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pennyriley 's review for:
I found this book disquieting. Braverman has known from a young age that she wants to work with dogs and be a musher and to this end, starting in high school she gets herself to Norway as often as she can. She is partly Norwegian and speaks some of the language and picks it up extremely quickly once in Norway. Her high school exchange experience does not go as anticipated. The host father is a creep, continually making sexual advances to her, which beyond an email home and trying to avoid him as much as possible, she does little about. And this sets the pattern for her relationships as she continues in this male dominated world. She attends a folkskol in Norway after high school later and learns about dog-sledding and even more importantly how to endure extreme cold. She proves her courage and bravery again and again, both here and then working for a musher giving dog-sledding tours to tourists in Alaska. And yet she allows herself to be continually manipulated and harassed by men she encounters, never stands up to them and continues to permit such behaviour, and in one situation is raped multiple times by her boyfriend. But to her, as she was going out with the guy, she can’t admit it’s rape. And it continues. She lives in Norway for a year, and while things are better the men are crude and obvious and she just lets this continue as though being in a male dominated world makes it ok. I loved the parts when she is on the ice or snow, mushing, running tours, working for a man she respects and likes in his shop in a village in northern Norway, but found it incredible that she just lets all the harassment and abuse go. At one point she even writes to the man who clearly raped her multiple times, not to confront him but to ask forgiveness for how she behaved and form a tentative friendship. Everything works out for her in the end, and by the end she’s living a life she loves with a man she loves.
The book is not linear which gets a little confusing.
The book is not linear which gets a little confusing.