This book is so extremely weird that I don't know how to begin talking about it.

The beginning it's truly intriguing: one morning, the inhabitants of four trailers, installed in a camping for the summer, wake up and do not find anymore the camping. Around them a field of green grass and an infinite blue sky.

This way start a story that can be defined as horror, but also in the extreme weird. The main characters (Trailer 1: Athletic Peter, his beautiful wife Isabel and Molly, their daughter, Trailer 2: Quiet Stefan with Carina and their son Emil, Trailer 3: The strange couple Olof and Lennart and their cat and last Trailer 4: Quick tempered Donald and his patient wife Majvor and their dog) initially try to understand this new environment and to find clues on how to get back to their quiet, boring reality.

After some time this anonymous place starts to bring out the worst from them: visions bring back the hidden past and the worst and violent inclination of these unlucky campers. The characters are the focus of the novel and they are well-build, also thanks to the narrative choice to follow each PoV, with a couple of creepy exceptions.

Unfortunately the conclusion is the apex of the unintelligible, and this is the main reason why the novel did not convince me. In the end a good execution but the ending left me a bit frustrated, too bad since I very much liked Let the right ones in.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

Molly wakes her mother to go to the toilet. The campsite is strangely blank. The toilet block has gone. Everything else has gone too. This is a place with no sun. No god.

Just four families remain. Each has done something to bring them here – each denies they deserve it. Until they see what’s coming over the horizon, moving irrevocably towards them. Their worst mistake. Their darkest fear.

And for just one of them, their homecoming.

Imagine waking up one morning and everything you are familiar with is absent. Only a handful of other people remain. Like you, they have no idea what has happened. Is this change going to be permanent? What, if any, action should you take? How long would it be before that thin veneer of civility goes out the window and Darwinism kicks in? The latest novel from John Ajvide Lindqvist explores that premise. When there is nowhere else left to go, are you capable of confronting your innermost fears, accepting them and surviving?

I Am Behind You is an ensemble piece. The cross section of people left on the campsite feels like a tiny microcosm of society. The actions and reactions to their predicament as it evolves cover the full gamut of human emotions. Benny and Maud are two of my favourite characters. I’m not going to go into too much detail about them though. You need to discover them yourself. All I’ll say is their relationship starts off in a very straightforward fashion and then morphs into something far more complex. It’s not what I expected at all, I loved it. The other relationship I really enjoyed was between Olof and Lennart. The two men, who have found one another later in life, have a contemplative attitude to every revelation they face. Each of their exchanges feel like a little island of happiness in a story that is unashamedly dark.

For a while now, I’ve believed John Ajvide Lindqvist’s work has a singular, very specific, quality to it. After much pondering, I think I have finally managed to pin down what it is. He is a master when it comes to describing the emotional intensity of any given situation. Anger, sadness, panic and joy are subtly captured and explored in all his novels. I think that skill stands any author in good stead when it comes to horror. I’m sure we can all agree that darkness, death and misery are always going to be emotive subjects. He is also very good at defying reader expectations. His horror novels never head off in the direction you expect them to. Lindquist’s earlier novel, Let the Right One In, is essentially a delicate bittersweet love story. Handling the Undead deals with zombies in the same uniquely thoughtful manner. I Am Behind You also touches upon similar themes. Almost without exception every character is somehow lost in their own life. They each have demons, sometimes real, sometimes imagined, that they are forced to confront. There are flashbacks that flesh out their backstories and help to explain how each of them have reached this pivotal moment in their respective lives.

Most of the horror falls firmly into the realms of the internal or psychological, so when something overtly bloody does happen it feels even more shocking. There were a couple of particularly startling moments that caught me completely off guard. I’m always a little in awe when fiction manages to be genuinely unsettling without crossing the line into bad taste. This is where I think Lindqvist’s writing excels. Scenes can turn on their head in a single beat. One second there is an introspective stillness, and then the next shocking body horror or unexpected violence. It really elevates the experience of reading the novel, from chapter to chapter you genuinely don’t know what to expect next. It’s not often I finish reading a book and find myself still thinking about it many hours later. There are moments in the plot I found genuinely disturbing. I think my brain is still trying to process the shocks even now.

I Am Behind You is set to be the first book in a trilogy. I can’t wait to see where this goes next. Though the novel works as a standalone piece there are enough unanswered questions that I’ll be happy to come back for more of the same. I imagine this novel is going to be literary Marmite. Some readers are going to love it while others will find it incomprehensible and just a little too weird to appreciate. Should you have any doubt, I can confirm I fall firmly into the first category.

At times there is an ephemeral, almost dreamlike quality to this novel and I needed music that would tap into that same feeling. I’m going to recommend the self-titled debut album from A Winged Victory For The Sullen as an ideal match. Haunting and evocative music, it captures the tone of the novel perfectly.

