackles. Millennium is on the verge of closing forever.Book 2, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE starts out strong as a suspenseful "Fugitive" like thriller, but then turns ridiculous when Salander comes off as as an unstoppable Jason Bourne character. Blomkvist is almost perfect in this book making no missteps and again is ahead of the trouble five steps at every turn. Boring. It gets worse when Salander is [SPOILER] shot in the head yet still manages to dig herself out of being buried alive. SHE HAS A HOLE IN HER HEAD FROM A BULLET, IS BURIED ALIVE AND MANAGES TO SUCCESSFULLY DIG HERSELF OUT AND OVERCOME HER ASSAILANTS. Needless to say, I cursed savagely at the book during this moment.That brings me to Book 3, THE GIRL WHO KICKS THE HORNET'S NEST which picks up where WITH FIRE left off, with Salander shot and arrested, Blomkvist on the scene trying to make sure Salander gets fair treatment and the rightful murderer is caught (he gets away) and with Salander's father badly damaged from his battle with Salander (an axe to the face at that!). There was a moment where I felt this book could take a much needed twist with Salander's injuries causing more of a conflict with her and with Blomkvist facing a secret government organization trying to cover their tracks. Nope, both are lame. Salander recovers PERFECTLY - even after a quick line early on that she may not be able to do math anymore because of brain damage, something the previous books established that she loves to do buuuuuttt no. She recovers perfectly and even gets a kindly doctor on her side who helps Blomkvist sneak devices in to her to help with their planned revelation of the government conspiracy which in turn will free her. The government conspirators mobilize against Blomkvist right away, but he figures it out almost immediately and is again five steps ahead of them the ENTIRE TIME. In fact, this plot disappears almost entirely from the mid-section of the book as it takes a superfluous side journey into an adventure involving Berger who after leaving Millennium for a bigger job with an established newspaper, ends up being threatened and stalked by someone WHO IS MAD AT HER FOR IGNORING HIM DURING HIGH SCHOOL (for real) then gets in a mess with her boss when Millennium uncovers some wrong doing on his behalf. So all the fuss about her leaving for the new job results in A) 100 pages of a pointless subplot which corresponds with NOTHING ELSE IN THE BOOK - except for the theme of a strong woman fighting a male power force and B) ends up with her right back at Millennium again with no complications. Salander gets involved in this for no reason, even though she's convalescing and has her own problems to deal with. Shifting my focus on the male antagonist Blomkvist, my biggest problem is the lack of any sort of depth whatsoever to this character. He's always right with like EVERYTHING, five steps of everyone, bull-headed but always successful in easily getting out of scrapes and worst of all, he has sex with every woman he has a close encounter with. The recap (entire series)1) Berger - who is married yet still carries on an open affair with Blomkvist with full knowledge from her cuckold husband. She gets a bit jealous later on when he starts having sex with someone else.2) Salander - Blomkvist hooks up with her in the first book and when he moves on, her entire source of anger with him comes from the fact that he is now sleeping with someone else. The strong female protagonist is weakened by her feelings for this douchebag Blomkvist3) Can't remember name, but one of the women from the family he is helping with his investigation in TATTOO - yeah, nobody wants him there but it doesn't stop one of the women from having sex with him4) The woman he successfully finds in TATTOO he is romantically linked to in FIRE - and then she disappears suddenly, never to be heard from again. Another superfluous element that goes absolutely nowhere.5) Figuerola - the friendly government officer helping him in NEST to reveal the government plot. They end up sleeping together, and she falls in love. They even have an open discussion about how many women he has slept with and she is STILL head-over-heels for him. Yet there is Berger still in the wings, and yes...they have sex a couple of times in NEST.My summation of Blomkvist - a shallow douchebag whose perfect character sucks all the suspense and tension out of the books (the last two more than the first).A screenwriter friend of mine and me have a very good theory as to what went wrong with this series. The author Larsson died before they were published, so to keep his spirit alive there was very little editing done to books that badly needed it. So many superfluous subplots (the newspaper one in this book especially), elements that are introduced but then go absolutely nowhere (like the misogynist cop that vows to bring Salander down but then gets about 5 mentions afterwards) and the antagonists that are pointless because all of them have lost before they even start. Salander and Blomkvist are just that good, so ultimately the question becomes while reading this...who cares? They are so CLEARLY going to get out of it unscathed. There is never any question about that...ever!The one chapter I will give this book credit for is a sequence where Salander's lawyer destroys an evil psychiatrist in court. It's the only interesting and strong section of this book. It's so good it's almost stand-up-and-cheer good. Too bad it's surrounded by pointless fluff.And thus I wash my hands of this very empty reading experience. less

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