by Stieg Larsson – While I am late to the Larsson-appreciation party, I am so glad not to have missed it. I resisted reading this book for more than 2 years, not wanting to read it just because “everyone else” was. (I’m no lemming, dammit! I’m a nonconformist! I mean, I knit things by hand and read actual paper books!) I had no information about this novel beyond that it was the first of a trilogy… one that might have become more if Larsson had not died after writing the third one. From the title, I thought it might be a YA post-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy, and I was already reading enough of that. (Like you could ever read “enough” of any genre? What the hell was I thinking??)
Then, this year, I had read and heard enough reviews from people whose book choices I respected that the scale tipped from the “skip it” to the “read it” side, and I waded in. I was prepared to dive, but the truth is that it starts slowly. I was 100 pages in before I had figured out what the main plot was going to be. (In fairness, the genre question was straightened out by the jacket copy, so I knew I was getting into a crime novel of sorts.) I’m used to “modern” books that begin in media res, so the rather old-fashioned pace of this novel took a little adjustment of my mental meter. Once I did that, I was hooked.
This truly is a fine read, one that you shouldn’t miss. Just be patient with the book and resist the urge to skip ahead. You will get a nice payoff on your investment.(finished 4/6/11)
