I have a confession to make: I am a cultural phenomenon whore. If a book, movie, game, artist or trend is getting a lot of attention in the media, I have to know all about it. It’s like a compulsion. Sometimes, the results of said compulsion are great: Harry Potter, Halo, and Percy Jackson are a few that come to mind. Sometimes, I waste hours of my life I can never get back: Twilight (and subsequently, The Host), Spiderman 2 & 3, Uncharted 2, and now The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I had been resisting this one for a long time because it just didn’t interest me. But then I got my Entertainment Weekly with this book plastered throughout, and I was all “Alright, I get it! I will check it out!” Sigh…and then I wasted more hours of my life. I gave it a valiant effort, really, I did! I made it all the way to 40% before I wanted to claw my eyeballs out. The level of benign detail in this book was unlike anything I have ever read. The final straw for me was when I had to read about what computer programs one of the main characters was using. I mean, really?? Isn’t this a murder mystery?? Blah.
Anyway, from what I hear, I stopped reading just before “it got good” at 50%. But IMO, 50% is WAY too long for a world-wide phenom to get good. I read books on a daily basis that suck me in from start to finish, that make me ignore everything around me (including my poor husband and dog) and you will never see them on a best-seller list. So what is it about this book that has the whole world smitten? Are people too scared to go against the grain and admit that at least the first half was torture? Or am I just too shallow to appreciate the level of detail necessary to describe 47 family members who may have committed murder? I just don’t get it. Thoughts?