For reference, this release is a translation from the original Swedish language version. Kudos to Marlaine Delargy, she has done a flawless job. I’m no expert when it comes to such things, but from my perspective I could not find fault it in any way. The narrative flows along beautifully without issue.

I Am Behind You is published by the new Quercus imprint riverrun and is available now. Highly recommended.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read my share of crazy, weird and quirky stories and I actually enjoy reading them to take a break from the ‘ordinary’. But there is weird, and then there is I Am Behind You. My first thoughts when I started reading were literally: what the hell did I sign up for when I requested a copy?! Because there is one thing for sure, and that is that even after finishing it the only thing my mind is able to process is WTF WTF WTF did I just read?! I Am Behind You is actually a translation of a Swedish novel published back in 2014… I wonder if part of the story was lost in translation and made it more difficult to enjoy it, but considering the other reviews out there I’m quite certain this is not the case. The first thing that stands out to me is the plot, or actually the lack of a plot that actually makes sense. Like the characters, you are left in the middle of an empty field without a clue what is going on. Instead of adding suspense and intrigue, it only made me feel VERY frustrated and added to the overall struggle I had with this story. The worst part is that a lot of things are never explained at all and leave you empty handed and with that WTF feeling I mentioned before. The multiple POVs are also confusing and take a long time to get used to… The flashbacks are a nice touch, and I think I would have actually prefered seeing more of those instead of the current POV since the flashbacks at least made a bit more sense. I wasn’t a fan of the characters at all though. I disliked one even more than the other and this made it very hard to care about them or what would happen to them. And apart from the the lack of a proper plot, multiple POVs, unlikeable characters and the sheer absurdity of it all, I had a hard time connecting to the writing style as well. It might have been the translation, it might have been the writing, but it took me a lot longer than normal to reach the final page and to be honest it was a real struggle. And after such an unsatisfying ending, I kind of wish I could have DNFed this story instead. Because there is one thing for sure: this story 100% isn’t for me. I like weird, I like unconventional, but I Am Behind You was just batshit crazy. Guano style.

This is the first horror novel i have read in years .

This works brilliantly in being scary and atmospheric , genuinely unsettling and a satire on contemporary society .

The characters avoid being stock characters , there is humour when there can be humour and the ending seems appropriate . Recommended

Not sure what to say about this one. Im not sure what it was really about. I got lost. I was confused. It had sounded like a perfect read for me. But sadly it didnt live up to that for me

3.5 stars
This book is disturbing, unsettling and at times terrifying, and for the most part I really enjoyed it. However I did feel it fell apart a little at the end, and so it dropped from a 4 star read.
The set up of four "families" who find themselves swept up from a campsite overnight and deposited in a strange new world is a clever one, and has huge potential. The mystery of why these particular people have been chosen, and what this world will hold for them is gradually revealed as we read on, and learn some very unexpected facts about these "regular " characters, and their dark pasts. By far the most chilling character in the book is Molly, a young girl who may well be more than she seems, and her malevolence almost drips from the page at certain points. There are several incredibly well written horror scenarios, that will stick with me for some time. Unfortunately , as I previously mentioned the ending fell just a bit flat after such a good build up.

"Surreal" is a fitting word to describe this novel, but overall I think "a level of uncomfortable weirdness that hardly even Stephen King could come up with" makes up a more accurate summary for the whole reading experience.

Four caravans, ten people, one dog and one cat, all stranded in the middle of nowhere. After falling asleep on the campsite they chose as their vacation spot, they wake up in what seems to be an endless sea of grass and a blue sky without a sun, with no idea of how they got there. And soon running out of food, gas and sanity. I was curious to see what those mostly dislikable characters would come up with to get out of this bizarre situation, and once the supernatural starts to interfere, I was hooked. What do you do when you need to explore a new environment, but lack any natural marks of orientation? Where do you hide when only a thin caravan wall separates you from the embodiment of your greatest fears?

Lindqvist once again relies on shock value, showcasing the most ugly human characteristics, playing with the horrors of real life and our biggest everyday fears. And just like in [book:Let the Right One In|943402], it got overdone at times, though even more so in this newest example. While the extreme violence and terror that is such a vital part of his work is exactly what makes it so fascinating to read, I would still like everything to make sense in the end. Which it didn't.

The last 20 pages or so were tedious to read, and I don't believe I would understand any more of the ending if I went back and reread the whole story. There's a point where surreality becomes tiring, and that's what happened here. The hallucinations, the monsters, the final decisions, they all turned into polarizing mush in the end, and no matter how I look at it, the author must have simply given up on conceiving a satisfying conclusion.

