I typically don’t seek out books that are thriller-esque or murder mystery-y, however there was something about the Book of the Month review of Edvarsson’s book that caught my eye. I’m not even sure what Scandinavian-noir means, but I think my years of pretending to know what things are for the sake of impressing people are clearly not behind me. My urge to dive into something simply because it had the word ~noir~ in its description reeks of undergraduate posturing. But, well, here we are. 

Despite not being able to put this book down, I found Edvarsson’s writing endlessly frustrating. The book centered so much around family and loyalty without ever giving the reader any sense that the main characters knew what these words even meant. Granted, these are the types of words that seem to defy definition, but Edvarsson could have at least given the reader an idea of what he or his characters felt about these concepts. Instead, the book read, at times, like a giant cliche and felt a lot like a Lifetime™ made for TV movie (don’t get me wrong, I love a good M4TVM, but that was not what I was looking for when I chose to read this book). While he brought up thought-provoking questions, his analyses were often surface level. His musings on youth, power, sexuality & relationships didn’t feel unique or even authentic.

Edvarsson’s writing is the type of writing that makes a reader want to scream-OKAY! GOD I GET IT! Instead of describing a scene or a character and then letting the reader take from that what they will, Edvarsson monopolized the story by never relinquishing power over the narrative. His writing seemed defensive; it was almost as if he knew where readers would criticize his voice so he added explanations every step of the way. Let me decide how I feel about a characters’ actions, don’t tell me how to feel. Allow your writing to speak for itself, dude.

I would recommend this book for the page-turning who-done-it aspects, but the writing style and characterizations leave a lot to be desired.

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