The Girl in the Spiders Web is the fourth book in the Millenium Series. If you did not know the original author Stieg Larsson died thirteen years ago but David Lagercrantz was picked up to continue the storyline that Stieg Larsson created.
Since this is the fourth book in the series I am going to be talking about the other books briefly and I want to get into a spoiler discussion on this book so if you do not want to be spoiled for the previous books or this novel I would leave now.
I read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo right after I watched the movie. Normally, I would not have done that but I did not know that it was a book series before watching the film. I remember that my best friend and I wanted to go see a movie together. (This was when the American version with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig came out). I remember seeing the trailer for the movie and how it was this murder mystery with that this punk girl riding around the city on a motorcycle. We were both intrigued and saw the movie. We had no idea that it was rated R or what the majority of the premise of this movie was. It was a shock watching the movie but after exiting the theatre all I wanted to do was run to Walmart to see if they had the book.
Luckly, they did and I immediately started reading it. I remember being so engrossed in this series that I told my grandmother about it. I talked about it so much that she started reading it too.
I remember that when I finished the third book in this series I wanted more. I wanted more mysteries for Salander and Blomkvist to solve. The ending of the third book just left me hanging. I knew that there had to be more books with these characters. That is when I did some digging, found out that Stieg Larrson died, and all the controversy surrounding his partner and the series.
With all of what I read regarding how the family dealt with his estate I really had no interest in continuing with the series. I knew that they were in the process of finding another author to pick up where Stieg Larsson had left the series but I just lost interest. I felt like no one could do Lisbeth and Mikael justice.
Which brings me to now...
Last week I was scrolling through the books on my library app and there was a section that said something like "soon to be movies 2018" so I scrolled through that section. That is when I found The Girl in the Spiders Web. I thought 'There is no way this is happening'. Well I was wrong. They are skipping books two and three to make book four a movie. (I know that there are the Swedish versions of the series and I have watched them. It just seems weird that they are skipping some pretty big events in this series by making book four into a movie.)
Anyway after hearing that there is going to be another movie and that there is a new book, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, I wanted to give this series another chance. I did not have high hopes going in, like I said earlier, no one can do Lisbeth and Mikael like Steig Larsson.
Honestly I was right. This book for me felt hollow.
According to Goodreads I read the original trilogy about four years ago. So I don't remember the small details in the trilogy and I am not sure what I wanted out of this story but I expected more from Lisbeth and Mikael.
On the cover it says A Lisbeth Salander Novel well I don't think that there was much of Salander in the novel. She was brought up more at the end because she was taking care of August but she was not the main person in the novel and neither was Blomkvist. To me it felt like I got more from the cops than I did the two main characters of this series.
I understand that the cops are supposed to be brought up a bit because this book deals with the corruption of the government but it was just to much.
I wanted more interaction from Mikael and Salander. They corresponded very briefly in this novel and it was kind of upsetting. They are supposed to be a team.
A few things that just made me angry:
There is a rape torture scene in this novel that is completely unnecessary. Zander gets raped and tortured by a women whose name is escaping me. (I listened to this book on audio and this was just terrible.) I did not want to go back and listen to find her name.
There is a scene at the end of the book where a man was talking about how drunk him and his partner were and how he had sex with her so many times. (Very Uncomfortable to sit through. Completely unnecessary.)
This next bit did not make me angry per se but I just do not understand why it was done this way. What I am talking about is that in this book the author announces characters like Lisbeth and Mikael; telling the readers who they are and what they do. This is book four in a series I do not need the author to reiterate for me that Mikael is a journalist at Millenium Magazine and that Lisbeth is this renowned hacker.
The last thing that really got to me, I touched on this earlier, is that Mikael and Lisbeth do not meet again until the end of the book. This to me is very infuriating for a few reasons, the first is that they are the main characters of this series they should meet up more than once. I get that this story dealt with being under the radar but still. The second reason that this made me mad is because the ending felt like the same ending from the third book. I remember at the end of the third book they finally meet up again and they agree to be friends and to hear the same ending almost for this book is just irritating.
After I finished this book I was super excited to start the next one. I guess I was just on a book high or something but now that I think about it more I do not want to. I have also seen some of the reviews for this next book and they are not good.
I don't think I ever mentioned this but I gave this book
2 stars.
So there are all my rambly thoughts on this book and the soon to be movie. I have no idea if I am going to see the movie or not. I am going to wait and watch trailers for the movie. Then I'm going to decide.
If you have read this book let me know what you thought.
I hope you have a great day.
~Mariah
