Review: The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I had no idea that this series had been continued after the initial 3 books.  I was intrigued to find that another author, David Lagercrantz, had picked up where Stieg Larsson left off with the world of Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.  Like Larsson's original works, this book is long. I listened to it on audio book and I believe it was over 13 hours so it took me quite a while to get through it.

This book is all over the place, there are so many characters and each one has a backstory. I kept listening to all the character development and there was no plot for quite some time. It takes until about halfway through the book until the stories start to come together and there is actually a plot starting to form. In the past there was always a story Blomkvist was trying to write and Lisbeth was helping him in some way. Lisbeth unnervingly absent in the book. The title is misleading because this book is not about her at all, she really only makes a cameo in the book in my opinion. You can't title a book The Girl in the Spider's Web, and leave the girl out of 75% of the book. You can tell that someone else is writing the book as the original characters and style of writing is very different.

The relationships between the characters is also different as if the writer just didn't want to write the grown up stuff.  Sex was present in the previous books, not that it Larsson wrote erotica or adult romance novels, but he didn't shy away from it either.  Lagercrantz just skirts the subject and kind of just dances around the relationships that previously existed.  Lisbeth was very much bisexsual in the last book and in a somewhat committed relationship at the end, that is no longer exists but it is not explained away either just Lisbeth is Lisbeth so she can't have a relationship.  Her character is still surly and socially inept as ever but she just isn't the same character you've come to expect from the previous books.  She isn't as vibrant and present as she used to be, I wanted more of her and was left wanting.  Blomkvist is well done and is mostly the same.  The rest of the returning characters are actually a little more developed than they maybe were previously, even if they are only supporting roles.

I got quite the education on autism, savants, hacking, and other topics. These topics were well researched which I appreciated, but the information was repeated many times throughout the book and I feel could have been delivered once or twice and had the same impact.  The repetitive nature of explaining the autistic boy, August's ability to draw and his autistic condition, over and over filled up too much of the book and took away from the story in my opinion.  There should have been more action, drama, and suspense.  The book ended with too many plot holes and unresolved information.  To tell you what is left unresolved would spoil the plot if you've not read the book.  This leaves the series open for more books, but I'm not sure I'm drawn to find out what happens next.

While I don't think David Lagercrantz did a bad job or is a poor writer, I think he would have been better off writing something new and of his own invention instead of trying to carry on the series.  It isn't the same, its not terrible by any means.  I give him credit for trying, but this just wasn't my favorite.



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