To be honest I found this a little hard to read there was a sort of thorough disillusionment throughout the book which made it a little hard to connect to. As an insight into Greenland, it's rather quite fascinating. There's a sort of sense of uniqueness to this kind of narrative though also a sort of timelessness. She's definitely writing from a small-town kind of perspective but the entire island of Greenland is a bit small town so it's very much its own thing. It’s permeated with the angry sense of struggling in a place too small for you and a need for diversity. This novel is short so there’s a little superficiality to the characterizations. But hooray for queer romance

There was much to enjoy here, but I found I couldn't connect with it. I'd read more from this author in the future though.

Published by Grove Press/Black Cat on January 15, 2019

Niviaq Korneliussen is blurbed as having created her own genre with Last Night in Nuuk, but I think she relocated Bright Lights, Big City to a small city in Greenland (Nuuk, the capital) and shifted the focus from one straight man who chases a woman to five young people who, while covering most of the sexual bases, chase each other. Like the protagonist in Bright Lights, Big City, the five central characters are young and wasted and self-absorbed. I suspect that readers who share those qualities will get more out of Last Night in Nuuk than I did.

A central character in Last Night in Nuuk views Greenland as a nation of anger, where alcoholism and wife beating and child neglect are tolerated while gay people are not. That character (Inuk, whose name means “man”) leaves Greenland to escape the anger, although he is among the angriest characters in the novel. Inuk also fled Greenland to avoid a burgeoning sex scandal. Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, but Inuk (who is presumably an Inuit) does not feel at home in Denmark, because he is not blonde and pale. Nor does he feel at home in Greenland, although it eventually becomes clear that Inuk is not at home with himself. Inuk’s life is revealed in a series of letters he sends from Denmark.

Inuk’s best friend is a sexually free woman named Arnuq (the longer version, Arnaluk, means “woman”) who fueled the scandal that forced Inuk to leave Greenland. Arnuq lives to party, leading to scenes of nightlife in Greenland, which like nightlife everywhere involves clubs, dancing, drinking, drugs, random hookups, and eventual vomiting. Arnuq’s problem with alcohol destroys not just her own life but the other lives she touches, primarily because she has no impulse control and can’t keep her mouth shut (and can’t stop her fingers from texting).

Inuk’s sister is Fia. Events in the novel complicate the relationships between Inuk, Arnuq, and Fia, including Fia’s realization that her fiancé Peter is boring her to death and that she is more attracted to women than men. She tests the theory that she might be a lesbian by having disappointing sex with a random ugly man, which might only prove that she’s not attracted to ugly men. She decides at that point to swear off sausage.

The fourth key character, Ivinnquaq (Ivik), has a girlfriend Sara, but Sara is kissing Fia while Arnuq is messing around with Ivik, who eventually reveals her own sexual identity issues. In any event, after Ivik explains how she came to realize her sexual preference for women, we also learn that Ivik no longer feels like having sex with Sara, or perhaps with anyone. She is needy when it comes to companionship and love but the opposite when it comes to sex. She fears abandonment but her loathing of sex invites Sara to abandon her. To the surprise of no reader by this point, Sara (key character five) turns out be angry and depressed. Welcome to Greenland.

It might be clear at this point that the characters in Last Night in Nuuk have a remarkable talent for creating drama in their lives (and I’ve only scratched the surface here). Many people have that talent, which makes them annoying to people who don’t share a desire for constant interpersonal conflict. Reading about their manufactured drama is also a bit annoying, at least to me.

Last Night in Nuuk is organized by character rather than chronology, so the reader needs to reassemble the pieces from time to time to make sense of the story. This is a character-driven novel, however, and the technique gives the reader a strong sense of the primary characters while inviting reinterpretation of events as seen from multiple perspectives.

I suspect that Last Night in Nuuk does what Korneliussen set out to do. The novel is well constructed and it plainly has literary merit. I try to be open to all forms of literature but I am likely not the novel’s target audience. Readers who know what to do with a hashtag might be more intuitively comfortable with the novel’s style and content (although I have to say that I enjoyed the style more than the content). I was more intrigued by the atmosphere and the critique of Greenland’s intolerance than I was by the characters and their endless drama.

