I did enjoy some of this book but was left at the end confused and disappointed. While a fun read, there were too many problems for me to recommend this book to anyone. It seemed like the book had a lot of potential it didn't live up to, maybe due to the authors inexperience or lack of a good editor. Possibly a problem with my kindle edition but the editing was poor, particularly transitions in POV. Several times I had to back up and re-read a section to understand what had happened. I also could not buy into the way the main character was presented as naive, misguided, but not really a bad person. To have accomplished what he did, and to take the specific steps he did, it is impossible to believe he didn't understand the negative consequences of his actions on the people around him, and the harm he could be causing. The religious aspects of the book were unclear and poorly executed. In parts it seemed God was an active force in the book, but the main character was left untouched. If the author's intention was for us to consider what was real and what was not, the result was merely confusing and not thought provoking. In the end even a farce or satire must have some impact on the characters, but I was left I unsatisfied. What had changed? How were the characters impacted by the events in the book? I felt the author couldn't decide what he wanted the book to be, or was trying to force it to be a certain style, at the expense of what could have been a very interesting story. Unless our conclusion is supposed to be that religion is completely meaningless and nothing we do matters as long as we are nice even when we deceive people, then maybe he succeeded and I missed the bigger picture.
Such a gripping story, so hard to read I had to put this book down several times but so vital and I will definitely be reading the rest of this trilogy. I loved how clever this book was, whilst I did guess at some point what the twist was, this book constantly made me doubt myself. OK onto the reasons I couldn't give this book a full 5 stars, I found the start of this book very monotonous and boring, I had to get to page 150 or so to actually start enjoying this book, honestly if this book wasn't one of my mum's favourite books I probably would have DNF'd it. The end of this book felt kind of unneeded and the last 100 pages felt like an extremely long epilogue. The last thing, that I think is just a me thing, is that how the hell did Blomkvist have ALL these girls going after him, he doesn't seem to have the best personality and it's never once mentioned that he had amazingly good looks. Don't get it. Thanks.
driven more by atmosphere than plot or character; like a magic trick, its joy is in the performance, not the mechanics or complexities behind the spectacle. i like more analysis of internality and societal context than this book is interested in, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do.
P- 5. Gripping the whole way through. E- 5. Read the entire book in 24 hours. A- 4.5. Lovely writing as always. Occasionally had to reread something to really get it. C- 5. Loved all the characters and got even more backstory on several in this book. H- 5. Excellent read, maybe even better than the first book.
I really enjoyed this, though can see why people both love and hate Didion. It's very mannered and dismissive, which is fun to read but also a little acidic. It doesn't make me feel more connected to people, let's put it that way.
His other books are far better. This has the feel of fakeness, reaching out to 30 something's who drink Starbucks each day and want to feel as if they are saying deep things....