The plot summary of the book had me intrigued, but this wasn't the magically charming story I hoped for. Some of the writing didn't sit quite right with me, but even so, the book had its moments.

Love the cover and loved the book. Great characters, compelling plot, amazing setting. Will definitely recommend this book.

I’m a fan of the work of Haruki Murakami for many reasons — though his work can be both hot and cold — but one of them is that he can take the ordinary and make it seem entirely magical. For instance, he can have a conversation between two people about something as banal as ears and have it be elevated into the profound. Well, Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen is a writer from Finland whose work, in this case Secret Passages in a Hillside Town, strives to be another Murakami, but fails miserably at doing so. The reason is that he writes about childish things through the prism of a childlike adult, and the result is strikingly juvenile. Secret Passages in a Hillside Town strives to be magical, but, largely, the magic just isn’t there — hidden away in ponderous passages about lost love reclaimed.

The story is about a middle-aged man named Olli Suominen, who is a book publisher in a small town in central Finland. He’s married, though not necessarily happily, and he has a penchant for losing umbrellas at the worst possible times. He is respected, though. He is a member of his parish’s church council and has joined a film society, both things being pretty insignificant to the plot of the book. One day, he gets a Facebook friend request from an old flame that he hasn’t seen for 30 years — a person who has successfully written and published a non-fiction bestseller on film studies, and sooner than you can give two shakes of the literary magical wand, this woman named Greta winds up in town with Olie courting her for her next book and, of course, possibly a little more than that.

The book flips back and forth between the present day and childhood memories of a time when Olie and four other friends were having daring adventures exploring caves hidden beneath the Finish town, foiling thieves and such. This part of the novel tries to recreate the magic of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five book series for children, but is just so silly and inconsequential to the thrust of much of the book that one has to wonder why it’s there in the first place. Tellingly, this part of the story falls away in the book’s second half, which is more of a love story between two unlikely people more than anything else.

I want to be as spoiler-free as possible and not give away the big secret of the book, but it’s a bit of a doozy. Surprisingly, it works and the story told from this character’s point of view is touching and profound, which is a marked shift from a lot of what else is in the book. It’s like a short story has been grafted into this novel, and it is so different in some respects from the rest of it in tone and seriousness that it’s a bit baffling. Clearly, this is the story that the author desperately wants to tell. Why didn’t he just tell it straight away and not pad things out for it?

The book — which, by the way, is being marketed as science-fiction, but isn’t really unless you count the dreamlike sequences of this volume — also pulls the move of having multiple endings, which means that large swaths of the book toward the end repeat themselves in order to make adjustments to the different endings that the author provides. This is superfluous material. Also, the Choose Your Own Adventure-style of the book’s final act is just unbelievable in terms of how things generally play out. I should also mention at this point that in Secret Passages of a Hillside Town there’s a double kidnapping that’s utterly unbelievable. Why doesn’t one person who is impacted by this go to the police? It’s not explained. The author just assumes the reader will go along for the ride, even though the reader may be kicking and screaming as the author drags them along.

That all said, as a novel that’s about recapturing the magic of a long-ago romance, it does partially succeed. True love is not blind, and with the big reveal that comes about two-thirds of the way into the work, one is touched and moved by this blindness. However, that’s really the only thing that this book has going for it. The characters are generally one-dimensional — especially the group of kids that Olli hangs out with as a youth — and the book is, overall, just pretty silly. It tries to be serious and profound, but then the author’s yen for being childish kicks in and we learn that Olli is seriously contemplating publishing a children’s book on sex ed tentatively titled I Have a Fanny, and You Have a Wee Wee. (Or something like that.) Groan.

In the end, Secret Passages in a Hillside Town is a book that tries to take itself seriously, even though it has juvenile humour in it. Maybe something got lost in translation, but this attempt at Facebook romance (meaning that sections of the book take place with characters at computers, which is about as exciting as watching people text in real-time) leaves a lot to be desired. Seeing that the book was originally published in Finland circa 2010, and is only getting an English translation now, there are things about how Facebook works (and technology in general) that already feel dated and antiquated. You can certainly do more with Facebook now than just accept friend requests and write on each other’s timelines. Basically, Secret Passages in a Hillside Town has moments when it tries to elevate itself from the muck. Those moments, though, are too few and far between. If you were thinking of taking a pass on this book, you can resoundingly do so. There are far better books written about this sort of thing, and the author usually goes by the name Haruki Murakami. Enough said.

The is a very strange book and a difficult one to review.  The narrative is almost split into thirds.  The first seems fairly normal and an enjoyable exploration of life in a Finnish city.  It is very much grounded in the place and time.  Olli loses umbrellas, joins a film club and discovers that his old flame, Greta is the writer of a book that has become a Finnish sensation.

The second third gets odder and more surreal where Olli "remembers" and relives his childhood with kids he used to play with during his summer holidays and most importantly the secret passages.  The third part just goes over the edge into just plain weird.

At its heart, this is a love story between Olli and Greta who are forced together by forces outside their control.  Olli is the only character in this book who seems like a real person, all the others seem to be two-dimensional stereotypes.

I think perhaps a lot of the appeal for this book didn't translate well, as it didn't work for me and I was frequently confused. I couldn't finish it.

