I N C L U D E S A F F I L I A T E L I N K S
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Title: BlåAuthor: Maja Lunde
Published: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 366
Rating: 3/5
Summary:
In this story, we follow a seventy year old woman living in 2017 who sets off on a boat to confront an old love and a man and his child in 2041 who are refugees running from a Southern Europe plagued by drought and fire.
Review:
I've previously read Bienes Historie (The History of Bees) by this author and really enjoyed it, so I was very much looking forward to it. I think perhaps I liked the first one a bit better, but this was still good.
I do love the themes of these books, where each one takes a look at a different climate crisis. The History of Bees explored bees and their death, whereas this one explores water and the importance of it, and I thought that was really interesting; water is a perpetual theme throughout both storylines, but in different ways.
One thing I especially liked about this was the narrative of the people in the future are climate refugees, something that we will, in all likelihood, be seeing a lot of in the coming decades. You can really feel the desolation of the situation and the fear of what the future will bring.
I do think the story meanders a little unnecessarily at times and sometimes it felt like the story dragged a little bit. There are a lot of quiet and retrospective moments in here, especially in the chapters about the woman on the boat, and I quite like that, but sometimes it felt like there was too much of it. I also have ambiguous feelings about the ending; in some ways, I think it fitted the story by being so open, but that also leaves one feeling a little unsatisfied. But then again, maybe that's the point.
Overall, a book worth reading. I think it's really great that this author is writing these stories about these themes, I really wish there were more of these types of books out there.
You can read more about it on Goodreads