While the story didn’t speak to me, neither did Bright Lights, Big City, another party-all-night-and-make-drama novel that received glowing reviews. The comparison leads me to recommend Last Night in Nuuk to Millennials, to readers for whom sexual identity is a burning issue, and to readers who enjoyed Bright Lights, Big City.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Thank you very much for the ARC. This is a loosely woven story about five young LGBTQ Greenlanders. I found the style choppy and while not difficult to read was a bit distracting. Perhaps I am not the right audience for this one.

This is the first novel I’ve ever read written by a Greenlander, so I was really looking forward to it.

The main characters are five young Greenlanders who live in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. Fia; Inuk, Fia’s brother; Arnaq, Inuk’s best friend and Fia’s temporary roommate; Sara, Fia’s love interest; and Ivik, Sara’s partner, spend their nights engaging in partying and excessive drinking. Each of the five receives a chapter where we learn about his/her struggles with gender and/or sexual identity.

The five young people have much in common. Each experiences self-loathing, shame, fear, confusion, and depression. All feel very alone and engage in self-destructive behaviours. All yearn for love. Despite the prevalence of negative emotions, hope is not entirely absent. The suggestion seems to be that if people find their true identities and accept themselves, they can transform and be reborn.

The hopefulness I tended to find a bit too earnest. Were there not some hope, this would be a very depressing novel, but the problem is that some of the characters experience figurative bolts of lightning which transform them. For example, one woman witnesses the birth of her niece and her immediate, almost overpowering love for this child and her innocence motivates a total change in outlook? Another character experiences love at first sight and it brings about an epiphany?

I have not experienced struggles of the type described in the book so had some difficulty identifying with the characters and wondered about how realistically characters’ conflicts were portrayed. For instance, one character is in a lesbian relationship but a dislike of being touched sexually leads to the conclusion that she is transgender. Is this a realistic description of gender dysphoria? I imagine the novel would definitely appeal to people from the LGBTQIA+ community.

This is a contemporary novel and the narrative style reflects that. Stream-of-consciousness, emails, text messages, hashtags, and social media postings are used. Stream-of-consciousness dominates; the problem is that the same chapter will have sections that are very unstructured and other passages that are grammatically structured. For instance, Fia’s chapter begins with “Peter. One man. Three years. Thousands of plans. Millions of dinner invitations. Vacuuming, dishwashing and cleaning, rushing on forever towards infinity. False smiles turning uglier. Dry kisses stiffening like desiccated fish. Bad sex should be avoided at all costs.” This is an interior monologue style. This is followed by properly punctuated dialogue. Then there are pages that read like this: “steak, soda water and fruit, oh, did you remember our membership card, back home in a stinking bus filled with people who smile and greet you, iggu, baby, you’re ever so sweet, he says, my lips smile, my brain’s about to explode; another part of my mind says stop smiling . . . ”. It would have been more logical to use a different style for each character/chapter.

The setting is primarily Nuuk, Greenland, but the events could in fact be taking place in any small city anywhere. Nothing differentiates the culture of Greenlander young people from that of young people elsewhere in the world? This is perhaps the author’s point, but I would have liked more sense of place.

Though the style is not traditional, the book is not a difficult read. I can’t say that I disliked it, but it just didn’t resonate with me. I would recommend it to those interested in young queer culture.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.

Very well written with characters you become emotionally invested in. I love reading books from other parts of the world that I have never visited. I love the perks into other people's lives and this book doesn't disappoint so definitely pick it up and be prepared to be well entertained. Happy reading!

Last Night In Nuuk is told through the perspective of five different characters: Fia, Inuk, Arnaq, Ivik, and Sara. Each character recounts a series of the same nights from a different point of view, slowly but surely filling in the blanks left behind by each of the other characters. At its heart, this is a novel about rejection, belonging, queerness, acceptance, and isolation. Love, too, of course.

Wow. You've never read anything quite like this, I'll bet. Korneliussen has written a fascinating coming of age novel of five Greenlanders. Greenland, which has a small population on a large and largely uninhabitable land mass, is in many ways a mystery. She hasn't entirely penetrated that veil but she has brought to life five young people who question everything about their lives, their country, their sexuality, and their values. Set all in one night, it's a about more than partying, it's about identity. The writing can be annoying at times but it's also got very nice spots. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This is for fans of literary fiction who are interested in a new and genuinely intriguing talent.

