Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth is a short read, but not necessarily an easy one. After a brief encounter with a family who is clearly experiencing some tension, the main character is reminded of a particularly tense situation with her own parents when she was sixteen and attempting to understand who she was becoming. Yet in recounting the weeks leading to this moment, it becomes clear that both its impact on her life and the trauma that produced it is bigger than even she understood at the time.

For such a heavy topic, I like how compact this book is and that it focuses, not on the most traumatic event in the character’s life, but on what the narrator calls the “aftershocks,” on how it can shift many different relationships and leave scars that can go unacknowledged and become just as damaging in their own right. Although I appreciate the way this novel deals with a sensitive subject, it’s not necessarily for me, and won’t be for all readers. I was also occasionally thrown off by the long, run-on sentences that bordered on stream-of-consciousness.

Thanks to NetGalley and Verso Books for my ARC!

Thank you, NetGalley and Verso Books (US), for this ARC!

3.5 stars, rounded up!
A short but incredible read. A coming of age story centered on a complicated and toxic mother/daughter relationship that hides a dark secret. I loved the writing style! This was my first book by Vigdis Hjorth, and it definitely won’t be my last

Thank you to Vigdis Hjorth, Verso Books (US) | Verso Fiction, and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review!

Repetition is a highly character-driven literary fiction novel that didn’t work for me unfortunately. I found the writing style lacked energy - maybe a translational fault? There was also almost no plot - I think this would appeal to fans of Joan Didion.

What a punctuating story of teenage-hood, told in a poetic and heart wrenching way.

This was a quick read, though I was confused at the start over the formatting. Some parts of dialogue were punctuated, and some weren't which was a bit frustrating to read.

This is my first of Hjorth and what a wonderful first it is. Short, punchy, and filled with isolated snapshots of sensitive melodrama. The surprise “twist” at the end made me want to immediately reread and search for signs myself. Being a teenager is hard, and being a teenager who is isolated is even harder. Looking back on scenes as an adult feels like grief, and Hjorth captures that feeling perfectly

honestly i don't really think this sort of writing is for me, but it was enjoyable. i found that i related to the FMC. it's a good story in the transition from childhood to adulthood, but i don't think short stories are up my alley.

Thank you NetGalley and Verso Books for this ARC!

This book was so incredibly surreal and yet it seemed so realistic. Going into it I will admit I did not expect the ending and thought this would be a more lighthearted story, but it was amazing nonetheless. Vigdis Hjorth wrote some really beautiful lines and I was surprised that I didn't have any trouble deciphering norms of Norway in the 1970s. This book was a heartbreaking but timeless story that I would reccomend to anyone interested.

Stark and arresting novella about coming of age as a person and writer under extreme existential duress in your own home. Completely claustrophobic and enthralling and precisely observed, with real respect and dignity towards the teenage narrator's feelings and experiences. I'd read another Hjorth book with a lighter subject matter, and this made me want to read all of her books.

absolutely devoured this and i'll definitely be seeking out more of Hjorth's work. beautiful writing that had me simultaneously rapt and anxiously dreading the next page.

I read this in an hour and what a heart-wrenching hour it was. The main character looks back on her life as it was at 16 years old. The toxic relationship with her mother that has her walking on eggshells; the detachment of the other members of her family; friendships and fumbling attempts at sex and drinking. The mind is a funny thing and when memories long hidden come back into the light, the secrets families keep can destroy them.

I have been a fan of Hjorth since I read Will and Testament. It was one of the only books I purchased that year. This title did not disappoint. I love the way that Hjorth reveals more and more information to us and to her characters from the repeated memories they dredge through. Each time the story is remembered and talked about, another sliver of truth rises to the surface. And even though you know where she is headed, it doesn't feel heavy-handed or patronizing when you get there. A brilliant little nugget of a story about how even the lack of memory shapes the people we become.

I really enjoyed the book. A pretty sad story, anxious even at times. I didn't quite like the writing style at times, found it a bit repetitive, but I really liked the story in general. 3.5

My first work by Hjorth but absolutely won’t be the last. This book was absolutely. The usage of the run-on sentences to illustrate the scrambled, maniac thoughts of a confused and anxious teenage girl. The cold, snowy, and gray Norwegian landscape the author tells her story in further illustrate the isolation the narrator feels. The repetitive story telling spirals us down to the evil at the heart of the story.

A huge props to the translator as well to be able to convey the impact of Hjorth’s words into english.

