The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I recently joined my cousin Emily's book club, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson was the book at was chosen for next month's meeting.  I usually stay away from murder mysteries and crime novels in general, so I didn't know if I was going to like this book or not.  I am excited, however, to read some books that I maybe wouldn't choose myself.  I thought this book was alright I guess.  I really liked that it was a page-turner and kept my interest.  The female characters are awesome.  You can tell that the author really liked (yeah, he's dead) women in a respectful way.  I didn't like all of the violence in the story.  I thought a lot of it was gratuitous, especially the part toward the beginning of the book with Lisbeth Salander and her gross lawyer.  I felt like it was a really cheap way to accelerate Lisbeth's character development.  I mean, I get why it happened and why someone like her would let that happen and blah blah blah, but I would have liked to get to know Lisbeth better throughout more pages and more less gross events.  Anyway, this is a good mystery and it was very suspenseful.  I really liked the pacing and I think I'm a fan of Stieg Larsson's writing style.  I'll probably read the sequel.  I would definitely recommend this to people who like a good 'ol gruesome murder mystery and readers who like strong female characters.