gotta admit it felt like it was dragging on for ages, so many continuous reminders of ‘this is a small town’ and ‘hockey is really important!’ not to mention the danish narrator wasn’t,,, amazing. 

but it really picked up after the rape and it was impossible to put down afterwards. the pay off of all repetitive reminders and character building up until then made sense after. i absolutely was hooked and was compelled by sooo many characters. 

so yeah it was maddening how difficult it was to get past the first act of it but it’s so worth it after and i’m definitely continuing the series (also can we talk about how backman just knows how to capture the nuances and diversity in human beings and they all felt fleshed out?? love when male authors can write men and women like real human beings).