The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson (Book)

The Girl Who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson.

Second book of the series and what a ride this one was, simply amazing, engaging and thrilling. There are a very few sequels which actually not only live up to the original but supersede it too. This is one of those books which not only is almost as good as the first one but in a way goes ahead and feels even better than the first one in many ways. Also, almost after every chapter I had a wide grin on my face and missed someone around me with who I could jump and do a Hi5, this was that great. I was like "You go girl and do what you do best, kick some more....". And Stieg Larsson, you take a bow man, why you had to die so soon, you could have given us some more of Lisbeth :(. The way he ends his books I can say now after reading two of them is that the story ends at the very last page of the book and all you have left is the back cover to look at. No epilogue, no conclusions, no cover ups, just 'The End" and you shut the book, even that kept making me ask for more and I kept the third one quite near me in preparation. I am jumping straight to the third as soon as I post this. This I believe this is the third occasion that I am this keen to read the next after Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and Clifton Chronicles (Jeffrey Archer), Any other Book(s) never had this magic on me ever.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo ends and Lisbeth goes on a long long vacation (she becomes a millionaire overnight) and breaks all connections with Mikael Blomkvist. A new journalist at Millennium is about to uncover a dark secret behind the sex trade in Sweden and a lot of people are about to be named, somehow Lisbeth's name gets involved in killing of three people including the journalist. Also, her past comes haunting her and Mikael back and comes big time as every one believes she is not the killer and even Blomkvist believes she is capable of killing but his heart says she wont (even I kept praying). How the reality gets uncovered (shockingly) is just a terrific ride a little deeper inside Lisbeth's life as well as into whats goes on in the world around us. This one was such an amazing page turner that my eyes kept cheating, like I was actually at the top left page and my eyes will go to extreme right in the mid to see whats happening ahead :). Just couldn't control it. Stieg Larsson has a habit of overstretching the stuff to my delight and will never give someone something straight on a platter. For example, a world-class boxer who is a Lisbeth fan (and coach) is about to hit one final blow to a guy, may be killing him but it will take two pages of explanation in between telling us what was going through his head while he hit that final blow.

The first book was about 500 pages long, second one goes ahead and crosses 550 pages and as I type this, just checked and imagine my 32 teeth smile because the last one has about 760 pages of fun to unfold :). Have you read these yet? If yes, you already know how and what I am feeling and if not, Oh Boy! You have no idea what you are missing.

Movie Adaptation: One word - SUPERBAD. Oh My God!! What do I say, three hours and this is what they came out with. What a total crap this movie was. So much wished that Fincher was signed up to do the second and third movie too, this one feels like a B grade movie made for television. Almost a disaster of an adaptation, no background score a all, leaves so much which is desired big time from the book to be told untouched and some characters which aren't even mentioned in the movie. And it goes on for about 3 hours or a little longer :), I had to see it because I just had to, but please ignore if you have read the book as it is such a heart break. I am seriously contemplating not to see the movie after I finish the third and the last book of the series.