Jonas Anderson is the kind of protagonist that is kind of hard to root for. He's an addict who makes bad decisions and sort of aimlessly wanders into uncomfortable situations and relationships. He's an aspiring writer who teaches college courses but has a hard time relating to his students. At one point, he decides to move to Sweden to go back to school. There's actually not a lot that happens in this novel (it's definitely devoid of plot). The most interesting aspect is when he becomes a mentor for young immigrant boys who have come to Sweden. However, this isn't until about 60 percent of the way through the novel. I think I would have preferred if the book had centered around this aspect of Jonas' life. Otherwise, the pacing seemed really off to me and I just couldn't vibe with Jonas enough to be captivated by his story.

A very slow read that felt very self-serving. Nothing overwhelmingly bad, but not an interesting book either.

This book, while truly humerous, has tons of heart. Jonas needs help climbing out of the bottle so he can get out of his own way and he climbs right into Sweden. A great story, great characters and one I hope others find joy in.

Jonas Anderson cannot seem to kick his drug habit. He comes up with a rather different approach to stop taking drugs - move to Malmo, Sweden where drugs are very, very difficult to find. Because he holds dual citizenship, the move to Malmo is possible. There he decides to get involved in the refuge crisis and teach Swedish to young migrants. Little did he realize what this would teach him.

I think the statement in the overview says it all - you don't have to be perfect to do good. Jonas is far from perfect, but he is honest, funny, smart and wants to be helpful. If you ask me, the basis of the story is pretty ingenious. Most users have a difficult time kicking the habit because in part, drugs are everywhere. So why not move to a country where that is not the case? As we go along with Jonas, we meet some interesting characters, read some intelligent conversations and learn a little history. I thought this was smart and well written.

My thanks to Simon & Schuster and Netgalley.

A former drug addict, Jonas, decides to teach Swedish to refugees in Sweden. He seems to use casual coping strategies toward his sobriety and has an easygoing attitude towards nearly everything, including his curriculum when he teaches in the US. There's a strong start/intro to who he is, a lax middle as he lives and goes to college in Sweden, then gains some strength when he becomes more invested and motivated while teaching the male teenage refugees, but, by the end, I was left wanting more, i.e. like closure/resolution.

Jonas Anderson is starting over. Again. He’s made some wrong turns and thinks Sweden is the ticket for a new life. It’s hard to find drugs there, and drugs are one of his vices.

Malmo, Sweden has its own challenges as a city and for Jonas. The first is the large number of refugees and how to help them. Jonas volunteers to teach Swedish to the young immigrants.

Jonas really connects to the students and is going down the right path. His only obstacle is himself.

Surprisingly, Such Good Work is filled with witty humor balanced with real questions about how to help others along with helping self in a modern world. The messages here are quite strong and impactful.

I received a complimentary copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you for the review copy. Unfortunately, my reading schedule hasn't opened up to give this book a fair shot, naturally we all have hundreds of books to review, but it is certainly on my list and I will let you know if I love it. Thank you again.

I must admit that I found this book a little 'draggy". An unhappy, restless professor moves to Sweden to "find himself" and to find meaning in his life. He becomes involved in teaching English to refugees, a wonderful thing, right? But he never feels its enough. He wants to foster a refugee, but he can't because he doesn't have the means to care for one. I think that his struggle is one that many people can identify: a change of scenery, that will fix it! No. Helping the needy! That's the thing! No. What we need to find is within, and often found the hard way, with hard lessons. Strangely I could actually see this being a good screenplay.....but a but too slow as a "read".

A young man, Jonas, a teacher, gets fired from his job. Well, actually, he's been fired from a few. He is also an addict. He wants to start on a new path, one without drugs. Having dual citizenship, with Sweden, he heads overseas. He can speak the language and drugs are harder to get in Sweden. His journey engages him in the refugee crisis there and it's young people and he finds new challenges and satisfaction in giving back. This book is a fictionalized autobiography. Jonas is endearing in an odd sort of way, and being involved in teaching the refugees gives him a purpose as he struggles with recovery. A very well written book!
Thank you to NetGalley, and Simon and Schuster for this an ARC for an honest review.

