The Millennium series by Stieg Larsson

Here is my first ever review of a whole series, instead of one book out of the series. I chose the Millennium series specifically because it lends itself best to being reviewed as a whole instead of by its individual parts. Often, books in a series can be reviewed individually because they stand alone well, which in this case is only true with The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. In fact, the book stands alone so well that American filmmakers didn't bother to make any more movies after the movie based on this book (it could be, however, due to poor revenue generation). It starts out with a very in-depth introduction to Mikael Blomkvist and his legal woes. Honestly, the book progresses a little slowly. Then Lisbeth Salander is introduced, and you start to wonder "what do these two characters have to do with each other?" The characters of Salander and Blomkvist become well-established and develop throughout the first book, which is only deepened through the following two. By the end of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest the characters have changed and grown, which is a mark of a good writer.

Where The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo can easily stand alone as its own story, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest are dependent on each other. In fact, I felt the third book was merely an extension of the second, chopped into its own book. Throughout these two books, we follow Blomkvist and Salander as their paths cross again and intrigues in Sweden. The third book did drag on a bit and got a little political for my tastes, however.

Despite the obvious plot lines in the books (murder, social ruin, corporate corruption) there is an over-arching theme of feminism that I couldn't help but notice and appreciate. Topics of physical and sexual abuse toward women, sexual discrimination/harassment, and sex trafficking weave themselves throughout and become major topics in the main plot lines. Larsson also intersperses quotes and statistics about violence against women throughout the books. The focus on feminist topics lends itself to the development of Lisbeth Salander's character, changing the reader's perspective on a character that is first introduced as somewhat violent and antisocial.

Overall, the Millennium series is an engrossing read. Also, the original Swedish movies are incredibly well done, if lacking a lot of the incredible detail that Larsson packed into his novels (there is a lot of historical background and all of the characters have chapters developed to their own pasts).



Each book individually rated 5 stars on Goodreads