MAGMA by Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir is an intense book! This is a short read that really packs a punch! It’s about a young woman who descends into a toxic relationship. The whole time I was reading this book I felt such unease and I was really hoping for a happy ending. It was interesting to really dive into her mindset. I really enjoyed the format to the writing which was kind of like little journal entries. Overall a great read!
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Thank you to Grove Atlantic via NetGalley for my advance review copy!

Magma is a confronting book, one which blazes and discomforts. I think the best writing, whether fiction or non-fiction, does exactly, inspiring its readers with new perspectives and ideas. But not all perspectives are equally pleasant, some reveal a darker side to humanity, a quiet suffering. Thanks to Grove Press, Black Cat and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Hjörleifsdóttir dedicates her book to women who live in silence, as 'shame and isolation thrive in that silence'. In Magma she tracks one young woman and how her thoughts about herself, her boyfriend, and relationships in general distort her ability to know what is and isn't healthy. The blurb mentions the effect of pornification and this indeed plays a big role in how Lilja sees herself and her relationship. Intimacy, connection, consent, orgasms, it has all been twisted by what she has seen, what her boyfriend tells her he has seen/witnessed/experienced. The odd balance at play here is that outside influences such as porn can be incredibly damaging, but also that cutting out any and all outside perspective is also damaging. It is this confusing mix that makes it impossible for Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir's Lilja to find a semblance of balance.

Magma is actually a little more complex, in my opinion, than its blurb suggests. This isn't an in any way straightforward tracking of a relationship gone bad. Rather, Magma is written in short, episodic chapters, almost like diary entries. At its best, Magma reminds me of Carmen Maria Machado's brilliant In the Dream House, its story unfurling slowly but packing a punch at every step. There is no slow tracking, or gentle analyzing. There is just compromise after compromise, loss after loss. Her boyfriend is practically a parade of red flags but she employs all the justifications we have been taught in order to make him palatable. Maybe she should be more open to adventurous sex. She doesn't want to be pushy and traditionalist, so it's actually good that he doesn't introduce her as his girlfriend. He had a difficult childhood so of course he is weird to her friends and family who are perfectly normal and boring. He is an intellectual, so of course he is smarter than her. She slept around so she has no right to question why he still hooks up with other women. It all feels so inevitable that you can't help but follow Lilja down into darkness.

Thóra Hjörleifsdóttir's writing is deeply personal, sharp and painful. There is such conflict within Lilja's story that it becomes difficult for the reader as well. You go back and forth between deep empathy for Lilja and wishing she would just leave and be done with it. Although I myself have not been in an abusive relationship, I recognise Lilja's predicament from the experiences of friends. Knowing something is wrong isn't the same as wanting to leave. Wanting to leave isn't the same as having the ability to do so. Wanting to fix things, acknowleding your own wrongdoing just gets you sucked deeper and deeper into the abuse. The most heart-wrenching moments in Magma are when Lilja does reach out for help and meets with misunderstanding or ignorance. Magma shows that as a society, whether that society is Icelandic, Dutch, or American, we are not able to properly understand, deal with, or prevent abusive relationships. Novels such as Hjörleifsdóttir's therefore remain crucial to consistently confront their audiences with the complicated and conflicting nature of it. It must also be noted that Meg Matich does a brilliant job with her translation. The writing remains deeply personal, with touches of lyricism but mostly true honesty.

Magma is a confronting read, despite its brevity, that lays bare how toxicity creeps in a relationship and how outside influences often complicate the matter.

Despite being a short novella it wound up taking me close to a month to finish Magma. disliked what I was reading, but because I needed to take ample breaks from such a searing, accurate depiction of dangerous co-dependency. The book, set in Reykjavik (a first for me) provides a snapshot of a toxic relationship rife with emotional abuse. The closest comparison that comes to mind for me would be Joanna Hogg’s brilliant film - The Souvenir. Both similarly explore the ill fated trajectory of such a relationship, although one story arguably has a much more hopeful ending (I’ll keep you in suspense to encourage you to check out both.)

Trigger warnings abound in Magma, so proceed with caution. If you can handle it, the journey I promise is worth it.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a tough book to review although it's well written and translated. The story is told by Lilja who believes she has found the love of her life in spite of the fact that he treats her very badly. He remains unnamed but you can tell by the way she talks about HIM that she's very subservient and her needs and wishes take a back seat to his. It's a short book, but covers many topics that are probably triggers for a lot of people so make sure you know what you're getting into before you start. If you see yourself in this book, it's time to step up and say something, whether it's happening to you or you suspect it's happening to a friend or family member. I did like it but wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

My thanks to Grove Atlantic and Netgalley for the opportunity to read an uncorrected proof of this novella.

wow. a lot of wow. that was dark.

