The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

   So I am pretty sure you've heard the hype or at least recognize the cover or title of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so I am here to reaffirm what people literally around the world have been saying. This book is good. Suck you in, forget about life, ignore your baby good. As you know I tend to do a lot more listening and less reading than the typical person. Actually I am going to correct that because I bet in a "bad reading year" for me I read at least triple (probably more like 10 times. minimum) the average number of books as the majority of Americans. Forget that. I listen a ton and read read a little less. This book I bought (kindle edition) last Wednesday and finished it tonight. Like I said, ignore the world good. Often I avoid the crazy popular titles and then eventually give in to see what the fuss is about and am usually happily surprised. Think Twilight series, Harry Potter. There's probably more. And occasionally I read a book just prior to the craze and make sure everyone knows. Yes. It IS important to me that I read a "great book" before everyone else had ever heard of it.

I'm not really going to say much about the plot of the book because I went into it knowing pretty much nothing other than the title. I did find the title to be an interesting choice because it's pretty eye (ear?) catching but Stieg only refers to that specific tattoo like once. But, yes, there is a girl with a dragon tattoo. I will put out the disclaimer that there are some graphic/disturbing scenes. Depending on your personal level of tolerance, extremely graphic portions. Other than that the last book I was so thoroughly sucked into was the 1980 publication Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel. A "prehistorical" novel whose follow-ups digressed from the highly interesting (someone did their research) and entertaining first book (Cave Bear) into the interesting but less and less realistic, almost romance novel, The Valley of Horses. I didn't make it past that one (mostly because I borrowed the first 2 and made no effort to seek out the last 2). Anyway, the dude was about 6 weeks old at the time (so time frame was almost exactly 1 year ago) and let's just say there was a LOT of feeding/holding/laying next to sleeping (maybe crying) baby with book in hand.