That is to say, I still enjoyed the rest of the book! Lindqvist once again managed to create an utterly believable cast of people - and another terrifying example of his favourite trope: the creepy child™. I could honestly not sleep after certain parts of <i>I Am Behind You</i>, and I guess that's an indicator for a thriller's quality. And really, it makes you think hard about what <i>you</i> would do to survive this conceptual horror.

That was a wild ride from beginning to end, but I didn't get any answers. Will there be an explanation for all this in the next book of the trilogy? Or is it an entirely different story all by itself? I guess the latter is the case.

I have no idea what happened here.
I spent the entire book either confused, disgusted, disturbed or anxious.
And I enjoyed it.
I think I really enjoyed it actually.
But I'm not sure.

It confused me utterly, but I don't think I mind.
You'd have to read it to understand.

The story follows four very different families as they wake up in their caravans one morning and are not where they should be.
In fact, they're not even sure they're still in the same world.
This new world is a strange one.
Where the grass goes on forever, worryingly familiar figures can be seen in the distance, and a dark ominous cloud lurks on the horizon.
Each person has been brought here for a reason.
And the journey to understand why is a disturbing one.

I loved learning about all the characters and how vastly different all of their lives and experiences were.
They were all so interesting, with wildly different and fascinating personalities. They were loveable, hateable, brave, weak, innocent, and evil.
It was a wonderful and intriguing mix of people.

The story itself was incredibly interesting, as well as disturbing and very odd.
I'm not too sure what happened in the end or what it was actually all about, but I really enjoyed the journey through this strange world, and how the story was written.
It kept me gripped right until the very end.

This is a story about human nature and how we act when everything we know is taken away.
And it is terrifying.

I didn't get half way through this book. I didn't enjoy at all.

I have been waiting for a new John Ajvide Lindqvist book for a long time. A Swedish friend of mine had suggested that this one might not not come out in the UK because she thought so many of the references were so Sweden specific they might not survive the rendition into English. I'm happy to report that this isn't the case. Either it was an unfounded fear, or the translator has done a superb job. Yes, I'd never heard of Peter Himmelstrand prior to reading this, but I don't feel I was missing anything. In fact, most of the appeal of the book is in its strangeness and foreignness. The characters are well drawn with convincingly mundane backstories, but the world they find themselves in is abstract and mysterious. It's a surreal nightmare, where logic and reason don't seem to apply, and fresh horrors arrive out of nowhere. I kind of hope that future volumes ( a sequel is already out in Sweden, I believe) don't explain too much of what is going on - it's the random, unexplained nature of the world the stranded campers find themselves in that gives the book the edgy unsettling quality it has. Another hit for Mr Lindqvist.

I must be the minority here. I loved this book. I'm an Aussie, so not sure if that makes a difference to my preferences or not. It's a very well written book and I was just lost in it from start to finish. A really good unique read!

Lindqvist’s latest horror novel is a compelling but frustrating read and a prime example of an intriguing idea that never quite reaches its potential. Opening with four groups of campers who wake up to find their caravans in an endless meadow with nothing else around them it’s a gripping mystery story in the vein of Stephen King’s Under the Dome.
Written like a loopy dream, Lindqvist lets the story unwind slowly, letting the fear of the unearthly situation linger as he explores each character. But like Under the Dome it’s a build up he can’t maintain limping to a horrific yet underwhelming finish that never really explains why this group was targeted. There’s some moments of brilliance in this but it just can’t stick the landing when it counts.

I so wanted to like this book, the idea behind the book intrigued me and at first I was interested to find out what was going on.My problem is that I found the pace quite slow and it was much more character driven than I expected but I didn't like many of the characters.My favourite characters were the cat and dog, and I kept worrying about when the poor dog would be fed or give a drink of water, no one seemed to be nice to him..The characters generally were not nice and I didn't really care about them ,it would have been better for me if I had clicked with at least one of them, for me there were not any stand out characters though.The whole idea of people waking up in a different world to the one they went to sleep in was a great idea, and maybe other readers will enjoy this more than I did, I hope so.I also didn't realise that this was the start of a trilogy so was expecting more of an ending but that is quite possibly my fault I am slightly notorious for reading books in series out of sequence, with this one I didn't realise I was reading a book in a series at all ! For people who are possibly more patient than me and like slower paced books this could be ideal, and I am sorry to not be enthusing about the book there were parts I liked but I won't be reading the next book in the series I am not that invested in it.Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

An unsettling, tense thriller focused around the removal of everything that corresponds to quotidian routine, this book made me think by raising the question of how I would react if the expression 'in the middle of nowhere' were to become my reality in the way that it does for the memorable, well-drawn characters in this novel.

This book is so unique and interesting...and completely weird in all the best ways!

I really enjoyed it, the only downside was that so much wasn't explained and there is so much left unanswered but otherwise I love it!

