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melbsreads 's review for:
Snowblind
by Ragnar Jónasson
3.5 stars. This took a reeeeeeeeeally long time to get going for me. It's a very character-driven crime novel, with lots of little insights into the lives of a million and one characters living in a small fishing village in northern Iceland. There are occasional crimes that are largely overlooked as accidents by the police chief, so it's not until a rookie cop with the rather fabulous name of Ari Thor comes to town that these crimes get taken seriously.
I buddy read this with Joce from Squibbles Reads, and mostly I think we got incredibly hung up on the fact that one of the characters is named Ugla which is possibly the worst name I've ever seen. I'm sure it's pronounced differently in Icelandic to the way it appears in English, but good LORD that is an awful name to see on the page time and time again.
But I digress. This book feels quite claustrophobic, given that it takes place in a small town during the Icelandic winter where the sun barely rises and the populace are often snowed in or blocked off from the rest of the world thanks to avalanches closing the highway.
Ultimately, there were quite a few twists and turns that I didn't see coming, and I DID end up enjoying it. But up until the 80% mark, it really felt like a character study rather than a crime novel. I have the second one on my Kindle and I'll probably get to it relatively soon, because I'm intrigued to see how much of a jump there is plotwise between the first and the second books to be published in English.
I buddy read this with Joce from Squibbles Reads, and mostly I think we got incredibly hung up on the fact that one of the characters is named Ugla which is possibly the worst name I've ever seen. I'm sure it's pronounced differently in Icelandic to the way it appears in English, but good LORD that is an awful name to see on the page time and time again.
But I digress. This book feels quite claustrophobic, given that it takes place in a small town during the Icelandic winter where the sun barely rises and the populace are often snowed in or blocked off from the rest of the world thanks to avalanches closing the highway.
Ultimately, there were quite a few twists and turns that I didn't see coming, and I DID end up enjoying it. But up until the 80% mark, it really felt like a character study rather than a crime novel. I have the second one on my Kindle and I'll probably get to it relatively soon, because I'm intrigued to see how much of a jump there is plotwise between the first and the second books to be published in English.