I love that this story combines the heartwarming family element with the mystery element - great marriage of two different genres. This was a great read!

I hate giving not the best reviews, but this book just didn't do it for me. I loved the cover and the blurb for it, but once I got started, I couldn't get into it. This one was a little depressing for me and I found my mind wandering a lot as I was reading.

Thank you to #Netgalley and Houghton Mulfin Harcourt Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Who is Elin Boals? She's a successful photographer shooting for high fashion magazines, a former model, and a wife and mother. But Elin also has secrets, including a childhood she's tried hard to put behind her. When she receives a letter from an old friend, she finds herself consumed by her past secrets. Can she face what happened and open up to her family, or will she lose them too?

I loved The Red Address Book, so I was very excited to receive this ARC! As in her previous novel, Lundberg crafts a story in multiple timelines, building up emotional heft and character-driven drama. The present-day Elin was hard to connect to at first, but I loved seeing her childhood in small-town Sweden, and I warmed up to her as the story progressed. Elin's relationship with her daughter Alice is probably the strongest part of the book - I enjoyed seeing them grow closer as Elin let Alice in on her past. This is a wonderful family drama filled with emotion and love, and I'm excited to see what Sofia Lundberg does next.

Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Overall I was not impressed with this book, overall story and ending. Like other readers, Elin in the past was a heck of a lot more interesting than her in the future in one mess after another in NYC as a mother and wife. This book was just a no for me, and not what I expected after the pretty cover and reading the premise. So happy it was not that long.

Cannot recommend. Sorry, I do not like giving bad reviews but I would skip this one.

Thanks to NetGalley, Sofia Lundberg and Houghton Mulfin Harcourt Publishing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 3/21/21

I started this book and got about 40% through but was not really enjoying it, so I decided to leave it aside.

I am neither disappointed nor much impressed by the story. The plot was a bit slow for me in the beginning.I had taken a lot of time to finish it. But as the plot developed the story gathered pace.I loved the writing style and character sketch of the characters. The plot was a unique one but I felt it was a bit dragged.
Thank you #netgalley for providing with the e-ARC

description
This book is told across two timelines.

There's past-Elin, the eldest child of three struggling with her brothers and her mother to survive.

And there's present-Elin, the seemingly perfect wife and mother who is going through a crisis of sorts.

The past focuses mostly on what it was like to live with nearly nothing.

Elin's mother is stressed beyond belief, the children aren't quite starving but they are getting close. There's frequent verbal outbursts from the mother and the children are hurting from it.

In present-day, Elin's daughter just went off to college and Elin is throwing herself into her work. She's taking photographs every day to all hours of the night and her husband is feeling (understandably) forgotten and left out.

They are trying therapy, but Elin lives in this world where everything is fine.

But what no one knows is that the guilt from the past is pushing Elin forward.

But as the tension in her marriage grows, Elin will very soon be forced to make decision - continue running from her past? Or turn around and confront it?

Whew. So. I was so psyched for this one but it didn't pan out.

I'm not big on depressing contemporaries and this one was no exception.

The way Elin has pulled away from her family and cannot see the pain it causes them frustrated me.

I did understand why she acted like that, but I just wanted to shake her. She works, works, works and acts apathetically towards all things outside of her job.

Which gave off the mood of...well...apathy.

If the main character doesn't care one iota about her husband feeling neglected...it's hard for me (as a reader) to feel the same thing.

Also, the pacing of this book felt reallllllllly slow. Things eventually did end up happening but gosh-dang it took SO long for anything interesting to pop up on paper.

Ultimately, this one wasn't for me.

I received a free copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I loved the author’s previous book ‘The Red Address Book’ so I was really looking forward to reading this. I was not disappointed. What a beautiful book and so well written. This book is about Elin, a very successful photographer who lives in New York with her husband and daughter. Although she is at the top of her professional career, her family relationships seem to be at rock bottom! Out of the blue she receives a letter from an old childhood friend and her life starts to unravel as she is faced with dealing with her past. We learn through reading a dual timeline why Elin is the person she is.

Compelling and poignant, this novel is beautifully written. It tells the backstory of Elin, a famous photographer in New York who has concealed the truth about her painful childhood on a Swedish island, from her husband and daughter. A great read, sentimental and sad, yet soothing and uplifting. I loved it!

