3.5

This was a good book in many ways, but I had a hard time enjoying it. Here’s me trying to explain my conflicting feelings.

Note: I hate being left with the feeling that a book objectively deserves praise when I know that I fought my way through every chapter, but here we are:’)

I read this as part of my book club’s prompt «Indigenous peoples» and was intrigued about getting further insight into Sámi culture and societal status. Sadly, as expected from the synopsis, it was quite a depressing outlook. I’m glad that the book exists and has gotten national and global recognition (even as a Netflix movie adaptation) so that more people can learn about it.

In addition to the indigenous aspect, I’d also say that the book explores other social dynamics, such as those of families, Scandinavian countries in general. It was interesting to hear my Swedish boyfriend tell about how accurately Ann-Helén Laestadius depicted the oppressive social norms in Swedish society of avoiding conflict and not acknowledging or discussing what’s difficult, not even with your closest ones - the pressure of having to pretend like everything is perfectly fine. The combination of that with the systematic offence towards and neglect of Sámi people, even among the Sámi society depending on «how real» of a Sámi you were, made the story saturated with strenuous social relations.

Based on the description, I expected a thriller; instead of a page-turning suspense novel, I got a story of which darkness is rooted in reality. In my personal experience, this made it into a rather heavy and depressing read. I’m glad that people (incl. myself) can read this story and be able to somewhat place themselves in this difficult situation, but unfortunately, there was something missing for me to fully indulge in it. Therefore I’m left with an overall feeling of «This is an important and quite good book», but not any passionate emotions to go along with it.

During our book club discussion, one of the questions was «Did you find any of the characters frustrating?», and my immediate thought was «yes, everyone». But that kind of felt like the point. I believed in the characters Laestadius wrote and could easily imagine them as portraying real people, and most of the times they came off as convincing human reflections even in their occasional 1-dimensionality. Yet, there was something distancing me from their story. Maybe it was the writing style that wasn’t working? I suspect some of the magic was lost in the English translation; I experienced the language as cold and monotone, and I wish I could’ve read the whole thing in Swedish.

Another reason is probably the pacing/plot development. We start in the middle of action, with the murder of Elsa’s reindeer. We see the initial reactions and tension arising from it, then it levels out and there’s an attempted reversion to «normal» life. Then a long time passes until the next real plot point. This .——.——. structure is pretty much maintained throughout the book, making it feel dragged out - and honestly boring - to read. I understand that the point is to make it realistic; it’s not about dramatic things happening every day, but about the way it affects the day-to-day periods in between. I feel like a lot of the book is read between the lines in the shape of character nuance and societal dynamics. But again, there was a disconnection between my awareness of this and the way I wasn’t enjoying myself when reading.

I’ve put this in too many words already without reaching a clear point, so I’ll just stop here:P Anyway, I might check out the next books in the trilogy as they sound intriguing. This time in Swedish!