4.5 rounded up
Repetition tells the story of a Norwegian novelist in her sixties who, during an evening at the opera, finds herself sitting next to a teenage girl and her parents. She senses a tension between the girl and her mother, a moment that becomes the spark for the narrator’s return to her own adolescence and the complicated, suffocating relationship she had with her own mother.
The narrative takes us back to her sixteenth year, specifically to the night she first got drunk and slept with a boy. But there is much more than that - at its core, Repetition is a raw and intimate exploration of maternal control, silence, and the long shadow of unspoken trauma. The mother-daughter relationship is central to the story, and it’s one marked by anxiety, paranoia, and emotional and physical repression. However, as the story slowly unfolds, it becomes clear that something darker lies beneath the surface.
The novel is immersive and atmospheric, with its cold, dark, snow-covered Norwegian setting mirroring the emotional isolation of the narrator’s adolescence.
The writing feels urgent, almost breathless, as though the narrator was finally getting a weight off her chest. It reads more like a confession than a polished narrative.
I think ultimately what touched me the most is that, at the heart of this short novel, there is a deep emotional truth that many readers may recognise: the painful, often unspoken guilt children carry when they grow up under the weight of a parent’s suffering - the sense that no matter what they do, they are always the cause of pain, as if they were the villains, while actually being the victims all along.

This book immediately captured my attention. I was invested in the outcome and intrigued by the storyline. It always amazed me when a writer can capture young adulthood so excellently and realistically. This is an authentic book to get lost in. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

4.5 star for the book.

“Anything you want to forget will come back to you, it will haunt you so vividly that it feels as if you’re going through it all over again”

This is story about a women in her sixties, recalling her time when she was 16 and the grief and trauma she carries all her life.

The blurb of the book made it like a coming of age story about a girl moving from her girlhood to womanhood as she discovers the changes her body is experiencing and the sexuality, lust and desire it brings on top of teenage puberty but it is more than that as it touches on the concept of family and bonds especially on her relationships with her parents.

“Their fears subsided, mine grew, I was alone in the mute darkness.”

I like Ms. Vigdis writing and the prose she used is direct and stark but heartbreakingly beautiful.

Can’t wait for the book to be released. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC :).

"The effect of my first fiction, however, and the horror it caused taught me a life lesson: fiction can have a greater impact than the truth, and be more truthful."

Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth (Translated by Charlotte Barslund) could be called many things: literary fiction, a coming of age story, a novel of memory bordering on memoir, a confession— but at its heart lies the exegesis of a human soul.

Repetition is narrated by an aging writer spurred against reason to reflect on her childhood, particularly her sixteenth year when the oppressive regime of shame and anxiety enforced upon her by her mother finally comes to a head. The story is not told in concretely defined scenes and extended exchanges of dialogue, rather in the narrated recollection of events that have come flooding back with stark emotional clarity and truth.

Those who need more than stunning prose and the compelling honesty of the human heart to remain engaged in a book may be disappointed by the absence of genre tropes and plotted suspense which typically structure a commercial novel. However, what Repetition does promise it delivers in stunning fashion. Hjorth’s prose is restrained yet indulgent in its endless tangle of highly-legible run-on sentences which feel more like the natural undulations of conversation than a grammar teacher’s nightmare; she recounts the emotional life of a sixteen year old adolescent with pristine attention and sensitivity, describing the mystery of the body and its many nameless feelings and impulses with jarring relatability. And with regularity, from this maze of simple declarative phrases and metaphors emerge profound sentences containing true insights of the soul. Charlotte Barslund should be commended particularly for rendering Hjorth’s formidable writing so powerfully in English, and this is surely an exceptional translation.

Thank you Verso Books and Netgalley for the ARC!

“I repeat and recall and relive and retell and redress because childhood lasts, youth lasts, our childhood and youth constitute a future that starts over constantly, it is an ongoing process.”

This story was surprising. The repetitive narration didn’t take us in a circle but rather spiralled us down toward the horrific reveal that had been lurking under the surface. This novel takes on a coming-of-age story in a unique way, and what looks like a typical strained mother-daughter relationship ends up being something so much darker.

Repetition by Vigdis Hjorth is haunting, obsessive, and intentionally disorienting. It loops through memory and trauma like a spiral, refusing clarity—because clarity isn’t always possible. A raw, unsettling look at sisterhood, guilt, and the stories we tell ourselves. Not easy, but unforgettable.