I'm delighted to have been picked to review an advanced copy John Ajvide Lindqvist English translation of his 2014 ‘I am Behind you’ this will be the first of a trilogy. The book starts fast with four groups of people on a caravan holiday, they wake up to a very different place then where they were staying. The book is fast paced with great character development was fantastic with in-depth realistic history for each character. The book also managed to keep a constant level of terror from the start to the finish like Stephen King he tells a great story. I would like to just say the one down side of this book is it's ending it was a little bit of a let down but not enough for me to drop my rating and I'm looking forward to reading the second instalment in this trilogy. I give this book five out of five star's I would recommend this book to any horror fiction reader who likes this author or is looking to try out new author's. I would like to thank netgalley, the publisher Quercus and the author John Ajvide Lindqvist for giving me a chance to read and review this book.

Totally different,but enjoyable it will be a long wait for the next book.
Certainly recommended it.

This gripping conceptual horror takes you deep into one of the most macabre and unique imaginations writing in the genre. On family, on children, Lindqvist writes in a way that tears the heart and twists the soul. I Am Behind You turns the world upside down and, disturbing, terrifying and shattering by turns, it will suck you in.

I Am Behind You is the new novel from the very gifted and talented John Ajvide Lindvist (Let the Right One In, Handling the Undead, Little Star and Harbour).

The novel is a mix of thriller, metaphysical and horror combined to provide a very gripping story. When four camper trailers wake up to find that they are in a sort of purgatory, the eight adults, two children, a dog and a cat have to figure out what it all means. This leads to a lot of real human emotions and the story deals with the overall madness that pursues when they are dealt with a real crisis.

This is a richly written novel with a very humanistic cast of characters that are lovingly put to the page. The two farmers who are there for each other through their overt platonic relationship really brings the heart to the proceedings whilst this is counter balanced by Isabella (fashion model) and her less than normal daughter Molly. It seems the rest of the characters flush out the spectrum to bring a kaleidoscope to the overall piece. I found it interesting that the dog had a voice but we never quite sure how the cat really feels about the strange new world that they find themselves.

Lindvist has always taking the classic horror stories and turned them on their head and made something fresh and very modernised whether it is vampire lore with ‘Let the Right One In’ or the werewolf legend in ‘Little Star’, he brings his own unique outlook and style. He writes rich characters in normal settings that have a modernistic approach and have very real modern problems. This is his forte and what really makes the novel spark.

His use of modern and classic pop references gives the novel credence and although it is deeply seated in Swedish culture, it gives an added element of realism. In fact, I have started hunting down some of these references and made a song list that I listened to when I read the novel. It was very interesting to hear and pick up on the customs of their music history.

On the other hand, he never really ties up his stories with a big bow like some modern day authors such as King or Koontz. It is up to the reader to put the pieces together as he only tells you what the characters know and it is up to you to connect the dots. With this magnificent novel, there are no real answers and it seems that most people are finding fault with this. Personally, I think this lends credence to the piece and it reminds me of classic Shirley Jackson where the components are there, it is up to the reader to put it together.

The book is apparently the first of a trilogy and I assume that more answers to the why will be answered in further instalments. As we are living in an age where people need stories, films and television to have logical conclusions, it is refreshing to have something that just sits there and gives food for thought.

This is a winner of a novel and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The only problem I really have is that if this is the first of a trilogy and have to wait for the next instalment. Mr Lindvist has become a true favourite of mine and I really respect his writing. His novels always give me the element of surprise and this one surely does not disappoint. There are only a few writers where I get really excited about a new novel and he is one of those. Richly written, engaging characters and an over sense of awe is found within these pages and one that I will return to on reflection. A novel that truly enters my subconscious and has definitely given me food for thought. Highly recommended and a must read.

This is a psychological horror about a group of people who wake up one morning and find themselves in a very different place to where they fell asleep the night before. It is mostly a story about personal demons, something upsetting from childhood maybe, or something done in the heat of the moment that wound rather be forgotten. It might be a story about actual demons too...

The background stories and development of the characters is fantastic and very detailed. The good, the bad and the downright deplorable. That child is seriously creepy. Even the cat and the dog are given fully fleshed out personalities, the latter of which is one of my favourite characters in the whole book.

Nothing is really explained. You don't exactly find out the who or why or where, but for me that didn't matter. The story has that dream or rather nightmare quality to it, you know, where you wake up in the morning and wonder what you ate the night before to make your mind do that to you? Enjoy this book for what it is, a wonderful, messed up, creepy as heck piece of fiction.

The only downside for me was some of the Swedish detail, which went over my head somewhat, but not enough to spoil the book.

On a final note, this may not be the best book to read if you are planning a caravaning trip any time soon...

I was disappointed by this because the blurb on the back was very interesting and promised a good story but it quickly fell apart. It became boring and i feel like the characters were unfinished and needed more thought put into them.