This stunning debut novel, translated from the Danish, introduces the reader to five 20-something Greenlanders trying to find their way in the world and are in various stages of coming to terms with their varied sexuality. Fia, a woman who just broke up with her boyfriend of three years, finds herself adrift and ready to be true to herself. Fia lives temporarily with Arnaq, a bisexual alcoholic whose life is spinning out of control. Arnaq hits rock-bottom when she betrays Inuk, Fia’s brother, who Arnaq outs in a political scandal and he flees to Denmark. Fia, in her newfound freedom, finds herself attracted to Sara, whose relationship with Ivik is floundering.
The narrative is very contemporary, winding text messages alongside Greenlandish and Danish sayings. The novel, however, has a very literary feel to it and the overlapping of the five principal characters flows seamlessly.

Bonus: The action in this novel takes place in Greenland; the novel has been translated from the Danish original; and the five primary characters are LGTBQ. A great novel for those of you looking to fufill categories for reading challenges.

Last Night in Nuuk is about 5 young Greenlanders struggling with feeling stifled by society. Each chapter is in the point of view of a different character, and the story is told through text messages, letters, diary entries, and stream of conscious narrative. There's a lot of alcohol use, regret, and soul searching. I was initially interested in this book because I had never read anything set in Greenland before, but I had trouble connecting with the characters. I think I lost a lot of the cultural context - I'm not sure if the characters' actions were supposed to shock or surprise me, but they just seemed like normal 20 somethings. I did like the way their stories connected and were revealed in each chapter, but I was looking for more character development. This was a quick read, though, and worth checking out for a look at life in Nuuk.

I want to commend the author for her talent and originality in writing a genre-defying book which is difficult to categorize. Nordic literature usually presents us with mystery and brutal crime. This book puts a modern urban spin on the emotions and thoughts of 5 young people during a night of drinking and partying. Told in interesting modern prose which is gritty, bold and edgy, they experience the pain of self-discovery and self-doubt and start the process of transformation into the sort of people they are meant to be.

We are shown the shame which LGBT young people may experience while coming to terms with relationships and their sexual and gender identity. Living in the small, urban centre of Nuuk (Greenland’s capital; population 17,000) they feel the claustrophobia and also some homophobia inherent in a confined, isolated city where everyone knows the other inhabitants.

We share their fears, anger, depression, and their yearning for loving relationships through streams of consciousness, text messages and email. It took some time and effort to figure out whose thoughts and emotions were being shared. I wished that the various characters’ streams of consciousness were more clearly identified and marked, in order to more readily know whose inner voices and thoughts I was reading. As a result, the story didn’t flow smoothly for me.

Fia has left her kind boyfriend, Peter, after a three-year relationship. She was becoming bored and repulsed by him. She strong feelings of desire for the beautiful Sara and feels it is love at first sight. Fia is presently staying with the bisexual Arnak who is an alcoholic, jobless, intent on partying, getting drunk and picking up either a male or female. Arnak was abused as a child, and her economic instability is common among the youth.

Sara lives with Ivik who secretly plans a gender transformation from female to male.

Inuk is Fia’s younger brother he was best friends with Arnak until she outed his possible homosexual affair with a politician. Feeling betrayed, he fled to Denmark. We follow his communication with sister, Fia, through emails and text messages.

The style of writing (stream of consciousness) allowed us to share the conflicts and struggles of the characters, but I felt a lack of connection. Perhaps this was because I was sometimes slow to grasp whose voice and inner thoughts I was experiencing. I also did not feel a strong sense of location. These young people could be situated in almost any urban area.

Unlike most familiar Nordic writing, this book is remarkable as it puts a young, modern spin on life in Nuuk, featuring the conflicts and desires in the life of a group of young people. I wish to thank NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the ARC in return for an honest review.

