Disclosure: I am Finnish and I read it Finnish, which (of course) is the basis of my review.

I thought this book was pretty much pure genius. You could call it pretentious, but I would say it's more flexing, considering how Sinisalo incorporated such a diverse array of old (re-worked) texts.

I could not stop thinking about how this was translated into other languages because it's so highly contextual. To be quite honest, it's impossible for a non- Finnish reader to fully get this book as delves deep into Finnish culture, history, language, literature, and society. That might affect the reader's experience. 

It's not just the language and textual and cultural references that made it great. I was not expecting such depth from a fantasy book.

Since I was obsessed with the translation, I actually requested the English translation from the library to compare the original and translation. I have not done that yet and I will not be reviewing the book based on the translation.