The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Played With Fire is quite unlike most books I have read. Though written primarily for adults, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Stieg Larsson's factual, but surprisingly descriptive writing, great characterization and voice, as well as gripping plot clearly have contributed to this book's success as a bestseller. The Girl Who Played With Fire is sequel to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and centers more around the most memorable character from the series, Lisbeth Salander, the misunderstood, ironically declared "incompetent", computer genius. I enjoyed T.G.W.P.W. Fire more than first book of its series because the story began and didn't stop until the very end unlike The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo where Larsson took a very long time to introduce his characters' and premise. In The Girl Who Played With Fire, Millenium magazine is about to publish the most shocking exposé on the sex trade in all of Switzerland's history but a shocking, triple murder has the exposé sliding to a halt. The stakes are heightened, Lisbeth's face is splashed across all the newspapers in Switzerland as the prime suspect in not one but three murders. Nobody knows where Lisbeth is, but Mikael Blomkivist, Millenium co-founder and financial journalist turned detective, is convinced of Salander's innocence. Throughout the book, Salander's murky past is revealed and she is forced to face it. Those parts especially were masterfully written and appealed to the audience emotionally. One problem I have with this novel is a few places which I considered a bit dry but other sections were downright amazing. All in all, I really couldn't put this book down until I saw the end of it and when I finished I was sorely tempted to run to Barnes and Noble then and there. Larsson did a very good job of progressing through the story by switching points of view to many characters instead of one or two. The result wasn't eclectic as one might think but instead added an interest and created a well-rounded piece. Because of Larsson's choice in writing sections from unlikable character's points of view, it made me react more strongly to what was happening and what they were saying. This book was extremely amazing but parts of the book had language that was strong and offensive and scenes that are frightening and mature, because of this, I would not recommend this to others until they are in high school. Though, this is not surprising as The Girl Who Played With Fire is written for adults. Overall, an amazing book and a series that is definitely worthwhile and written masterfully but is probably best if saved for the future.