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odpeppiatt's review against another edition
3.5
In the same vein (no pun intended), it’s as if Tove Ditlevsen wrote so much about this far-fetched glimmer of freedom throughout each era of her life because she knew when she finally grabbed hold of it, it would disintegrate through her fingers. Throughout her childhood and youth, she dreams of being a writer (“I always dreamed of finding a person, just one, to whom I could show my poems and who would praise them.”), finding true love (“But I’ve begun to long for the intimate closeness with another human being that is called love. I long for love without knowing what it is. I think that I’ll find it when I no longer live at home. And the man I love will be different from anyone else.”), and having a generally conventional life (“Ebbe asks, Why do you want to be normal and regular? Everyone knows you’re not. I don’t know how to answer him, but I have wanted that as far back as I can remember.”). In every stage of her life, she sets her desperate hope of happiness on the future, while being consciously miserable and romanticizing her past. In the first installment of the trilogy, Childhood, she writes, “Childhood is long and narrow like a coffin, and you can’t get out of it on your own. It’s there all the time and everyone can see it just as clearly as you can see Pretty Ludvig’s harelip,” only to reminisce on that time of her life in the second, Youth, saying, “most of the time I find this life intolerably boring and recall with sorrow my variable and eventful childhood.”
Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Drug use, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Medical content, Infidelity, and Drug abuse
lmshearer's review against another edition
3.0
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Abortion, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt
millakk's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Antisemitism and Alcoholism
dominicangirl's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Infertility, Drug abuse, and Addiction
Moderate: Death, Sexual harassment, and Cancer
Minor: War, Abortion, and Alcoholism
ardodge's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Abortion, Addiction, and Alcoholism
okarenhelena's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Abortion, Addiction, Drug abuse, and Drug use
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Cancer, and Eating disorder
Minor: Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Infidelity, War, Abandonment, Self harm, Pregnancy, Misogyny, Medical content, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Chronic illness, Medical trauma, Classism, and Vomit