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karenangela_1's review
1.0
After finding out that the man she believed to be her father wasn't Clarissa abandons her life in new york and heads for lapland looking for her real father. She walks out on her fiance without telling him or anybody else for that matter where she is going.
While it is understandable that she might want some answers I cannot sympathise with her, she is completely unlikeable and is mean and nasty to pretty much everybody she meets along the way even people whose only crime is to be nice to her and help her.
I don't like the way she handled a phone call to her brother who has Down Syndrome and has never spoken, she thinks the way to get a response from him is to shout and swear at him.
I also don't like the ending, she never meets the father that she is looking for as it turns out her mother was raped although she does meet his family and she does find her mother who had walked out on her family when Clarissa was fourteen. The mother and clarissa had been on a christmas shopping trip and she abandoned clarissa at the mall and was never seen again until clarissa finds her in lapland. She feels no remorse for what she did and this upsets clarissa although given that she walked out on her life without telling anybody where she was going and at the end decides that despite being pregnant with her fiance's baby she is not going home and she is not going to tell him about the baby. I don't like that the writer has made it so easy for clarissa to walk away from her life with no complications.
While it is understandable that she might want some answers I cannot sympathise with her, she is completely unlikeable and is mean and nasty to pretty much everybody she meets along the way even people whose only crime is to be nice to her and help her.
I don't like the way she handled a phone call to her brother who has Down Syndrome and has never spoken, she thinks the way to get a response from him is to shout and swear at him.
I also don't like the ending, she never meets the father that she is looking for as it turns out her mother was raped although she does meet his family and she does find her mother who had walked out on her family when Clarissa was fourteen. The mother and clarissa had been on a christmas shopping trip and she abandoned clarissa at the mall and was never seen again until clarissa finds her in lapland. She feels no remorse for what she did and this upsets clarissa although given that she walked out on her life without telling anybody where she was going and at the end decides that despite being pregnant with her fiance's baby she is not going home and she is not going to tell him about the baby. I don't like that the writer has made it so easy for clarissa to walk away from her life with no complications.
saaramyrene's review against another edition
4.0
A lovely, laconic little book, unsatisfying in pretty brave ways. It didn't kill me with its brilliance, but it held me and didn't try to run off with anything it didn't earn. Plus, it was fun to read a novel that took place in Finland and Norwegian Lapland.
aklibrarychick's review against another edition
3.0
This is a solemn little read. Not much joyful happens to Clarissa, the protagonist. Her mother disappears when she is a teen. Her father dies a decade later, and in his papers, she discovers questions about her own identity, and embarks on a quest to find the answers. The search takes her to Finnish Lappland, where she will uncover the whole truth, including family she didn't know she had. An interesting book to read in the wake of my own Mom's death. Glad my family doesn't seem to have such skeletons. The book is low-key, and borders on depressing, but is redeemed by a satisfying, if a bit too pat, ending.
jehans's review against another edition
3.0
I had such high hopes for this book. The writing struck me from the first line and only seemed to get better over the next few pages. The author seemed to have an innate ability to draw analogies that struck a chord in the reader, that evoked feelings that almost anyone had experienced and could understand. Unfortunately, the construction of the sentences was overused and the writing started to feel too formulaic.
The story itself also started strong, but towards the end seemed to simply drag on a bit.
I still gave the book three stars for pulling me in from the start, I just wish the author had been able to maintain that momentum.
The story itself also started strong, but towards the end seemed to simply drag on a bit.
I still gave the book three stars for pulling me in from the start, I just wish the author had been able to maintain that momentum.
cyndin's review against another edition
4.0
A girl, abandoned by her mother as a child, grows up, has a career, and is poised to marry and start a family of her own when her father dies. Going through his papers, she discovers to her shock that he was not her biological father. Her birth father is a Sami from northern Scandinavia and she drops everything and goes there to seek him out.
elibrooke's review against another edition
3.0
The story stuck with me in a way that few do. Not an easy one to forget.
jwdenson's review against another edition
4.0
I read this book very quickly. It was one of those books that I kept thinking about reading even while I was busy doing other things. Some of the other reviews are interesting because I think the reviews themselves reveal quite a lot about the people writing them. People have such differing tolerances for behavior.
While Clarissa's behavior was incomprehensible to me at times and while we are inside her head her motives are kept separate from the reader. I'm not sure if this is purposeful or not. I did feel like some parts of the book are rushed, but the ending didn't bother me so much. While there are obvious parallels between Clarissa's actions and her mother's, you have to remember that Clarissa didn't abandon her child. I think I have to mull this one over for a little while longer. Definitely worth reading.
While Clarissa's behavior was incomprehensible to me at times and while we are inside her head her motives are kept separate from the reader. I'm not sure if this is purposeful or not. I did feel like some parts of the book are rushed, but the ending didn't bother me so much. While there are obvious parallels between Clarissa's actions and her mother's, you have to remember that Clarissa didn't abandon her child. I think I have to mull this one over for a little while longer. Definitely worth reading.
flogigyahoo's review against another edition
4.0
A sad story of a woman searching for answers as to why her mother would leave her and her younger brother when she was 14. Left with her father and brother, upon her father's death she finds out things about her family that are traumatic. She learns that her mother had been married previously to a Finnish minister and quickly leaves for Finland hoping to find answers. Detective work is not her strong point but after undergoing a few harrowing adventures Vera ends up in Lapland or the country of the Samis. The occurences on the way, the people she meets, the plight of the Samis, is told by Vendela in a comic tone, but are quite serious despite the telling. Vendela is a talented writer and I recommend this lovely book about mothers and daughters which was recommended to me by my own daughter. I will definitely read more by her.
aribookie's review against another edition
3.0
Very beautifully written, though I felt like the author was trying a bit to hard at times with the poetic prose thing. It was also hard to empathize with the main character, though I did like the closing. 3.5 stars.
miss_tricia's review against another edition
3.0
3+ I loved the simplicity of this book. It's a bit unusual for contemporary literary fiction to simply start in one place and move forward in time, but this book does. No jumping around in time. No multiple points of view. No shenanigans. Just the protagonist, moving forward and finding out new information about past events as she goes. The way real life works.
There were also many moments, too, where the writing delighted me. In one scene the protagonist describes holding her purse close to her chest "like an infant," while a woman on another bench cradles her baby "like a purse."
It's not a dramatic or thrilling story, but that's not what I want right now. But Vida held my attention and made me care.
There were also many moments, too, where the writing delighted me. In one scene the protagonist describes holding her purse close to her chest "like an infant," while a woman on another bench cradles her baby "like a purse."
It's not a dramatic or thrilling story, but that's not what I want right now. But Vida held my attention and made me care.