The Girl Who Played with Fire (Vintage)

Splendid! (2010-07-30) : 5/5
Best book I've read in a long time, very well written, intriguing and kept me up to 3:00 AM. Loved all the trilogy books and plan to see #3 in the theater, Just do it!
It was okay (2010-07-30) : 3/5
I did not find this as enthralling as the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I loved the Vangar Family Saga.
It kept bogging down in the story line but I plodded on. I just did not "devour" it.
Was glad when it ended. Would not read again, but it was Ok enough that I will eventually read the sequel. It just won't be next in line. :)
stieg larsson books (2010-07-30) : 5/5
another in the 'the girl who...' series by stieg larsson. great book; great price ranges from amazon.com. highly recommend amazon.com for books - used and new.
How did this guy find a publisher? (2010-07-29) : 3/5
Is it an entertaining book - Yes. Is it a good story - Fair. Should it be in the Best Seller List - Hardly.
I bought the first book because I wanted to know what readers found interesting these days. The second one I bought to see if the writing would get any better. To me it was like looking at a Cabbage Patch doll and wondering why every kid in America wanted one. I bought the Kindle version, so I can only take the word of those that acquired the actual book that there are really 600 plus pages. If so, at least 300 are unnecessary. My biggest problem with this book is you have to make notes to figure out who all these characters are. The author writes as if he thinks everybody knows them. Sometimes I would get down a full page and then find out I had been reading about somebody I thought all along was somebody else. Was that Bjorck or Bjurman? Or was it Blomkvist? Even recalling them as Be-jork and Be-jurman didn't help. How do you pronounce 'Blomk'? I can't make my mind do it, much less my mouth. And as for the names? Most Americans reading this book will have problems remembering names that defy all attempts at pronunciation. There were so many characters with so many strange names and they were thrown in the story like sprinkles over sugar cookies. It would have helped if there had been a character glossary to go back to every few minutes to figure out who was who? Finally, his style is sloppy to the point that I do not believe a credible publisher would have published this. My question is, how did this book get published?
3.5-Thrilling page-turner that does not live up to its predecessor (2010-07-29) : 3/5
After recently reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," I was so intrigued by its storyline and characters that I immediately picked up the next book in the trilogy. Overall, I liked it very much and it certainly kept me turning pages for hours on end! As with the first book in the trilogy, the story is very slow to get started. Once it did get going (after Part I and well into Part II), it definitely held my attention. Again, Larsson fills this crime novel with excellent plot twists (a couple of which were a total surprise to me) and many suspenseful sequences of events, leading up to a very thrilling conclusion.

For those of you who have read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo": if the character of Lisbeth Salander at all piqued your interest, then read "The Girl Who Played with Fire"--it is ultimately her story this time around, and Larsson further develops her history and character.

If you did enjoy the first book in the trilogy, you should be aware that this second book treats the plot development much differently, as most of it is written much more along the lines of a police procedural crime novel. I actually preferred the storyline of the first book; it seemed a more inventive to me.

I ended up giving the book 3.5 (I would give a half star in my rating if Amazon allowed that!) stars instead of four because while I was thoroughly entertained by this book, as I said, I preferred the first book a bit more. Also, I felt it was unnecessary for the author to continually refer to the events that Mikael and Lisbeth went through in the first book, since most readers probably read Book 1 in the trilogy first. If you're a fan of police procedural crime fiction and are itching to discover the secrets of Lisbeth's past, then read Book 2--you won't be disappointed.