Reviews

Turning to the second page of The Details, I felt that rare sense of electricity and premonition that I had stumbled onto something truly special. And I wasn’t wrong. Genberg’s gorgeous prose, her shrewd observations, her many allusions to literature, and her focus on people’s stories and relationships – all of these elements synthesized into an incredibly compelling novella.

This book is for lovers of character-driven novels. It’s the account of a woman whose thoughts are spiked by a high fever and who revisits her experiences with four meaningful people from her past and present. I loved Genberg’s moody, contemplative writing, her existential questions, and her intimate character portraits. Huge kudos also goes to Kira Josefsson who translated Genberg’s novel from Swedish. Highly recommend.

Thank you to HarperVia and NetGalley for the advanced readers copy.

alisonburnis's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A woman is sick and has an intense fever. While resting, she remembers a get-well card she once got from a former lover, and that sends her down a path of reminiscing about pivotal people in her life, whether those relationships were brief or deeply entangled.

Plotless fiction! I loved the meditations on the complicated relationships we have, and how significant people can have effects on our lives, long after we’ve drifted apart. This is short and experimental. I’m not sure it’s as strong as others on the International Booker shortlist this year, but it was very good.

hymnedhiver's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I believe I don't usually go for books where nothing much happens. However, picking up this book was one of the best decisions I have made so far this year. It is now a favourite of mine, whose words I want to reach for again in the near future.
The prose is so commanding and gentle at the same time, creating a quiet atmosphere throughout it's entirety. There were moments of surprise, moments I wanted to experience for myself, ones that I felt frustrated or irritated; moments that touched me deeply to the point where I was crying in the train and bus.
It's genuinely such an inspiring book, not only in the sentiments and ways it encourages people to live life (not in a boring or authoritative way), but also in the sense that I myself felt inspired to write something similar, to jot down the details of certain people around me, thoughts and emotions those evoke.
I read this as an e-book but I'm definitely investing in a physical copy or two, to physically underline the sentences where I saw immense beauty and the phrases I could not believe I was reading...
Ia Genberg's mind is so big, I swear. It's a miracle she did not give up writing. It's a miracle this book was translated in a language I can comprehend. I'm so grateful to exist right now, having read this book.

PS:

The way the narrator had been describing friends or lovers of hers up until that very last chapter, made the reveal that Birgitte was actually her mother even more surprising to me. And the sentence where that is described!!!? Are we kidding?

This is masterpiece.

Thank you, booker prize for having Dua Lipa read an excerpt, which would later appear on my feed.