Summer Reading - Impression

Reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo series was one of the most incredible and memorable reads of my life. I have never come across books like these and want nothing more than to keep reading them until the very last page. Let me start off with the first book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I had no idea what to expect from the series at all besides that it was a mystery. But I didn't know what that meant and I certainly never expected it to be as incredible as it actually was. The first book truly was a mystery, as a young girl disappeared decades ago and was never found. Her grandfather wanted to know who murdered her and what happened, so he hired a journalist by the name of Mikael Blomkvist and then along came Lisbeth Salander. Together they became involved in a family filled with years of hidden and dark secrets and risked their own lives in order to solve the disappearance. But these books are not your normal cliche mystery books. They are in a league of their own, no matter how well I try to describe the books, I won't even begin to do them justice. You have to read them to understand their complexity, wit, and chilling details. As soon as I had finished the first book I knew that I had to read The Girl Who Played With Fire, and that I did.

Lisbeth Salander

As soon as I began reading the second book I could already tell that is was much different from the first. The book picked up a few months later and began with the relaxed lives of the main characters. But as the book continued it turned into a twisted murder plot, a prostitution ring, and a man known only by the name "Zala." Right off the bat two journalist that worked with Mikael Blomkvist were murdered, and shortly thereafter Lisbeth's legal guardian was also killed. Immediately evidence was found that implicated Lisbeth for all of the murders. And so the hunt for her began. Her face was plastered all around Sweden, she was being portrayed as a deranged and physco killer with a dark past. I loved that the book dived into these murders straight away. I myself was sucked into wanting to know if Lisbeth was responsible for the murders. What I think the author did amazingly well was portray to the readers a Lisbeth that we all know and love and deep down believe that there is no way she was the killer, yet are strung along with the police in the investigation of her as a suspect.

I don't want to give away too much of the book, because it is an absolute must read. But I will say that the book was very unexpected and my mom was right, mystery was the perfect word to describe it. I never knew what was going to happen next, who was going to believe Lisbeth was the killer and who was going to defend her. But it was so much more than that, Lisbeth's past began to unsurface, which we had never learned about before. As we began to look into her past we realized that darkness that came along with it and things that I had never even thought possible. You saw how much this poor girl had been through in her life and why she would be the way she is today. You feel sorry for her, you want her to prevail in the story and seek the revenge that she so deserves.

With that being said, I thought the ending was absolutely brilliant and could never have been predicted. Books that keep you on your toes and shock you, are the best ones because they are unpredictable in the best way possible. The ending was a cliffhanger if I've ever seen one and left me hoping for the best. I couldn't wait to read the third and final book, The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. Currently I am reading the third book which has given me a lot of insight on the past two. What sets the first book a part from the second is exactly what my mom said, it focuses on the main characters personal lives and a mystery of their own, rather than the searching of someone else's.

I would recommend this book to everyone, no matter what their interests are. It will keep you guessing till the very end, make you want to read until you've uncovered the mystery, and shock you with every page you turn. These are some of the best books that I have ever read and suck you into the captivating world of a young woman who is anything but ordinary.