Andromeda by Therese Bohman
Andromeda
by Therese Bohman
Contemporary | Literary
196 Pages
Released August 2022
Rating: ★ 1/2
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Content Warnings
I didn’t realize this until I started getting into the story that this was a translated novel. Unfortunately while the premise was intriguing, the story ultimately fell flat for me.
This book follows Sofie, a young woman interning at a prestigious Publishing House called Rydens. Sofie has always dreamed of working at this company and she is quickly taken under the wing of Gunnar, an older man with a big reputation within the publishing world. Drawn together by their shared opinions of literature, the two form a complicated bond. Told both the perspectives of Sofie and Gunnar, this book follows their relationship over the course of several years.
I really wanted to like this book but I ended up feeling quite disappointed by it. My biggest issue was the characters. Sofie felt naive, and superior to her coworkers, especially once she is quickly offered a position by Gunnar, one of the most senior employees at the publishing house. Gunnar is also quite a bit of a book snob, and together they form an almost insufferable bond over their shared opinion of books. In fact their “voices” are so similar that, when the perspective shifts half way through the book, it took me a while to realize we were now reading from Gunnar’s point of view.
Despite their controversial relationship, there really isn’t any tension in the book. It feels quite monotone and I found myself getting quickly bored with the story. The pacing of the story was also unusual - it takes place over the course of several years but that time passage doesn’t convey very well in the story. By around the half-way point I found myself skim reading the book, having almost interest in the characters or how their relationship played out. I assume that maybe something is getting lost in translation but I had a really hard time enjoying this one.
If you enjoy boring social controversy in the form of a character driven novel, you may like this one but unfortunately, this was not for me.