- Published: September 26, 2022
- Updated: September 26, 2022
- University / College: The University of Western Australia
- Language: English
- Downloads: 7
The review I chose to evaluate is of “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. ” I found it on The New York Times website and Alex Berenson is the author. He wrote this review for all of the subscribers of The New York Times and for all of the readers who are interested in “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. ” The author does a great job with voicing his opinion about the novel. However, the review of this fiction crime novel is not normally his cup of tea. Berenson graduated from Yale University in 1994 with degrees in history and economics. After he graduated, he started work for the Denver Post as a reporter.
He was also one of the first reporters for TheStreet. com, which is a financial news Website. From 1999 until earlier this year, he worked on the reporting staff for The New York Times. In that time, he published “ The Faithful Spy,” a novel he wrote after serving as a correspondent in Iraq twice. That novel won him the Edgar Award for the Best First Novel. He continued that novel with four other contributing works from his main character, John Wells. Berenson has also written a non-fiction book, “ The Number,” about financial business scandals.
With all of his experience and the award, he is a credible reviewer. Even though Berenson is a credible critic with an extensive background in reporting, I do not believe he is the best writer for this review. I respect his opinion, but he is an author of politics, war, and finance. “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is far from any of those genres. The only part of this novel that can be compared to his expertise is finance; one of the main characters, Michael Blomkvist, is trying to get his revenge on a large, corrupt finance company, Wennerstrom.
Berenson starts out his review by touching on the Swedes’ bad reputation for being prone to “ sin, nudity, drunkenness and suicide,” which he also states that that is what this novel is mostly about. Berenson gets straight to the point after a bit of humor. He begins to summarize a little bit of the beginning of the novel before he describes one of the characters as “ half-formed and weak. ” Berenson describes another character as more a “ stock character than a real person. It is no surprise that he writes that the end of the novel does not “ quite measure up” to the mediocre middle which comes after a slow start. The purpose of Berenson’s review is to give his opinion of the novel for curious readers to get a feel of its contents before a purchase.
His goal was met or The New York Times would not have published it, and there are people who agree with it, I am sure, but I do not. Berenson’s opinion, after some research, is in the minority of the reviews of “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Publishers Weekly, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, People Magazine, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and another journalist from The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani, just to name a few, all gave “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” fantastic reviews.
Amazon. com even gave it the Best of the Month Award in September of 2008. I loved “ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
” The characters, the plot, the story and the genre are all a perfect mixture to me. I do agree with Berenson that the beginning was a bit slow. The beginning had a lot of information that did not seem, at the time, to have much to do with the story. By the end of the book, it is obvious that the slow beginning was pertinent. A few reviews of this novel have deemed it “ far-fetched,” but it is fiction. I think it is nice to read a story that is not seen in everyday life.
“ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is nothing short of a page-turner; it is thrilling, a bit humorous, and I do not get to read about the culture of Sweden often, which is refreshing in its own. Works Cited“ Alex Berenson Biography. ” AlexBerenson. com. Alex Berenson.
Web. 2 October 2010. “’The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Product Description. ” Amazon. com. Amazon. Web. 2 October 2010.
“’The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Editorial Reviews. ” Amazon. com. Amazon. Web.
2 October 2010. “’The Number’ Product Description. ” Amazon. com. Amazon. Web. 2 October 2010.
Alex Berenson. “ The New York Times Sunday Book Review. ” NYTimes. com.
The New York Times, 14 September 2008. Web. 2 October 2010.
