The Girl Who Played With Fire: Stieg Larsson: I loved The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by this same author. And I was fully prepared to love this one as much. I didn't. I didn't hate it; I just didn't love it and I'm not sure why. I think it may have been the translation or something, but that doesn't make sense because Reg Keeland translated both novels. I still like the characters, especially Lisbeth Salander. And I liked the story, which revolved around sex trafficking in Sweden. It was also nice the way Lisbeth was forced to confront her past. She becomes less of a shadowy character as we learn more about her in this novel. The language was flat, though, and the dialogue was stilted. Often I'd find myself thinking during conversations, "Oh, please! No real person talks that way!" In some places, this was so bad that I'd be completely thrown out of the story. And there were a couple of things that I'm not really sure why they were in the novel as they weren't related back to the story in any way -- mostly the mathematical equations and Lisbeth's attempt to solve Fermat's Last Theorem. They were interesting but that's all. All that said, I liked this book and am looking forward to The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.