I was intrigued by the idea of this book. However, it all droned on in a stream of consciousness that didn't always make sense and didn't really go anywhere. It was more of a quick character study than a novel. And all of the characters were variations of the same character. Very slight variations. Maybe if it had been set up to be a little more clear when it changed media and maybe if the characters had been a little more distinctive. They all seemed self-destructive and use selfishness as a defense mechanism. The interesting way it was presented, texts, messages, social media, etc. made it slightly interesting, but not enough to sustain me. Luckily, it was really short.

It seems I'm an outlier on this one. For me, <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> was confusing (the characters all had the same voice), quite superficial, had little character development and was just not all that compelling.

Last Night in Nuuk is a novel about five young Greenlanders who encounter one another on a night out. These chance encounters prove life-changing for all of them, in different ways.

Each character's story leading up to and after these events is told in a separate chapter. As the chapters progress, the characters are fleshed out and the overall picture becomes clearer. Korneliussen delivers a couple of surprises along the way, shifting the reader's perspective considerably.

This is a very interesting look at youth and queer culture in a stultifyingly conservative society.

@Tommyjamesandtheshondells to score <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> on screen??? #crimsonandclover #overandover

Niviaq Korneliussen’s <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> isn’t your average LGBTQIA youth novel to burst out of Greenland. Nanortalik’s own Korneliussen provides an always fascinating, occasionally confusing polyvocal novel told through five apparently 20-somethings living in Nuuk. Korneliussen animates Fia, Inuk, Arnaq, Ivik, and Sara through their utterly believable and sometimes discomfiting first person voices. We hear their voices through stream of consciousness, emojis, texts, Facebook DMs, hashtags, and emails, all perfectly replicating today’s communication. Korneliussen convinces us of her characters’ struggles with romance, sexual identify, and navigation of day to day existence and friendship. The believability of the five voices in <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> comes at a cost: even this reader—rarely squeamish when confronting fictional characters—might have preferred knowing less of, for example, the details of Arnaq’s hangover. And some of the voices—especially those of Fia, Inuk, and Ivik—sound most consistently distinct to me.

#NowIdonthardlyknowher and #ButIthinkIcouldloveher accurately describe Fia’s and Ivik’s emerging identities. Here’s Fia describing her frustrations with Peter, her roommate and lover: <i>”I give up and go into my room, log on to Facebook, would like to tag Peter and write: does anyone want this man who never grumbles and never glances at anybody else, I’m tired of my life, my back hurts because I always sit hunched over, he loves me so much that I want something evil to take possession of my body so that I can knife him, four years to prison, rehabilitation, a new life, maybe a more exciting life. . .”</i> Here’s Fia again soon after: <i>”WHAT? My own thoughts frighten me. I don’t want to kiss her! What am I thinking of? I know my boundaries. My boundary stops here. Why the hell would I want to kiss a woman? Listen, you’re not into women! I tell myself.”</i> And here’s Ivinnguaq recognizing herself as a man, Ivik: <i>”My sould finds solace in my body. Now that my body has finally found the answer, my soul is no longer in doubt. I was born again when I was twenty-three years old. I was born as Ivik.”</i>

Reading <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> brings to mind Sally Rooney’s Booker 2018 long-listed <i>Normal People</i> and Anna Burns 2018 Booker-winning <i>Milkman</i>. All three novels deal with teens and 20-somethings struggling to learn about their own and their friends’ identities, all deal with romance and sex, and all convey social claustrophobia. <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i>, like <i>Milkman</i>, layers in concerns about nationality and culture. Here’s Inuk’s e-mail to his sister Fia, after he’s fled to Denmark: <i>”What it really means to be a Greenlander: You’re a Greenlander when you’re an alcoholic. You’re a Greenlander when you beat your partner. You’re a Greenlander when you abuse children. You’re a Greenlander when you were neglected as a child. You’re a Greenlander when you feel self-pity. You’re a Greenlander when you suffer from self-loathing. You’re a Greenlander when you’re fall of anger. You’re a Greenlander when you’re a liar.”</i> And then here’s Inuk a week later, still in Denmark: <i>”Greenland is not my home. I feel sorry for the Greenlanders. I’m ashamed of being a Greenlander. But I’m a Greenlander. I can’t laugh with the Danes. I don’t find them funny. I can’t keep up a conversation with the Danes. I find it boring. I can’t act like the Danes. I’m unable to imitate them. I can’t share Danish values. I don’t respect them. I’ll never look like the Danes. I can’t become blond or fair-skinned. I can’t be a Dane among Danes. I’m not a Dane. I can’t live in Denmark. Denmark is not my country. Where is home? / If home isn’t n Greenland, if home isn’t here, where is my home? /Lost.”</i> And most important of all, where <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> stands apart from <i>Normal People</i> and <i>Milkman</i> is putting LGBTQIA youth, their struggles, their romances, and their lives at the epicenter of her novel.