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

Such Good Work is the inspiring tale of addiction and recovery based on a true story.

Jonas works as an adjunct creative writing teacher in the US. When he isn’t being fired. And if he isn’t high on oxy or another opiate. When Jonas hits rock bottom, he makes the unusual decision to get a Master’s degree, and hopefully teach in, Sweden. He has dual citizenship so the paperwork is simple. Once there, he works with Middle Eastern refugees teaching them Swedish while also going to school.

This is autofiction, or a fictionalized autobiography. It is a story of overcoming addiction and replacing it with Such Good Work. It is recommended to literary fiction readers and those struggling with addiction issues. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars.

Thanks to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was invited to read this debut novel by Net Galley and Simon and Schuster, but when I first saw it in my inbox, I recoiled. Another addiction memoir! Another chance to live through someone else’s excruciating nightmare! But then I read a few early reviews—they didn’t bear the numbed courtesy of an obligatory write-up. And then my own sense of courtesy tipped me over the edge. I was, after all, invited. Did I not want to be invited anymore? Of course I should read it.

The story is Lichtman’s own written as autofiction, and his unusual writing style drew me in. I was surprised to see how quickly I went through it. At the outset, he is teaching creative writing and is crestfallen to find that a student he has championed has plagiarized her work for him, and not only is his anecdote written with great humor, it is immediately familiar to me, and most likely will be to all English teachers. We want to believe; we want to be supportive. And once in awhile, someone younger than ourselves comes along and manipulates the hell out of us. It is a humbling experience.

Jonas is half American, half Swede, and he finds that to get off of opiates and opiods, he needs to be in Sweden, where street drugs are much harder to procure. He is enrolled in a graduate program in Malmo, but his time is primarily consumed by the refugee crisis as he volunteers to teach in a language school. Young men from the Middle East come by the thousands, and he is proud that Sweden doesn’t close its border, doesn’t set a cap to the number of immigrants it will welcome. At the same time, the Swedish government has some double standards where race is concerned; the Roma people that set up an encampment are quickly swept away. Then the nightclub bombing in Paris provides officials with an excuse to shut it all down; it’s a tremendous blow to the refugees and to those that want to help them.

At times I fear for this writer, because he seems to have no filters with which to protect his own heart as he hurls himself into his volunteer work; he wants to make a difference so desperately. Many years ago I saw a short film that showed a Bambi-like deer grazing in a forest, and then the massive foot of Godzilla smashes it like a bug, and in his ragged, hungry quest for social justice, the author reminds me of that deer. Social justice work requires sacrifice to be sure, but a little care toward one’s own mental health is also essential. Lichtman’s master’s thesis focuses on a Swedish writer that ultimately succumbs to despair, turning on the car and closing the garage door, and I found myself urging this author to have a care, lest the same happen to him, a danger he refers to himself in the narrative. (From the acknowledgements at the end, I see that he appears to have emerged in one piece, at least so far.)

The stories of the refugee boys are searing ones. A young man told of walking through Iran, followed by Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Germany, and Denmark on his way to Sweden. The whole journey was done on foot. So many families were dead that the boys’ tutors learned it was sometimes better not to inquire too deeply about those left behind. At one point, Jonas decides to become a mentor to one person, but things go amiss and he ruefully recalls his own role as that of “clumsy Samaritan.”

Lichtman’s prose is gently philosophical in a style that is slightly reminiscent of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, though in no way derivative. His perceptive commentary regarding the events that unfold around him, along with the lessons he learns about himself, is witty and absorbing. Along the way I picked up a little knowledge about Swedish culture and society that I didn’t have before.

The title has sharp edges.

Recommended to those interested in Swedish culture, the refugee crisis, and addiction issues, as well as to anyone that just enjoys a good memoir.

