As a large outlier, I realize that my putting this out has a lot to do with just my own reading of this. I ended up DNF’ing it at 56% percent because of a few reasons.

I truly despised all of the characters, despite the fact that the point is to illustrate systemic misogyny, sexism, racism, nationalistic/cultish structures permeating hockey/team sports. I get it. But I just don’t find them compelling characters and we dip into them Every. Single. Time. perpetuating these shitty structures. The whole, oh, but 20 years from now he will be thinking about this decision, which has haunted him all his life. And now let’s cut to his many, many enablers, who similarly will reflect in years to come, as we float into and out of rape culture. I just don’t want to be there, and what’s more, each aspect actually reads as very performatively to me.

I live in Canada. I live in a small town. I hate hockey. I am aware of and have hated gender performing and patriarchal shit like this my entire life. The last thing I want is to spend time in the heads of these kinds of people. And their characterization feels more like kid gloves to me attempting to humanize them and illustrate the broad things at play. I’m not done it yet, but so far it’s just setting everyone up to be pretty off the hook. The upside is right after this is when the town dehumanizes a rape victim and destroys her further.

Yeah, I’m actually going to just read something else, thanks, though.

This series is so good at keeping things interesting. Where the first novel was something like modern day cyberpunk and the second was stricter much more like a well paced thriller. The third further switches it up, becoming an amalgamation of spy fiction and court room drama. And it works! This time it centres the Swedish government and conspiracy and is slow moving but comes with the most satisfying pay off of perhaps any trilogy I’ve read.

I think why these books are so compelling is the amount of detail in the chapter-by-date-range format. It creates so much clarity around every aspect of every character—almost all of whom are interesting because of the ways they differ from the average neurotypical, heteronormative citizen or archetype populating these lines of stories. That when there are moments that are contrived there is so much work already down to demonstrate what is established to be true that it’s more than acceptable. In a strange way, any time it is tedious, it’s backing itself up later. And the tedium generally leads to some interesting sub-plots, such as Berger’s stalker problem.

There is so much more to the books than to the movies, which are still quite good. Very glad I took the time to read them. I’ll continue with the other books too, despite the change in author just because it’s an opportunity to stick with Lisbeth some more.

I found this book to be brilliant despite having already seen the movie. The book is more intelligent and executes and telegraphs its themes in a way that makes things more explicit and, I think, more interesting. Western society itself is stripped bare, showing its sociopathic roots and marrow. Gender roles, the role of the media, the American Dream, and its values. Everything is literalized to show just how horrific and toxic relationships are.

Typically, in stories like these, I find it is rather one-sided. Usually illustrating toxic masculinity. This is more of an indictment that works on many levels. While both couples only are actually happy when performing their gender roles, the alternatives are the kind of horror stories we typically see on the news at 11. A husband who murders a wife, that's how it ends if the premise isn't that the way these two people are raised is such that they actually are only happy faking it. Or, maybe 'Wife leaves alcoholic husband as he becomes more abusive only to end up in the arms of abusive "Friend". I would go so far as to say the only semi-realistic characters are the mass media; if only because when they're in the narrative they're also performing.

Most everyone knows the marriage where either or both of them have "stopped trying". How it's contrived in conversations with gossip and packaged in the media is always as drastic as it is in this story. It's as much about the audiences' act of consumption of the story as it is about how messed up the two characters act toward one another. They epitomize the tropes or time after time favored narratives of the people who do not adequately perform their gender roles. Only that cloak offers no warmth here. There is no good alternative in western culture for people who don't share these values, and the values are bizarre and clearly arranged for men. Nick doesn't know what to do in any situation when things get hard. He is a male Blanche DuBois. Only taking responsibility at the end when he half-heartedly accepts he has created the "monster" that is Amy.

Everything Amy needs and craves from Nick are all things she should be receiving from a good partner. But she becomes a different trope than the doting, perfect housewife. The only other label women have, the crazy bitch. Amy has no choice really but to embody this and in doing so it illustrates just how laughable the typical use of this is. Guys use it all the time to gaslight women, as Nick does. But when she actually is driven off-kilter, it's as horrific as the terrible things men do to women.

I found this brilliant because this particular kind of feminism readily illustrates how toxic and messed up society is for everybody. There is no winning. Amy could end up being the perfect poster girl for feminism, packaged just as readers and media want--but it would have been missing the point. Society is insanity, and we're constantly selling it as a dream of happiness that will literally drive you wild and mad, lacking any of substance but...possibly, sickly happy.

Written to be accessible and published to be so as well. It’s like a... pocket book? I guess? It’s very small and 200 pages so probably more like a novella without good formatting. The disjointed style helps the theme though, I’d say. A CanLit immigration story to a tee, but from a Syrian refugee perspective.

Excellent and especially good in audiobook form (unsurprisingly)!

Interesting concept but felt like how it was structured undermined what was compelling about the story.

Interesting concept that would have been far more satisfying with a different structure or device used to facilitate the ending. I like the existential dread of being alone and some other creepy imagery. Ultimately, how different it is from everything else still made it a positive experience for me, but as an actual piece of writing it is pretty flawed; even going against one of its own themes with the non diagetic themes expressed during dialogue.

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Throughout it, I had a theory that it was about a person with Alzheimer or dementia, so I wasn’t too far off, and maybe that’s why I didn’t feel as cheated by the twist as others? Ultimately, it’s the movie Identity with a thought experiment coupled to it. Neat concept, but it feels like it has a lot of potential it doesn’t fulfill.

Well written and different. Interesting metaphors and symbolism tackling difficult to discuss topics and features nice, trim prose. Though not particularly evocative, the structure and devices more than make up for it.