<i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> may appear to be a novel that can be read quickly, but this would do it a disservice. Niviaq Korneliussen gives us a lot to ponder and unpack, and her <i>Last Night in Nuuk</i> demands a thoughtful reading and rereading. It’s a novel that deserves to be widely reviewed and widely read, and to attract the same attention lavished on <i>Normal People</i> and <i>Milkman</i> and largely denied Olumide Popoola’s <i>When We Speak of Nothing</i> and Sjón’s <i>Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was</i>.

I would like to thank Black Cat New York/Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for providing me with an e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

“What it really means to be a Greenlander:
You’re a Greenlander when you’re an alcoholic. You’re a Greenlander when you beat your partner. You’re a Greenlander when you abuse children. You’re a
Greenlander when you were neglected as a child. You’re in Greenlander when you feel self-pity. You’re in Greenlander when you suffer from self loathing. You’re a Greenlander when you’re full of anger. You’re in Greenlander when you’re a liar. You’re a Greenlander when you’re full of yourself. You’re a Greenlander when you’re stupid. You’re in Greenlander when you’re evil. You’re a Greenlander when you’re queer”.
“Our nation, she who is ancient; go to the mountain and never come back”.

Author Niviaq Korneliussen, is only 28 years old. She’s from Greenland. She’s written a thought-provoking - engaging stylistic stream-of- consciousness contemporary story about young adults - coming-of -age- presumably in their 20’s.
Personally, my ‘early 20’s’ were much more confusing & painful, ‘coming-of-age’ so to speak - growing years - than the early pre-teen years. I also think ‘this-age-group’ is harder to portray authentically.
I marveled at Korneliussen’s clear-eyed and heartbreaking complex depiction of the fierce, flawed, characters.
Niviaq Korneliussen’s new voice shows ambition, and honesty. Each page of this
thin book about self-identity- sexuality- desires - despair - and lust- is blunt,....tackling issues about fear, blame, betrayal, forgiveness, and acceptance.
We are taken into their inner lives. We look at what divides them from one another and how they come to know themselves.

The young folks we follow are Fia, Arnaq, Inuk, Sara, and Ivik,.

The very ‘beginning’ of this book - we ‘immediately’ observe the brilliance- raw-edged relatable prose. We first meet Fia ( although she is narrating - we don’t instantly know her name), but we soon learn she has been living with Peter for three years. This first chapter is so gut-real-truthful- and powerful - I’d find it hard to believe if not every person on the planet ( if they told the truth), hadn’t at some point in their own lives experienced the inner feelings of *Fia*. ( and they are not comfortable feelings).

Fia is tired of her life. She is tired of Peter. They have lived together for three years. He’s a gentleman- kind- never grumbles - ( wishing if he did grumble life might be more exciting). Fia much rather spend time on Facebook than kiss Peter. Fia’s inner monologue made me LAUGH....( of course it’s not funny that she wants to fucking knife him).... but since we sense she’s not really going to....as readers - we are treated to a little comic-wonderful-sarcastic-prose. WE GET IT.....Fia’s life is more dull than a butter life! Who hasn’t ever been there? Who wouldn’t want to pull your hair out? As a young vivacious- rambunctious- hot-sex-starved- 20-something year old, ‘DULL’ is the kiss of death!
Fia leaves Peter.
“Then, just like that, I was free”.
“But the word ‘free’ didn’t bring ‘relief’”. NOT entirely the end of Peter.....

