The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

Earlier this year I read THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and became completely immersed into the story of murder and financial intrigue, which, if I'm honest, kind of surprised me. This second book in the Millennium Trilogy is much different than the first. While THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO was mostly centered around Mikael Blomkvist, this installment takes us into the life of Lisbeth Salander and her past that she tries desperately to keep private.

Here's a quick synopsis from THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE . . .

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. Two Millennium journalists about to expose the truth about the sex trade in Sweden are brutally murdered, and Salander's prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her anywhere. Meanwhile, Mikael Blomkvist, editor-in-chief of Millennium, will not believe what he hears on the news. Knowing Salander to be fierce when fearful, he is desperate to get to her before she is cornered and alone. As he fits the pieces of the puzzle together, he comes up against some hardened criminals, including the chainsaw-wielding 'blond giant' - a fearsomely huge thug who can feel no pain. Digging deeper, Blomkvist also unearths some heart-wrenching facts about Salander's past life. Committed to psychiatric care aged 12, declared legally incompetent at 18, this is a messed-up young woman who is the product of an unjust and corrupt system. Yet Lisbeth is more avenging angel than helpless victim - descending on those that have hurt her with a righteous anger terrifying in its intensity and truly wonderful in its outcome.

My thoughts:

I'll just cut to the chase and state right here that I LOVED this book! Although I did enjoy the first book very much, I did grow tired of all of the character development and background information regarding all of the suspects surrounding the disappearance of Harriet Vanger some sixty years previous. But I hung in there and was completely satisfied with the outcome. The biggest contrast with this second book is that the character of Lisbeth Salander is front and center from the very beginning. It doesn't take long at all for things to start happening and once they do, it is a suspenseful ride filled with great characters and plot twists.

What I found impressive was that even though Salander is being hunted for murdering two people who were working closely with Blomkvist, the two of them don't actually come into contact until the last part of the book. But that doesn't mean they aren't involved with each other. I loved the way Larrson wrote this book. It completely had me from the beginning and didn't let go. It is hands down my favorite of the two books.

If you are one of those people who really had a hard time getting through book #1, I promise you won't have that problem with THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE. It is edge-of-your-seat thrilling from beginning to end. I'm very much looking forward to the third book, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS NEST. I'm planning to read it the first of the year. I resisted reading this series when it first came out because I usually don't get sucked into books with such

hype and mass popularity but my curiosity got the better of me and I can honestly say I'm really glad I made the exception. These books are definitely in my top 5 for 2010.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

Stieg Larsson

Publisher: Vintage

Version: Paperback

Published: March 2010

Pages: 630

Grade: A+

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

I recently had an interesting conversation with my friend, who also happens to be my boss. He's always reading interesting books. Mostly non-fiction, current event stuff, including politics and environmental issues. And an occasional biography. He mentioned to me a website he came across called http://www.ted.com/. Its a very interesting site that has an area called 'Talks' where people from all over the world are given 20 mnutes or so to share their ideas in front of a live audience and to the internet audience. Some speakers have been Al Gore talking about the climate change, Stephen Hawking, who spoke about his area of interest in space and Bono on his ONE campaign to fight AIDS in Africa and many others. You could spend hours on this site listening to these and other very interesting people. But the person who really stood out was Dave Eggers. A writer, teacher, magazine publisher and co-founder of a non-profit tutoring facility who cares alot about educating our nations children. His talk is called 'Once Upon A School'. Even though its been on TED for awhile, I felt like its worth mentioning. I could go on and on telling you about it, but instead I will put the link here and encourage you to take 20 minutes and watch his award-winning talk. Its interesting, thought provoking and entertaining. If you care about educating children, you will really enjoy it and what he and others have done to help students that normally might not have been able to excel in their studies.

One of the many accomplishments of these facilities is the publication of several books written by students who attend these tutoring facilities. The first book in the series was published in 2001 called WAITING TO BE HEARD. It's a collection of essays, poems, fictional stories and even personal experiences from 39 students speaking out against local, national and worldwide violence, from their point of view. I had a chance to flip thru this book briefly and I saw enough to know that I want to read it. I hope you'll take a minute to listen to the talk. I believe it'll be time well spent, especially if you're a parent.