A review by jess_mango
A Question Mark Is Half a Heart by Sofia Lundberg

4.0

Traveling back & forth in place & time, A Question Mark is Half a Heart tells Elin's story. Elin grew up in the 70's & 80's on Gotland, a small Swedish island, where her days were filled with hanging out with her best friend Fredrik and helping out at the small local grocery store. She tried to avoid her mother since her mother was often moody & distant due to money issues. Flash forward to NYC in 2017 where Elin is married with a teenaged daughter and working as a fashion photographer. Elin has kept her past a secret from her family. They don't even know that she is originally from Sweden. Elin has a deep guilt from something in her past in Gotland she has been trying to run from every since. Over the course of the novel Elin faces up to her past as more of it is revealed to us, the reader bit by bit. At times, I found myself frustrated by Elin and her unwillingness to open up to her family. There were so many walls that could have toppled down with just some honest conversations or not being afraid to reach out. I recommend this to fans of literary fiction.

What to listen to while reading...
Heart it Races by Architecture in Helsinki
Take the "A" Train by Duke Ellington
Summertime by Louis Armstrong
This Little Light of Mine by Elizabeth Mitchell
I Know You Know by Esperenza Spalding
Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton
Blame it on Me by George Ezra

Thank you to the publisher for the review copy!