Stolen

at its best, this novel reads like a rich impression of sámi life, evoking everyday culture and custom with precise details and fraught, intersectional cultural tension.

but on a narrative level, the plot is threadbare, which meant the characters were circling around the problem established on page one for the entire book. even the climax, which had far and away the best pacing, didn't seem to bear any real emotional weight. the dry, pragmatic prose style—which, to be fair, might be more a problem of the translation than the original text—felt at odds with what should've been an evocative bit of storytelling. noir-lite, nordic crime-ish, a wishy-washy jo nesbø.