A Question Mark is Half a Heart

‘You can’t love someone whose heart is full of secrets’.

Elin, a successful photographer living in NYC, has the perfect life with her husband Sam and seventeen year old daughter Alice but something has always been missing.

After Elin receives a letter from an old childhood friend Fredrick, who lives on the Swedish island Gotland, dark secrets and memories she has tried to keep buried for decades come flooding back.

Battling with the past and the present will her secrets come back to ruin everything she’s worked for and cause Elin to lose her family?

This story is told to us through Elin’s narration, contrasting between stories from the past and her present life.
Sofia lundberg tells a beautiful, heartfelt story of how poverty and dysfunction in a childs life can ultimately cause decades of pain. The story being told from past and present gives the reader an insight into the characters development and how, against the odds, Elin survived her own battles to build this successful life for herself. The portrayal of the characters in this story were well scripted. I couldn’t help feel frustration by how Elins character almost self destructs the wonderful life she’s built for herself, while also admiring how she uses her passion for photography to mask the pain and hurt she’s carried for all those years.
The ending was exactly how I wanted it to be, it wasn’t rushed but carefully detailed and tied up the story beautifully. A truly enjoyable read!

Although unimpressed, I found the story in her past much more alive than that of present day. The past was most interesting and relevant to what I took away from this novel
Thank you netgalley and the publisher for this arc

This story really pulled me in. I enjoyed the then and now chapters of the book and really looked forward to piecing the story together as we moved from different time periods. I felt deeply for the characters, especially when one passed as she reminded me of my own grandmother always having sweets and cards. The last pages of the book hit the hardest. It made me stop and think about my life and things that have been said to me, things I’ve said to others, and what has made me grow as a person. Memories are funny and sometimes not at all what really happened. Taking a moment to reflect on that can be hard but worth the growth that comes from it.

I loved this author's earlier book, The Red Address Book, so I couldn't wait to dive into this one. At first I was a touch disappointed as I found the plot felt a bit forced but I soon left those feelings behind as I become more and more absorbed in the characters and their story. The author nicely continued the character's development as the plot progressed and their relationships were as complex as ours are in our real lives. And it is always a perk when books are a central character in a book! All in all this was a fun, different, entertaining read.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an early release in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Whew! Twisty, sad, tragic, a bit dark, and a tearjerker! Elin is a total mess! I’m amazed at how she blocked out so many things for 30 years!

I was provided with an ARC of this book by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

From the title this book wasn't quite what I was expecting but I did really enjoy it. It follows Elin's life as a child on a Swedish Island and then as an adult in New York. The characters have great depth, even though not all of them are particularly likeable. As a reader you wish for certain things to happen so do fully emmerse yourself into the story. I would certainly recommend. Thank you #SofiaLundberg,
#HoughtonMiflinHarcourt and #NetGalley for my arc.

I'm kind of conflicted about this one. I was expecting a deep, literary novel, but this is a bit lighter and more heartwarming. I had somewhat of a hard time connecting with Elin, the main character. She almost seems to keep the reader at a distance. However, I did enjoy the way the author juggled the multiple timelines. The transitions are seamless and the switches come at good points in time. The reader is able to spend the right amount of pages in each timeline - not too long, not too short. It was also interesting to see how Elin's past made her who she is today. Overall, I would recommend this book if you're looking for an emotional family story.

Powerful and intense. I would defintely read this author again. Such a captivating voice. I was glued to this book right until the end.

When I read the blurb, I found the whole idea of the book quite interesting and I was excited to see how the author would write the book. For the most part, I liked this book and it was a wholesome read but I thought the end was rushed up and it took me a minute to catch up with everything. Other that that, this is definitely an interesting book that I would recommend.

This was a good and heart warming book.
It took me some time to get in the story, but the moment I was in it I just didn't want to put it down.
The writing is superb. Love the story.
This is a 3.5 stars for me.

I really wanted to love this but I just could not get into it. I didn’t find NYC Elin likeable (not Sam, really) and Marianne was just terrible. It was fairly seamless going back and forth between the timelines and I really liked that aspect- some novels with that same idea tend to stay in their “times” too long and you lose momentum, but this kept the pace throughout.