Review of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire

Introduction: Review of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Plus On Stieg Larsson

I am doing something a little different with this book review. First, it’s two reviews in one, the first two parts of a trilogy by Stieg Larsson: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. Second, I am focusing on the lessons that we can learn from these books because it’s true that art does imitate life.

I don’t like hype, and any book that too many people are talking about I try to avoid them, but for some reason I relented and read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. At 841 pages this is not a short book. Over the Internet many were saying that this was a book that they could not put down, but I did when I had things to do. There are other books that I have read that I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. because I just had to know how it ended. For me, this wasn’t any of those books. The Girl Who Played With Fire weighed in at 724 pages, not that much shorter.

What Are The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire About?

Now having said that, I enjoyed both The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire. They are filled with events that are commonplace on the news today. Deception, manipulation, murder, incest, greed, infidelity, corporate misbehavior, ethical dilemmas, abuse of power, vigilante behaviour, bullying, you name it, you will find it in the books. The characters are well developed and believable.

I am an active reader, so when I read fiction I become involved in the story, which isn’t always a good thing. I found myself having a love-hate relationship with Lisbeth Salander, one of the key characters. Lisbeth has a photographic memory and is an A-List hacker. She loves to be in control and doesn’t want to be controlled so she hacks into people’s computer to know what they are up to, and she often acts on what she finds out.

What I liked about her is that she lives fall down seven times get up eight, so she teaches us how to persevere. She has a singular focus which is good in some situations and deadly in others. When she needs to learn something new, she sticks with it until she attains mastery. She often likes to go it alone and  has her own moral code, which we all should have, but her moral code is often very different from most other people. She also hasn’t learned the lesson that we all need a support network and does most things by herself. I can understand her going it alone because she has been terribly hurt many times in her young life.

But, at some point we have to learn to forgive, are there people in your life that you need to forgive. In Jamaica where I grew up, I often heard that you should forgive and forget, but is that wise? I do believe that it’s important to forgive, but if you forget, does that mean you risk forgetting the key lessons as well? And if you are likely to forget the lessons, will you keep on making the same mistakes?

I also had a for-against relationship with Mikael Blomkvist another lead character. I like that he is loyal to his friends and will fight for them if they were victimized or wrongfully accused, and is someone that I’d like to have in my support network. He will fight for what he believes in. I dislike his womanizing ways, but that is a reality of life, and also the best characters are those who have vices. Who wants to read a book filled with Mr. and Mrs. Goodie-Two-Shoes. For those who read this blog where English is not your first language, Goodie-Two-Shoes is an expression used when talking about people who are a little bit too perfect or a little bit too good (“Someone who always does what's right and not what they're supposed to do” Urban Dictionary).

After I finished reading both books, I was grateful for my life, my family and my friends and appreciated them a lot more. I also tweeted: “Finished “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” Is it okay to suppress the truth if it will hurt someone who's been victimized?” Here are some keys lessons that I was reminded of:

Lessons from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire

1. No one ever achieves spectacular success alone
2. Your chances for success are greater if you have stick-to-itiveness
3. Develop a moral code of conduct so that when situations arise you know how to respond
4. Life is not simply black or white, but shades of gray, yellow, orange, red, you name it
5. Two wrongs do not equate to a right
6. Be there for friends during sunshine and rain
7. Pick your battles and if something is really important to you, stand up for what you believe in
8. No family is perfect

Final Thoughts: Review of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire

I recommend that you read both The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire (Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Series Set: (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) (The Girl Who Played with Fire) (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) (Millennium Trilogy)), though they are so long because there are many potent lessons embedded in them.

Have you read?

The Hunger Games is This Year’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Catching Fire and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, Book Review

Additional Reading

Blog Security: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Scares Me Into Taking It Seriously

Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Deluxe Boxed Set: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Plus On Stieg LarssonThe Stieg Larsson Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / The Girl Who Played with Fire / The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) [Blu-ray]