Working in the circulation department at the library, it is an understatement to say that I see a lot of adult fiction go through, and I would have to say that probably 95% of it looks mediocre at best. You have your stereotypical crime dramas, court room dramas, family dramas, romances, and chick lit, most of which seems to be cranked out weekly by a monkey on a mimeograph. I mean the new James Patterson book has 246 requests on it right now. 246! This is also the third book that has been published this year with his name on it, and I realize he has people who write this stuff for him, but it's May. May! How good could these books POSSIBLY be?
That being said, I just finished reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson, and I am having trouble finding the words to adequately express how impressed and awed I am right now. Lisbeth Salander is the most bad ass female character ever. The Millennium Trilogy was excellent from its start to its untimely finish, and, I will only say this once, I wish there were more books. And it isn't even that I just want another story just because apparently Larsson was planning on writing more before he died in 2004, but I really feel like there is more to Salander's character, and I'm slightly bitter that I don't get to know her any better than these three books allow. Steig Larsson is really truly a marvel. He keeps the essential tension and the suspense going throughout all of his story arcs, and there are a lot of them. All necessary. All playing into one another. He develops even his most minor characters, but his main characters, good lord, have heaps upon heaps of layers and flaws and... man. I feel like with these three novels he elevated the genre of crime drama to a high art. These books are so good, and they will be some of my favorites, and recommended to library patrons for a long long time.
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