Adeline
4.75 stars
Literary fiction translated from Danish, follow a group of five university friends reuniting for a summer holiday at a lakeside cabin in the Danish countryside.
I actually devoured this gorgeous in a day ! The translated writing was gorgeous, I loved the atmosphere in it, the lush, sultry and queer feel of it was delicious, the author painted such a vivid picture of a series of hot and sensual moments in a summer lake house.
Light on plot this felt definitely like a character centric story with an omniscient 3rd pov.We don’t see one of the central character inner feelings which I would have liked to see and I would have liked to hear from some of the characters. I liked all of the characters, who felt like real human beings with complex feelings, negative and positive traits. Throughout the book some characters show changes while others don’t, and it made for a realistic story.
The author did a great job interweaving various themes on sexuality, gender, feminism, (in)dependency, platonic/sexual relationships, queerness etc and I liked what she had to say on these subjects.
It has an open abrupt ending and some subplots weren’t 100% resolved or resolved too quickly. With the type of story this book told it didn’t bother me much but this added to a couple of elements kept me from giving this a full 5 stars.
Overall a really incredible debut I’ll be looking forward to read more books by Linea Maja Ernst.
4.75 stars
Literary fiction translated from Danish, follow a group of five university friends reuniting for a summer holiday at a lakeside cabin in the Danish countryside.
I actually devoured this gorgeous in a day ! The translated writing was gorgeous, I loved the atmosphere in it, the lush, sultry and queer feel of it was delicious, the author painted such a vivid picture of a series of hot and sensual moments in a summer lake house.
Light on plot this felt definitely like a character centric story with an omniscient 3rd pov.We don’t see one of the central character inner feelings which I would have liked to see and I would have liked to hear from some of the characters. I liked all of the characters, who felt like real human beings with complex feelings, negative and positive traits. Throughout the book some characters show changes while others don’t, and it made for a realistic story.
The author did a great job interweaving various themes on sexuality, gender, feminism, (in)dependency, platonic/sexual relationships, queerness etc and I liked what she had to say on these subjects.
It has an open abrupt ending and some subplots weren’t 100% resolved or resolved too quickly. With the type of story this book told it didn’t bother me much but this added to a couple of elements kept me from giving this a full 5 stars.
Overall a really incredible debut I’ll be looking forward to read more books by Linea Maja Ernst.