And the story continues.....
Arnag is Fia’s friend. Fia is staying at her place for awhile since having left Peter.
Argnag has plenty of her own troubles - big time party girl - and was once best friends with Fia’s younger brother - Inuk.
Inuk is forced to leave Greenland after a political scandal implicated him.

SARA.....oh SARA.....she is every girl’s heart-throb! Laugh with me - as I’m telling you
only tidbits now....
But Sara ‘does’ become Fia’s girl crush. It’s Fia’s first experience of dying to kiss a girl. No real problem we say - right? Sara is a lesbian- so why not? Well.....Sara is loyal. She has a girlfriend named Ivik.
There may be doubts of Sara & Ivik’s relationship later......
AND NO.....this is NOT a soap opera .... these are normal 20 year old’s who happen to live in Nuuk....the Capital of Greenland.

This book might not be for everyone - but I thought it was TERRIFIC! It’s FRESH...with dialogue that made me laugh - but also feel anger at the same time.
Sometimes men are a dick!
Sometimes - fucking strangers felt like the only solace -
Sometimes fucking a ‘sausage’ is a night of horror that makes you puke.
Sometimes - life is just awkward - embarrassing- and confusing -
Sometimes life is beautiful
Sometimes it’s morning - and reality hits you in the face
Sometimes you’ve been unfaithful in your head.
Sometimes your FAVORITE SONG COMES ON....’Crimson and Clover’ by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts.
Sometimes your body is struggling to survive- fighting to breathe - being smothered.
Sometimes you’re scared. Your comfort zone has been fulfilled, but you don’t know what to do.
Sometimes it makes one crazy being from Greenland.
Sometimes.... “life has many challenges, but love’s small miracles will always win”.

An extraordinary debut ....( my first time reading a book by an author from GREENLAND). I had fun googling the area Nuuk.
BOLD ...& HONEST are words that keep coming to me when I think of what Niviaq created. It’s also scathingly funny at times. A poignant - observant rude awakening- of self- discovery. Life happens in Greenland too!

Thank You Netgalley, Grove Atlantic, and Niviaq Korneliussen - I look forward to reading more novels from you.

It was hard to figure out who was talking or acting in each case without some help from the author. But when those cases showed up you would guess at the latest person and go with it. Arnaq, Sara, and Fia seemed to be the best choices for women and I admit I may have been confused some of the time. What in the end transpired was that Sara and Fia got together. We stumble allot in life and this is what it seemed to say to me. Follow your heart.

28-year-old Greenlandic writer Niviaq Korneliussen is beating the odds: Hailing from a country with a population of around 56,000 which is still hugely influenced by the literary traditions of its former colonial power, Denmark, Korneliussen managed to cause quite a stir with her original writing that shows new paths for Greenlandic literature. Originally published in 2014, her debut novel "Last Night in Nuuk" (then titled "HOMO sapienne") was nominated for a Politiken literary award and the Nordic Council Literature Prize, and Sjón just recently included Korneliussen's short story "San Francisco", which features one of the book's protagonists, in his anthology of Nordic fiction, The Dark Blue Winter Overcoat & Other Stories from the North.

"Last Night in Nuuk" tells the story of five young Greenlanders struggling with their sexual and gender identity in modern-day Nuuk. Korneliussen masterfully moves between different perspectives as well as between time frames: The events of the title-giving night assume different meanings as the author starts to extrapolate. All of the protagonists have very distinct voices, and the text includes Greenlandic and Danish expressions that young people use (no worries, they are explained in the text). Turning away from traditional themes and tropes, the characters party, drink and have sex, they try to come to terms with their parents (who have been even more influenced by the Danish colonial rule), and they communicate with text messages and via postings on social media.

This is a fascinating book, and Korneliussen clearly has the potential to produce some first class literary fiction in the future. There is no doubt that she knows how to write relevant books full of sparkling language. We need more writers who find words like these:

"It was an honour to hold your heart, but my hands are all bloody, so you'd better take it or I'm gonna have to drop this sticky heart of yours."

Watch out for this writer.

An interesting and rarely seen insight into the nightlife, loves and partying in modern day Greenlanders. Told by a handful of narrators using techniques that include emojis I found the telling of sexual awakening and various relationships to be very well done by an author of quite some talent.

