Troll

by Johanna Sinisalo

[nannah]

DNF @ 40%

This book ... is really disturbing. And I'm really glad a friend warned me to stop it before I read on more and got to the bestiality and racism. The comments on my library copy say stuff like "Book is excellent. Weird--but good!", "Read at your own confusion". And like ... sure, but there's a point where a book crosses these lines and just goes into straight-up racism and Let's not write a book about a gay dude falling in love with pretty-much-a-bear-cub please. Let's not compare gay love to bestiality again? And black men to "apes"/trolls?

Is that really too much to ask?

Book content warnings:
bestiality
racism / anti-black racism
fetishization
consent issues regarding sex
(probably more, but I didn't finish it)

In this book, trolls in Finland aren't mythological creatures. They're more like bears. Real creatures but just very elusive and endangered. When Mikael finds one by his apartment, being beat up by ""juvenile delinquents"" (lmao who talks like this?? he's only 30?), he thinks it's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. And of course (for some reason) that makes him want to posses it.

I don't know if the writing is better in its native language (Finnish), but the translation is croppy and awkward. I'm told the writing is pretty poetic, but in English it's ... not. The book is multiple-PoV, but it'll break after even one sentence! Even right in the middle of action scenes, so it gets a bit strange. But I mean ... that's the book's intent: to be strange. So whatever, I guess.

The main character is probably one of the most unlikable characters I've ever met, and that's also one of the reasons I had to put the book down. He--and all the other people here--are extremely selfish and shallow. I don't root for anyone.

So yeah, awful book, awful characters, awful storytelling. Where the book tries to be deep and strange, it just seems flat-out stupid.