You know, Hills Like White Elephants, the Hemingway story where everything is said like it is, just, semi-sad nothing, but actually everything is super dark and sad? Yeah, there’s that here. Though, I suppose the darkness isn’t really hid that well, even in the beginning. (And, yeah, there is 1000% a problem with my using a Hemingway comparison here, but it comes to mind, so just, forgive me there, okay?)

Lila, our narrator, is a naive young woman who enters into an unhealthy relationship with an older man, and things go just about the way you’d fear they will. Her story unfolds in short, but dense vignettes. The moves are telegraphed only because we all know this story. Lila feels real, but she is also a stand in for so many women’s experiences.

This is not an easy read, but it is a powerful one. The prose is sparse and raw and it doesn’t pull any punches. The short chapters are confessional and revelatory and cut the reader to the quick. The open ending is somehow both hopeful and terrifying— an impressive feat by the writer. I don’t think I could bring myself to read this one again, but I’m grateful to have read it once.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

Well, this broke me. Magma may be short (it’s about an hour’s read), but debut Icelandic author Thora Hjörleifsdóttir hits all the slow beats of an increasingly manipulative and abusive relationship that threatens to destroy a young woman; body, mind, and spirit. Twenty-year-old Lilja returns to Reykjavík from a solo backpacking trip through Central America to start a relationship with an older student who had been engaging her in romantic email exchanges while she was away. Although he doesn’t want to be thought of as her boyfriend, this Derrida-quoting, grey-eyed hunk will become ever more jealous and controlling, isolating Lilja from her friends and family; and the more time he spends with other women, the more Lilja believes that if only she could be more perfect — assuming his vegetarian diet, loosening her sexual boundaries, accepting his close relationship with his perfect Ex — maybe then he will finally commit himself to her. For anyone who wonders why women stay with their abusers, Hjörleifsdóttir unspools a plausible narrative of someone who makes a series of increasingly larger compromises until she has utterly betrayed herself; and with backstories that go some way to explaining why each of the partners in this couple act the way they do, Hjörleifsdóttir evokes the heat and pressure of her title that bubbles beneath all of our controlled facades. Brief but brimming with painfully relatable truths, this was an outstanding read.

I put this book down at 15% intending to DNF it.

I picked it back up 10 minutes later.

It’s a quick, mess of a read that was triggering on every page, yet I couldn’t put it down.

I can’t recommend this to anyone. The writing is beautiful and lyrical at parts but the content is overwhelming. There isn’t a real ending, but I took it as something hopeful.

TW - rape, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, cutting, fatphobia, cheating, suicide ideation, attempted suicide, child abuse, sex shaming

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC. All thoughts are my own.

brutal, dark, and raw. the writing is sparse and beautiful. the use of vignettes/journal entries propels you through this short story of two broken people in a terrible relationship. the ending made me scream.

I did feel like the brevity kept me at arm's length, denying me a connection with Lilja.

Magma is a debut novel by Thora Hjörleifsdóttir. She lives in Reykjavik and has previously published three poetry collections. Magma is a short novel set in Reykjavik written in first-person narration of Lilja, the protagonist, recounting how she ended herself in a toxic and abusive relationship with the man she loves.

As a university student, Lilja falls in love with a smart and attractive young man who cites Derrida and practises vegetarianism. Not long after, she's moved in with him, in his cramped apartment, surrounded by sour towels and flat Diet Cokes, which he shares with his unhygienic and disheveled friend. We soon find that the man has an insatiable appetite for sex, and she is willing to do whatever she can to please him, no matter how much she dislikes some of the acts she is asked to perform. However, in order to do so, she gradually loses her limits and begins to lose her sense of self.

It's written in vignettes type prose with small chapter breaks that seem like diary entries. Lilja's experience in this book is not easy to read, with episodes of gaslighting and infidelity, frequent explicit depictions of sex, and acts of self-harm.

The writing was engaging and fast-paced. Unlike what we hear on the news and in reports, the depiction of abuse is subtle. I'm not a big lover of writing vignettes, but these are well executed. I initially assumed the protagonist and the man were in an open relationship, but this turned out to be incorrect. The ending is quite well done, with a woman who has been abused by her first heart finding hope in a second heart. Highly recommended. 3.5 ⭐️

Part cautionary tale and/or reminder to us cishet women who have found themselves engulfed in toxic relationships. Like actual magma, in flows everywhere and burns and destroys everything in sight, particularly the one in the relationship who is being gaslighted and taken complete advantage of.

This was a short read, told in vignette chapters, but the length did not dull the impact. The ending actually horrified me, and, perhaps, that was the volcanic eruption after all the chapters of magma. It is also a tough read. And a necessary read.

