The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Audio Book
By Stieg Larsson
Read by Simon Vance
Rating: 7 of 10
Local Library

Warning: This book contains some very disturbing scenes of violence against women.

I picked up this book because I was seeing it everywhere.  I didn’t know what I was getting myself into.  I just thought I needed a book that was more narrative than didactic.  I was reading too many how-to ministry books.  What I got was an audio book that kept me sitting in my car seat in the parking lot or garage wishing that my drive had been longer.

Larsson tells the tale of an outcast young woman and a fringe journalist who team up to solve a most perplexing missing person case only to end up stumbling into much deeper and nastier water than they ever expected.  The pace is a little slow at times, but the narrative is so well written that I didn’t mind the slow pace at all.  I actually even appreciated it.

I’m not sure there is a lot to this book that is of much more value than entertainment, except for the author’s unflinching gaze at the violence that is perpetuated on women in Sweden and presumably in the West in general.  I did not find his description of this violence to be intended for entertainment value, but rather to produce in the reader a visceral reaction that might motivate us to consider these issues more fully.  The only problem with his approach is that the situations these women find themselves in are so over-the-top unusual, which is not to say unthinkable or unrealistic, that we are tempted to think that this kind of violence probably isn’t happening in our neighborhood and so we can ignore it.  Meanwhile too many women are abused by their husbands both verbally and physically ever day in the house next door.

If you’ve experienced some kind of physical abuse in the past, this may not be the book for you.  If you’re looking for a story that will keep your riveted to your car seat in the garage, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is worth your time to listen to or read.

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