I’m going to be honest here: I definitely had to sit on this one to sort through it and figure it out before I could write a coherent review. This book made me feel like that time I stayed up for 36 straight hours and started having weird blackout moments where my brain just shut off for a few seconds and reality got disjointed and I had no real grasp on my surroundings but I was insisting that I was functional and interacting normally. Then when I woke up 12 hours later, I had to sit there and slowly take apart the past day and a half to filter through what I actually did and said vs. what I thought I did and said?

There’s a point to this and it’s that this book confused me and made me feel like I was losing chunks of time in weird blackout moments because I couldn’t figure out how we got from point A to point J. So I had to sit here and very slowly take apart the book and then put it back together to figure out what I had just read so I could actually review it.

To be fair, I am about 99% sure that this book wasn’t written in English originally. That or the author’s first language isn’t English, which might have been the case considering there were some words that weren’t translated but we were given the meaning of at both the beginning and end of the book. I’m not really sure.

That being said, this wasn’t an awful book, it honestly wasn’t. It took me a bit to realize this because I had to analyze the overall plot objectively, but it wasn’t horrible or anything.

It focuses on five very different characters, all of whom are LGBT+ and dealing with their own struggles (that are all intertwined in one way or another) in Greenland.

Fia, who is in a relationship that doesn’t make her happy so she finally calls it quits because she can’t take pretending anymore which leads her down a path she never considered before. Her brother, Inuk, who got caught up in an affair with a powerful and married man, which lead to him being ostracized. Sara, who is in a relationship with Ivik, who comes to a very painful and life-changing conclusion after their relationship is bent until it finally breaks. And then finally, Arnaq, who is the common denominator to all of these characters but is deeply damaged and causes more problems than she actually helps, depending on how you look at it.

Thing is, objectively and plot-wise, it was a decent book. I enjoyed the concept of it upon reflection, but not the actual execution.

For one, despite being focused on five very different characters all with their own problems, the characters kind of blend together for me. I spent too much time trying to remember which point of view I was reading it because it was hard to differentiate between them. I had to go back to my copy to recall names of certain characters just to write the summary. There was no depth or meaning to any of them outside of their problems and interactions with each other. I understood all their problems and yet if any of them had died in the duration of the book, I wouldn’t have cared. To be honest, I didn’t much care how any of their stories ended. (I’m not even totally positive there was a solid ending?)

On top of this, I haven’t tripped and fallen into this intense of a case of insta-love since 2010. It was bad. There was no real introduction to the characters and a relationship, even platonic, did not exist between Fia and Sara at all before it was ‘love’. In fact, Sara was in a relationship with someone else for most of the story. They interacted all of maybe three times in a social setting. It was exhausting just to read.

The writing is also disjointed, inconsistent, and clumsy. It alternated between blunt sentences and whole pages consisting of just one single paragraph, and it lacked a lot of detail. The dialogue felt stilted and awkward; it leaned more towards feeling like half the conversations existed to bulk up the book, not to contribute or delve the reader into the relationship and dynamic between the two characters speaking. The narrative was often confusing, as well. I could not, for the life of me, keep up with half of the trains of thoughts any of the characters had and if there’s one thing that bugs me, it’s having to read and then reread something because it didn’t make sense the first time.

However, given the ratings, I’m inclined to think something got lost in translation. I’m not sure how this reads in Greenlandic or any other language that has more words to capture a lot of things. I’ve learned that not many things translate well to English if they weren’t originally written that way by the author. A lot of things get lost because not everything has a perfect translation. I don’t know if that’s what happened because like I mentioned earlier, I’m not actually sure where this story is coming from, but it would make sense and that is how it reads.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t terrible and it definitely wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read but I wouldn’t recommend it either (at least not the English version, I guess). As I said, I liked the concept but I did not like the execution.

(Also, upon looking at the Goodreads page, it says this is actually close to 300 pages so it’s not actually a short story? Yet it only took me about an hour and a half to read it so I put it on my ‘short stories’ shelf. I’m not really sure what’s going on there because even at 300 pages, it takes me longer than that. I would assume it’s because of the format or maybe it’s an ebook thing. I have no idea.)