Sunday 9 February 2014

First Swedish book in years

Today I finished reading my first Swedish book in years. And I was reminded why I stopped. All the characters were so unbelievably Swedish. Always complaining about everything. Never being content. Never talking to anyone about feelings or problems but keeping it locked up inside and then wonder why they feel bad. Craving warmth and closeness but at the same time trying to be better than everyone else and push people away. Judging people from afar and then being falsely nice to them. Procrastinate the problem to the next day and then the next... Alcohol solves everything! Convincing everyone that you're awesome while at the same time you feel totally worthless.

Welcome to my home.

After the first 20 pages I wanted to throw the book away. The three main characters, whose perspectives the reader follows, were all completely hopeless. So hopeless that they made me angry. But I trudged on through the book. After all it was said to be a horror novel, perhaps something would happen that would force some sense into the characters. And sure it was interesting to read about the mythology of the native Scandinavians, but other than that nothing really happened in the book (except for complaining and pushing people away) until the last 100 pages when something started to stir and then in the last 30 pages everything exploded and happened all at once. And just as suddenly as it started it ended.

I read 2/3 of the book in one day. On hope. Hope that something would happen to shake the characters' reality and shake some sense into them. It was said to be a horror novel, but it really wasn't. I wouldn't even let it qualify as a thriller.

Not even the characters were interesting. Except for the three main characters everyone was a stereotype.

I'm not impressed. Not even a little.


2 comments:

  1. Till och med omslaget ser typiskt "myt-Sverige" ut xD
    Va synd att den inte var bra, de små grottmålningarna på omslaget får mig ändå att hoppas på lite potential.. men okaj!
    Har tänkt testa Caroline L Jensens skräcknoveler dock, dem verkar rätt nice en del! Samt hennes romaner vargsläktet.

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  2. Jo, det ser väldigt "mytigt" ut faktiskt xD Och tecknena tror jag är same-tecken. Den handlade iaf om samemytologi.

    Alltså omslaget och baksidetexten fick boken att verka riktigt bra och sen så föll den så platt :(

    Har några olästa svenska böcker till i bokhyllan så får väl se om de är bättre. En av dem är Cirkeln och den ska ju vara bra xD

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