Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Book Review: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

This week I finished Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and already can't wait to get my hands on the next book in the series. What can I say? I'm sucker for a book series ;-)


If you love murder mysteries, then you are definitely going to love this one. The story takes place in Sweden, which made the story even more interesting because you learn about the culture and country as the story progresses. The main character, Mikael Blomkvist, is a financial journalist and magazine editor who just suffered through a tough libel case at the hands of a financial giant and all around "bad guy". Blomkvist is hired by the head of the Vanger Family, a retired business tycoon in his own right, Henrik Vanger, so solve the 40 year old murder of his niece, Harriet Vanger. From there the story takes an endless array of twists and turns that had me reading every chance I had, especially when it came to the main female character, Lisbeth Salander. She is complicated and unpredictable, exactly what I love in my female protaganist. Lisbeth becomes the key to unlocking the mystery of Harriet Vanger's disappearance 40 years ago.


In Sweden they've already released the movie version of the novel. The trailer looks so good, I'm going to look into renting it:

I was beyond excited to hear that they are going to start filming the American version of the book this October. The main cast has already been decided... James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, will be playing Mikael Blomkvist... Robin Wright is playing Erica Berger, Blomkvist's business partner, best friend, and long-time love interest...
Stellan Skarsgard was chosen to play the role of Martin Vanger, nephew of Henrik Vanger and CEO of the Vanger Corporation... and last but not least, Rooney Mara was chosen to play the role of Lisbeth Salander. Some critics are a dubious as to whether or not she can pull off such a tough and complicated character. Personally, I haven't seen any of her work (however she's in "Social Network" which I'm thinking of checking out), but she looks exactly the way I pictured the character in my head. Of course she'll need Lisbeth's piercings, tattoos, and black punk hair, but I think they hit the money in terms of looks.
Have you read the book yet? What did you think?
Do you like who they chose to play the characters?
Do tell!!

Book image via B&N, cast images via Google Images

2 comments:

Connie @ SogniESorrisi said...

I just watched the Swedish version last night! I really liked the first book, still have to get on the other two and see the other two Swedish movies.

I think the casting looks OK. The Swedish version was pretty faithful to the book. I just hope this new version doesn't veer to far away.

Eli said...

I loved the book also, I'm currently reading the second. I def. will watch that movie :)