This book was not at all what I was expecting. It was very short, the writing was very concise and straight-forward, with no descriptions and barely no time to get to know our characters. I don't thinks this is necessarily bad, because it almost seems we are reading snippets of Lilja's diary and the way she is dealing with her mental health problems and her (terribly) toxic relationship.
The book is quick to read and the story is engaging, and it does makes us ponder on these important issues, even though we don't have specific parts talking about how these relationships are so bad, how cheating is toxic etc., we just see how the main character is slowly descending into a bad place regarding her health and how her boyfriend is very manipulative.
The ending was a bit frustrating but I didn't mind it that much.
Overall it was a quick, painful but good read.

I find this very difficult to rate. The subject matter is important, but it's not something that hasn't been addressed in other books in more compelling ways. I was surprised at how short this book was, and I wonder if we didn't lose something in translation, especially as the author is a poet and the writing seemed pretty straightforward.

I didn't mind the ending as much as other reviewers (again, I feel like its been done before), but it does frustratingly leave a few questions unanswered.

Thanks to Grove Atlantic for the review copy!

20-Year old Lilya is in love with an older man. A very toxic man. At first she just thinks he’s odd, but he’s getting worse by the minute, and she can handle it less by the minute. You can definitely sense her slipping further and further into depression. It’s quite eerie but beautifully written!
It’s a really short book, so maybe it’s best to describe it as a short story.

A modern take on The Yellow Wallpaper, about a woman's spiralling mental health at the hands of the man she lives with.

This is bleak reading, but as Hjörleifsdóttir says ø, this and worse is happening everyday to so many women, and we can't stop it unless we talk about it.

The book follows Lilja and her thoughts about her boyfriend, or rather the man she wants to have as boyfriend. We see her struggle with, and lose, her sense of self, and we see how manipulative he must be in order to make her so apathetic.

Trigger warnings: rape, cutting/self harm, and fatphobia.

This is not about a love affair and a woman's striving to please her lover - it's about the abuse and manipulation of one man to his girlfriend. To be perfectly honestly, it's painful to read. It hard to see how hard someone tries to be loved and to fall into depression.

This is cautionary tale. And a powerful one.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Magma is a quick, but intense and somehow poetic novel about an abusive romantic relationship. I was left unsettled, anxious, and completely in the head of the protagonist, Lilja, which is a lonely and dark place to be.

My social work self would use this novel as a tool to help those that know someone in an abusive relationship gain empathy and understanding of the headspace that someone undergoing the abuse is in and why the process of separating from an abuser is not as simple as it may seem to an outsider.

College student Lilja is hopelessly in love with her boyfriend. She'd do anything to please him. However, as his demands start to escalate and push her boundaries, Lilja finds her life spiraling downwards.

Magma by Thora Hjörleifsdóttir is a raw, poetic, and unflinching portrayal of an abusive relationship. It's told through short, almost diary-like vingettes where we watch the boyfriend's slow escalation of possessiveness and manipulation.

As the title implies, I thought that everything would accumulate and end in an explosion. Instead the story just ... ends. The conclusion was so abrupt that I had do a double take to make sure that I had actually read the last page. I'm typically fine with ambiguous, open endings, but this one just felt jarring and incomplete to me.

Lilja is a student in an abusive relationship, which is clear to the reader from the start but is something that Lilja never seems willing to accept as she relays his behaviour and events that have taken place.

It’s an extremely quick read (one sitting, easily) made quicker by the short sections, almost vignettes (others have described them as diary entries, which I hadn’t considered until now).

We all know by now that it’s not easy to leave or recognise an abusive relationship and it’s clear to the reader from the beginning that there is nothing good in this relationship. What wasn’t clearly transmitted was what Lilja saw in him in the first place. Maybe we might have connected with Lilja a little more if we had witnessed that gradual change from perfect boyfriend to abuser.

The content can be difficult to read, it contains almost every bad thing that could happen to a woman or in a relationship, but in a way the impact on the reader was lessened as, at least in my opinion, I felt distanced from Lilja (as I mentioned above). Perhaps it was also down to the fast pace of the story.

I think the ending is optimistic but not happy, although there is some debate among readers. Maybe the message is that you get out, but you can never be the same?

Anyway, it’s an interesting debut, dealing with important themes, and the first Icelandic book I’ve read, I believe.

Rating: 3.5

Thank you NetGalley and Grove Atlantic for the chance to read this!

Magma was an okay read, but I doubt it will stick with me. While the writing style has been described as fragmented, I didn't expect the vignettes to be so short and choppy. Each one seems expected to carry more weight and significance then it actually does. The result is that I had a difficult time connecting with the narrator. Her observations, while interesting, didn't draw me in.

An incredibly powerful and necessary book. Hjorleifsdottir shows the subtle, incremental slide into an abusive relationship. She demonstrates how easily this can happen in harrowing and poetic language.