4.5 stars out of 5

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth Salander was not the central character; she played a vital role, but the book was more about Mikael Blomkvist figuring out a mystery. In this second book, the focus is decidedly on Salander. There is still a mystery for Blomkvist (and the reader) to figure out, but the emphasis is much more on Lisbeth and her past. Lisbeth is not a likable person; as one of the characters says, she shows some traits of a person with Aspberger's, but she also has traits that blow that diagnosis out of the water. She has almost no emotional affect, and is ruthlessly cruel to people she views as her enemies. But strangely, we want to cheer for her - partly because her enemies are horrible, horrible people.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story - right up to the very end. But that ending, which leaves most everything unresolved, is what makes me give the book less than five stars.

Excellent follow-up to the first book. Salander's mysterious background is finally revealed, and the mystery develops more and more layers as the novel progresses. There's an implicit critique of misogyny, the police force, and the media circuses that develop around sensational cases. The book ended on quite the cliffhanger--I can't wait to move on to the third installment.

I read the first book in this series and enjoyed it. Although it had some disturbing things in it, they were kept in the background and the mystery was the main objective. This next book brought those things to the forefront, however, and I just can't read two more books about women being abused by men at this time. Perhaps I will try to read this book at some later date, but not now. For now I shall choose lighter books. :)

This second book focuses more on Lisbeth Salander, which I loved, and introduces newer characters. I agree that this book drags a bit, especially in the middle, but the ending has a great cliffhanger. Not as good as the first book but still good.

I couldn't stop reading it. It was even better than the first one.

A bittersweet read. This was the best of the 3 books, but author Larsson's death means that I will never meet Camilla in the next trilogy. People who only saw the movies are at least blissfully ignorant of Camilla's existence.

Of the three books of Stieg's trilogy, like the movie (the Swedish version, that is) not the best, but definitely worth the read. This one ties the first and final together, while fleshing out the character of Lisbeth Salander, and explaining the background of her menacious father, a required part of the story.

I started with this, the second book in the series, as I had already seen the film version of the first book. I enjoyed this book, but it is very wordy and at times overly detailed and dull, and I didn't get into it until late in the second half. I still want to read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" even though I saw the movie to see if it would help tie everything together.

This was a great sequel. As a previous reader commented, the beginning was slow and really unnecessary. The author used 75 pages to say what could have been done in 10.

However, once you get to around page 100, you will not be able to put this book down. When you finish it, you will race to the library and kick yourself because you forgot to put the third book on hold, and will seriously consider just buying it because you won't be able to wait 2-3 days for your book to come in!

This book continued to keep me enthralled with Lisbeth and Michael...again a well written plot that I didn't want to stop reading. Now for the final volume in the story.