After losing his teaching job at a college because of his very peculiar assignments, Jonas Anderson moves to Sweden to change perspective and to have a fresh start. Even though he is some years older than the students there, he socialises with them easily and leads the life he had in his early 20s. After the break-up with his German girlfriend, he moves from Lund to Malmö, the town where 2015 masses of immigrants from the Middle East arrived. Seeing the hottest political topic in front of his own door, Jonas decides to get active and to volunteer in the work with the migrants, too. He soon realises that all that is meant to be supportive and good, doesn’t necessarily turn out to be such a good idea in the end.

Johannes Lichtman’s novel isn’t easy to sum up or to describe since his protagonist goes through tremendous changes throughout the novel which also affect the plot and the tone a lot. I really enjoyed the first part a lot when we meet Jonas trying to be a creative writing teacher. The tone here is refreshing and the character’s naiveté makes him sympathetic and likeable. With moving to Sweden and becoming a stranger and outsider, his role changes, yet, he still needs more time until he actually grows up and does something meaningful with his life.

The last part, his work with the unaccompanied minors, was for me personally the most interesting because I could empathise with him easily. Having myself worked with those youths when they came to Germany in 2015 and 2016, I went through the same emotions that Jonas went through. And I had to do exactly the same learning process: you want to help and you have good ideas, but actually they sometimes go past the needs of the refugees. The struggle between the news where all the immigrants were treated as a homogeneous mass and where the focus was put on the danger that came with them, and the everyday experiences with real people made it often hard to cope with the situation. In this respect, Lichtman did a great job because he depicted reality as it was back then.

All in all, a novel that addresses so many different topics with a lively and highly likeable style of writing, a great read not to be missed.

I was sorry to come to the end of “Such Good Work”. Jonas has become a friend. I was cheering him on in his low moments, and holding my breath to help him stay sober. I wanted him to find a job of work that he would find satisfying to his hyper-self-critical soul. Although I understand and respect the self-reflective doubt that accompanied every good thing he did for the immigrant community, he was still doing good in the best way he knew how. Our best impulses may not be perfect, but they are our best, and should be honored as such, at least by ourselves, even if not by the world at large.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Jonas, a recovering addict who thinks about drugs a LOT, has moved from the US to Malmo, Sweden, with the thought that Sweden will help him stay off the opioids. Interesting idea. He's 28 and frankly privileged. What he finds in Sweden is a group of refugees who have fled the upheaval in the Middle East- and slowly he finds himself. Teaching the refugees gives him a purpose but it doesn't solve his problems. Lichtman has provided some interesting insight into Sweden (and Swedish politics) and takes on two topical issues in this well written novel. There are times when you'll shake your head at Jonas but keep reading. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

When I read the description, I thought it would be easy to relate to the main character - basically, an academic in crisis. But in the end I struggled during all book trying to "like" the main character and I didn't. He is constantly thinking about drugs, and alcohol, even though his life is full of other things. But other than not relating or liking the main character, the story itself is rather interesting - about how we put things into perspective when other people have so much worse problems to deal with. Most of the story takes place in Sweden, where the character volunteers to help refugees. Once he relaxes, he even manages to start writing stories again and get paid for it. So in the end we may just need to put things into perspective to enjoy the next day.

Such Good Work addresses the topic of opioid addiction. Obviously, this has become an epidemic, so it's refreshing to read a story about it. The struggle of getting and staying clean is terrible. This book shows the protagonist going through many trials and trying to also help others. It's a fast read and the story is engaging and informative. I recommend for anyone interested in the subject of addiction. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Such Good Work is an insightful and gripping novel that reads a bit like a memoir. Lichtman’s writing style is strong, and the novel tackles several pressing issues: opioid addiction and refugee crises.

Well, I must admit, I didn’t even get to the meat of this book (at least according to the blurb), but after almost half-way through, Jonas is still high. The writing is pretty good and there are some funny scenes here and there but taking lots of drugs is just boring and not really much of a plot. I did not finish this one.

"Such Good Work" takes a delicate, yet intense, look at the intermingling of addiction and salvation. The protagonist escapes to Sweden, enrolls in a university, and begins assisting refugees with their language skills. While nothing terribly profound occurs in the book, it does open up to the value of helping others - even in the midst of a personal crisis.