This sounds like a love triangle and I most probably requested without reading the full summary which is why I’m not going to read this. It’s not my kind of book

Plot: Olli Suominen is a publisher in a small town and lives a pretty simple normal life, where his main frustration is frequently losing his umbrellas. When an old love interest, Greta, comes back into his life, things begin to go awry and the plot takes an unexpected turn.

My thoughts: While this book started off just as I would expect from the description and the cover – a fairly mundane account of a publisher in a normal Scandinavian town – in fact, both the plot and the style ended up being quite unexpected. The plot focus around magic realism was really quite lovely, making the mundane into something special that made you think. And the big plot point – which I can’t reveal as it would be a huge spoiler! – even though I figured it out a bit before, wasn’t the direction I’d thought we would go at the beginning. I loved the normality mixed with the strangeness, although I’d have preferred the plot to have pushed on more quickly in the beginning.

I have very different opinions about this book. It was a bit slow in the beginning, but still managed to keep me hooked. There is many questions in the beginning of the book, some get answered in the end, som e not. The ending was not something I liked.

When it came to the writing there was too much of the same. A lot of the book could be taken out if the rewriting was taken out. Sometimes I just jumped over places, because I had already read it.

Translated from the original language I was taken on twisty journey through the life and mind of Olli.

Olli is a father and husband, works in publishing, likes films and is always losing umbrellas. This is what I gathered in the first few pages of this novel.

It was quickly apparent though that I was going to be taken to places unknown and have only an ounce of an idea what was going on at any given moment. Sure that I knew what was happening one minute quickly changed on the next page until I wasn't sure what was real and what was in the imaginations of this man. I falsely hoped that the introduction of Greta would make some sense of things but she only served to twist the plot into new directions until I was lost.

The novel is funny, quirky and fascinating. I actually thought a few times about putting it down but I just couldn't.

If you're looking for something to make you question what you've read- this is it. It was fantastically confusing and I'm still not sure I've slotted the plot into tidy boxes at the end. Perhaps I shouldn't even try?

Like The Rabbit Back Literature Society I loved the quirky, murky, whimsical but nasty tone. The mystery kept me intrigued, even when I guessed the part that gets revealed about the 75% mark, leaving more twists to come. However, there was something just a little... not quite misogynistic, but a bit icky about some of the writing that left me a little uncomfortable, briefly. Which is a shame, because otherwise there was a lot to like here.

As ever, a longer review is available on my blog.

This book was good, but I felt like it was translated somewhat awkwardly. The book was very lyrical but moved slowly and just wasn't the right match for me.

I enjoy stories set in other cultures. But this story did not keep my interest. The main characters were not compelling and the plot was fuzzy and haphazard. Some books are a slow start, and as a librarian I've always advised people to read at least 3-5 chapters before putting a book down for good. This book did not pass that test, I did not finish this book

I was intrigued by this quirky little book and its cover. And while the plot was similar to stuff I’ve read in the past, I just didn’t like it. There really isn’t much of a reason that I can say about why I didn’t like it. I think it was just the flow of the writing. It was very hard for me to follow. And how the overall plot progressed just wasn’t for me. It just made no sense to me. I did, however, love how quirky this book was. It is definitely different than a lot of books I’ve read just by how peculiar it is. I’m sure that many people would enjoy this book, but it just wasn’t for me.

He's weird and this book was just a little too weird for my tastes. I couldn't get into it. Whilst I enjoyed Jaaskelainen's first book (even if it did confuse me vastly), I think the way this book is written is it's designed for someone with perhaps more whimsical tastes. I also think that if you're a fan of Frederik Backman, you might enjoy this novel, purely because of the slightly off-piste style of writing that this author has.

This is the story of Olli, a book publisher who lives in a quiet little town, who spends his time buying umbrellas and (accidentally) partaking in a film club. It is quirky and humorous at times, but drags on inanely at others. In fact, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this book. The cover was lovely, the setting and the title intriguing. But the language doesn't have that certain something that grips you and forces you to sit through and finish it. Perhaps it was lost in translation.

What started off as a quirky and whimsical tale of a family man experiencing a midlife crisis, developed into something much more intriguing, with a dash of mystery, fantasy and psychological drama. Quite the page turner, and that ending! Quite a cinematic moment, indeed. Brilliant!

Recommended for rainy day reading.

A slow starter of a book - but that's not a bad thing. You get the opportunity to take everything in and to immerse yourself in the beautiful descriptions that although simple, just envelops you.
I think the best way to describe this book is as "quirky" but don't be mistaken into thinking that it's an easy read. It definitely isn't that.

Secret Passage of a Hillside Town was at times a very weird book whose conclusion left me uncomfortable. It was a surprising book, I was really not anticipating its twists so for that alone I give it a lot of credit. However, the pace felt like wading through jello so I almost gave up...a lot. And then its use of gender and nostalgia felt problematic in a way that sat poorly with me.

Review of this title was written for publication elsewhere, so not provided here for publication on NetGalley.

DNF at 25%

I hate DNF-ing ARCs, but sometimes it is what has to be done. This one had a slightly bizarre edge to it that I wasn't connecting with. In the 25% that I read, a good 2-3% were really long, drawn-out dream sequences that did not interest me. And in general, Olli, the main character was not somebody I cared much about.

In the end, it clearly wasn't the one for me. I could see someone who enjoys odd, Scandinavian books enjoying this one!