Journal Entry 1 by Fantasma from Carnaxide, Lisboa (distrito) Portugal on Wednesday, December 03, 2008

"Forty years ago, Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering on the island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger clan. Her body was never found, yet her uncle is convinced it was murder - and that the killer is a member of his own tightly knit but dysfunctional family. He employs disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist and the tattooed, truculent computer hacker Lisbeth Salander to investigate. When the pair link Harriet's disappearance to a number of grotesque murders from forty years ago, they begin to unravel a dark and appalling family history. But the Vangers are a secretive clan, and Blomkvist and Salander are about to find out just how far they are prepared to go to protect themselves."
(amazon.co.uk)

Bought on my holidays in Prague :) 

Journal Entry 2 by Fantasma from Carnaxide, Lisboa (distrito) Portugal on Monday, February 01, 2010

So, this book and the next 2 in the trilogy have been long talked about and the hype was great, maybe a bit because the author died suddenly in 2004, and he planned to write 10 books in the series.
I liked it, but I was expecting something extraordinary so it was a bit far from my expectations. It takes a while to the story to unravel, the 1st 150 pages are really slow and not quite that interesting, in fact I'm still trying to understand what the all Mikael story with the businessman had to do with the rest and what did it bring to the story! The end was bad because of that, the "real" story ended 50 pages before the book ended and we are left with the "framing the businessman as I was rigth from the begginning" part.
Anyway, apart from that, the story is interesting and well written, the caracters believable and most of them (almost all!)quite unlikeable, it's not difficult to picture one of them as Harriet's killer. It has some fast paced scenes, some slower ones, the investigation seems real and possible and some of the twists are good, but it stays far from other mystery/thriller books that I've read in the past (and I've read a lot of those ;))
I didn't exactly like Blomkvist, I can't see what women see in him as there was nothing that fancied me, that passed to this side of the book. Lisbeth is very interesting but maybe a bit exaggerated, and I didn't like her either... a little of pity, but nothing more.
Loved the gory scenes! Maybe it's the best I can say about the book.