Getting My Pretentious Snob On

I don't make it a habit to usually review books on this blog, since I do that on Amazon, but I couldn't resist this one. Beware- there's a good chance I'm going to come off as a pretentious snob. Oh well.

Awhile ago I bought Stieg Larsson's The Girl who/with Blablablabla trilogy on a curious whim, accepting the fact it may be pulpy but desperately hoping that just maybe modern literature could welcome a quality mystery writer (they're so hard to come by these days). Unfortunately, after 465 pages, I wasn't terribly impressed.

It was definitely entertaining, and I even found myself slightly attached to feisty Lizbeth (you know, the girl with the dragon tattoo). It was a very quick read, straightforward, and set in Sweden, which was interesting setting. It made me want to keep reading in the same way Gossip Girl made my buy yet another season (and there goes my credibility).

Now I'm through being nice. The plot was incredibly predictable, the characters were flat, and the writing was barely mediocre. When I read a mystery novel I want to be tricked and teased- I figured out the major "ah ha" moment very early on, despite hoping to be wrong. The dialogue was forced, the exposition was sloppy, and the sex scenes were disappointingly awkward. The writing as a whole was barely mediocre, and while I'd like to blame the translator, I'm thinking that would be probably be unfair.

I should have known that after it hung out at the top of the bestseller lists for months, and when a billion people reviewed and loved it on Amazon, that I probably should have stayed away. I know Larsson is dead, and while I sincerely hope he's frolicking in green fields with naked maidens, I think he could have done this story better. And that is why, as soon as I want a break from the types of books I usually read, I will read the others (mostly because I already bought them, thanks to Amazon's enticingly cheap bundle pack).

You've been warned.