Welcome to Litsy!

Wow. Alma, the main character of this thought-provoking short novel, is a maddening mess of a person. There aren't many characters and everything is told from Alma's perspective, so the other characters are either unlikable or sympathetic depending on how annoyed I was with Alma. I ended up loving the book, despite Alma, and I hope Slawomira is okay (yes, I know she's fictional).

The second half of this book made me SO ANGRY.
It also kept me awake on a plane though (!), so I can‘t rate the book poorly. Alma‘s acceptance of everything her lazy children and meek but demanding lodger did almost made me hate the book. But then I realized it is actually quite well written (if repetitive), and very TRUE, very Norwegian, very representative. And Alma does eventually get enough and explodes, and that was very satisfying.