Tonje
Such a stupid and nonsensical plot. This woman is obsessed with her mother, and she's being incredibly dramatic about losing her. Who calls their mother their “one true love” and acts like a child towards their literal husband cause he “couldn't ever understand the pain” and then decides to cheat on him for an entire summer because she's “figuring out the meaning of life without her mother”. So dramatic and stupid ugh
I would just like to point out that Longyearbyen is not the northernmost town in neither Norway nor the world. It is in fact more of a village or a settlement and is by Norwegian law not a town 🙂 It annoyed me so much when she called it a town several times because it's really not a hard thing to fact check and get right
I liked this book, although I wanted to love it. I feel like I couldn't have read it at a better time in my life than right now, as I'm in the process of healing and feeling very sad and stressed about all the missed opportunities I lost out on in the past because of my trauma. However there's just something about this book as a whole that felt a bit... preachy? Everyone can get depressed, but the road to healing isn't as easy as “catching” the ✨depression✨ is. Some might have family and friends that care and check up on them, a good job and a great income, they might've had a good childhood with decent parents and might be so lucky that they haven't experienced any big traumatic events; others have none of that.
I wish someone would write a book about depression that doesn't necessarily strive to find deeper meanings to everything, telling you how great your life could be if you just thought positive about stuff, or a book that didn't try so hard to be poetic and inspiring. Not everything needs to have an happy ending and honestly I was kinda hoping right up until the end that this book wouldn't be one of those “okay, I've changed my mind, I'm ready to live! Everything is fixed because I'm thinking so positively about life now!!” endings because that would've felt more realistic and would've been a new take on depression that media seldom explore, but the main character just woke up and everything was magically perfect because she made a goodchoice 🫶🤭💕 when she changed her mind and wanted to live instead of unalive herself 😐
This book was like reading an angry rant on twitter. It felt like she was mad at me somehow even though most poems were addressed to men reading as angry notes lecturing them about their own ignorance and how they're supposed to treat women. I think her audience is mostly female so she's most likely preaching to the choir of others who's just as angry as she is and not the audience she's presumably trying to reach which is the male counterpart.
I guess you could feel empowered if you agree with her generalisation of the opposite sex and their thoughts on women and what women should be, but I beg to differ as I have personal experience with several men who are not like that and I'm sad that many do not have the same experience. Also, I'm not saying that she shouldn't feel angry or feel as though she needs to present her message wrapped in a pink, sparkly bow in order to get her message across, but I believe this book will only reach an audience already as furious at men and the patriarchy as she is as it failed to teach me anything valuable about her kind of feminism.
I did like the poems addressed to women about how they should feel about themselves because I agree that other's thoughts about you (whether that is the societal outlook on women or someone's personal opinion) shouldn't keep you from achieving what you are absolutely capable of doing.
In the end this poetry just wasn't for me and I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone I know.
Boy let me tell you I had some thoughts on this book. Few books have managed to infuriate me as much as this one.
My main issue is the plot of ‘teenage boy falls in love with a woman that could be his mother because she's somysterious and loves him in a way that no girl his age ever could because they're so immature and horrible and selfish' trope. Of course they are! They're literal children being compared to an almost 40 year old woman, wtf do you expect?
Hanna is never put in a particularly bad light which is a bit concerning considering she's an actual war criminal standing trial throughout most of the book. Michael chooses to always see her as a beautiful and proud woman incapable of making mistakes. Even as a grown man he does not see any fault in what Hanna did to him as a boy, and as a reader we are never given the impression that Hanna is a sexual predator and that what she did was not just morally wrong but illegal.
My second issue is the character of Hanna and her so called ‘big secret'. During Hanna's trial Michael realises that the other women Hanna is standing trial with are all joining forces in order to frame Hanna as the big bad wolf to get a lighter punishment themselves. All it takes to disprove what the other's are saying is for Hanna to show that she doesn't know how to write. That's all. Yet she's more prepared to be sentenced to several additional years in prison rather than admitting that she does not possess the ability to write, and Michael's right there with her; refusing to present this vital evidence to the judge simply because he respects her too much to humiliate her in such a way. I mean sure she was a prison guard who most likely tormented jews infringing on their basic human rights during the war but by all means let's shield her from the embarrassment of having people know she doesn't know how to write! Obviously that's the most horrifying thing about her! Honestly.. eye roll
Then there was the constant romanticising of Hanna. Given that their summer affair was Michael's first taste of what he presumed was love he was never able to love someone like he “loved” Hanna. He was constantly comparing any woman he met to her. He even confessed that he never managed to love his own wife as deeply as she loved him because of Hanna. Not once does he stop and wonder if perhaps he is wrong about assigning Hanna to this Goddess like status. No, he just thinks every woman that is not her is undesirable simply because well; they're not her. To conclude the ridiculousness of how Michael portrays Hanna we have this part in the book where he visits her in prison and becomes notably upset she's not the ‘same' Hanna as he remembered (rather he's upset she's not the idealised version of herself that he has created in his own head over the course of several years) but instead is old and frail-looking. Hanna sees the way Michael looks at her, realising he does not ‘love' (read: lust for) her in the same way as before and as a result she HANGS herself the day prior to the date she's due to be released from prison. AND FOR WHAT? WHAT WAS THE REASON?
I get that this story is narrated by Michael and therefore none of these things are addressed because he's obviously obsessed with Hanna. But I would've enjoyed it so much more if Michael grew as a character and realised that Hanna was a predator who used him. Instead we get this weird fanfic about a young teenager and a middle aged woman having sex.
Finally I want to add something positive. The writing is somewhat impressive with certain beautifully constructed sentences and philosophical reminiscing done by Michael throughout the book. But yeah it's safe to say this book really wasn't for me.
Sarah was an absolute pain in the ass throughout this entire book. Although she knew what she had to do she always seemed to do the exact opposite. It took her forever to make a decision all the way up to the final page of the book.
These are just some of the things I found annoying:
“Oh I know: I have to communicate with my father through singing!” Sings four words and then proceeds to scream and shout about evil stepmother and how her father needs to get out before it's too late failing to gain his attention (obviously.)
“You have to return to the elevator when I call your names or you'll be stuck on earth forever” stands two feet away from the elevator not managing to step inside because she needs Nick with her all the time to function as a normal human being and –surprisingly enough – ends up getting stuck on earth with Nick
“Please, I need you to say you love me before I leave” stands there suddenly unable to speak although she clearly loves this stupid guy which honestly should've been pretty obvious even to Nick considering she's a mess whenever he's not around
Continuously breaking all the rules of the afterlife (which you'd think was somewhat important not to break considering you could be stuck in between life and death forever if you do) and somehow gets away with it every time and no one seems to be bothered by it and instead decides that she is worthy of becoming an angel
Alice was definitely my favourite character, mostly because she seemed to be the only reasonable one in the book who was actually bothered by the consequences they might end up having.
Declan was a breath of fresh air and I had a fun time reading whenever he was around. When it was revealed that he was the one who ‘technically' killed Sarah it felt like a lazy solution and the easiest way to explain things quickly in order to make room for more self doubting and annoying behaviour.
Nonetheless, this was a great story with somewhat good characters so it wasn't a completely wasted read.
