My Brother

This intense story doesn't read like a thriller at all, but rather as a quaint family drama in a small swedish village. Full of violence, alcoholism and religious trauma, it's written in an incredible style with barely any punctuation. The possibilities of interpretation are endless. Smirnoff expertly throws us small symbols, while also writing a feminist critique of society in which regress is almost inevitable, even though the only ones demanding it are long gone.

I highly reccommend this book to fans of Gillian Flynn. If you wish to read a book just as atmospheric and gory as hers, but maybe just a tiny bit more hopeful, this is the book for you!

I enjoyed the novel but it took me awhile to 'link into' the portrayed characters. The storyline is great and about twins who had a disastrous upbringing that led to murder. There are twists and turns as the disturbed and troubled lives of Jana and Bror (the twins) are revealed. A Swedish noir mystery that is recommended reading and worthy of five (5) stars.

I loved this unusual book, by Swedish author Karin Smirnoff, whom l had not read before. Her characters live in a raw world, full of pain and intensity, close to the darkness in life, with death stalking among them. The prose is engaging and the situation compelling. Her heroine Jana is somewhat enigmatic, but slowly her identity and backstory are revealed. It’s a bleak book, where happiness is stolen wherever it can be found, amid an inhospitable landscape. This was a very different read for me and at times, the narrative skipped through time and l had to pause and realise the change, but l soon warmed to Smirnoff’s style and was eager to read on.

Karin Smirnoff Karin Smirnoff is the author of My Brother My Brother by Karin Smirnoff that was translated from the Swedish by Anna Paterson. I enjoyed reading the book but did not like how in the translation all the peoples names were written together as in one word. Jana was the girl and Bror was her brother and her twin, they were both redheads, John was her lover and had a hairlip and face that was burned in a fire. Maria was their 1/2 sister and we had a time finding out the truth of her suicide. She was married to John but divorced him and was with every man available, including Bror. What happened was that Jana's father threw Bror down a chute in the barn into the cattle excrement and then raped Jana. Bror came up and killed their father with a shovel. They were both below the age needed for murder. Karin leaves us with finding Diana who was Jana's daughter by either John or her father. I'll leave it to you to take it from here in the story. 20 years later we come to reconcile relationships.

My thanks to the Author publisher's and NetGalley for providing me with a Kindle version of this book to read and honestly review.
I am a big fan of Scandi Noir stories, and the blurb attached to this debut book made it a must read for me. However I must confess to some disappointment, maybe because of the hype I expected too much. Don't get me wrong it is beautifully written with superb characterisation throughout, and at no point was I bored, I just expected more, I kept waiting for a major shock or earth shattering surprise, that never materialised. Atmospheric bleak descriptive and disturbing, an intense tale of love pain and occasional violence.
I am led to believe the Author will take over the mantle of writing the next book to feature one of my favourite characters Lisbeth Salander, I look forward to the outcome.
Recommended.

My Brother by Karen Smirnoff is a very odd book set in the remote Swedish village of Smalanger , a place with secrets galore and populated by characters straight out of a David Lynch movie. The book is surreal and frequently quite shocking.

Jana Kippo returns to Smalanger after spending years away, to visit her twin brother Bror. who is living in the small farmhouse they grew up in. Even before arriving at the house she's reminded that despite her years away she hasn't been forgotten and very soon discovers that not everyone welcomes her return . Also stirring unwanted memories is the body of a young woman discovered in a remote area, a young woman whose complicated love life involved a large proportion of the male population of Smalanger .

It took me a while to get into the book,for the first couple of chapters it was quite hard to see it going anywhere and Jana just seems very strange rather than a character to take much interest in or like. As she integrates into a village where she was considered a rather unpleasant oddball before leaving it and Smalanger's ,often dark,secrets are revealed ,not least Jana's, it becomes much more involving as some very complex relationships emerge and dark secrets emerge from the shadows.

There are some difficult issues written about in this book and terrible things become almost the norm as they're written about in rather a deadpan way as if the abnormal and shocking is just the way it is in remote small communities like Smalanger. If that's liable to upset you please give this one a miss,it won't be for everybody.

Definitely something different and once it hit its stride I was hooked,.

An enjoyable read that is well written with a gripping storyline and well developed characters that were believable. It is twisty and unpredictable and kept me guessing.

3.5 rounded up

Jana Kippo sets off in a heavy snow storm to visit her twin brother Bror at the family home in Smalånger in Northern Sweden. She gets disorientated in the driving snow and loses her way but he’s helped by John with whom she later has a love affair. The past becomes very entangled and wrapped up with the present and what emerges a bit at a time is a dark and shocking tale in which Jana is forced to confront the truth about her horrifying past.

This is about as far from an easy read as you can get mostly because of the harrowing cruelty that is revealed which shocks to the core. Here we have hugely damaged people and it seems that some are fractured beyond healing. Jana and Bror are understandably on a course of self destruction but in different ways. They are not the only ones who are messed up by trauma in the past and so it’s a darkly unremitting twisted tale with violence, revenge and hatred that repeats on a loop.

Not only is the subject matter a very difficult one but the style is equally tricky to get into as there is little punctuation and words that run into each other. However, you do get used to it and the incendiary information bombs the author throws at us .

This harsh and strange tale is matched by the harsh far northern latitudes, with changeable weather conditions in a tough to live area. This makes the people equally tough and they sure are. They aren’t just survivors in an unremitting landscape, they are also secretive and you can’t altogether make sense of some actions or their lies but some of their fears are very understandable.

The ending is strange but I hope it is an optimistic sign as Jana and Bror deserve something good.

Overall, this has been a difficult book to read and it’s not for the faint of heart that’s for sure.

With thanks to NetGalley and especially to Pushkin Press for the much appreciated arc in return for an honest review.

My Brother, the first in the much-acclaimed Swedish trilogy by Karin Smirnoff, is a difficult book: difficult to read, difficult to rate, full of difficult-to-like characters and, once read, equally difficult to forget!

Jana Kippo comes back to her hometown in the rural north Sweden after being away for many years and, in a snowstorm that obscures the way to her childhood home, meets John Brannstrom who takes her to his place, an old house that she hazily remembers visiting in her distant past. While Jana is sure she is meeting John for the first time, the man seems to know an uncomfortable lot about her. Come next morning, Jana arrives at her destination to find the homestead, including her twin brother Bror who is swiftly drinking himself towards an untimely death, literally gone to seed. Initially uncertain of how long she intends to stay, Jana nevertheless takes up a job with the local elderly care service and starts making house visits to ailing patients who are unable to look after themselves. Most of the people she visits are acquaintances, some quite close, from her past—a dark past full of abuse and violence that has scarred the twins permanently. Wherever she goes, Jana is confronted by the name Maria—a beautiful woman who seemingly wielded mythical power over many a married man in the town, including Bror, before breaking each one’s heart, and being found dead under suspicious circumstances. As she stays on, Jana gets irresistibly pulled towards John against the advice of almost everyone she meets and her own serious misgivings. Jana fights hard to retain her sanity as layer after layer of the secrets shrouding her own childhood, her family and the little community begin to unravel, while doing everything in her power to save Bror from the looming death.

My Brother is both like and unlike the Scandinavian thrillers I’ve read so far—it is dark, moody and for the most part as stark as the wintry landscape of northern Sweden and has a host of brooding, maniacal characters, but there is no serial killer here leaving gruesomely slaughtered victims in their wake nor a disturbed investigator racing against time to stop them. Smirnoff’s writing, and Anna Paterson’s faithful translation, is initially frustrating and needs a lot of getting used to. The subject—child abuse, incest, violence, suicides and whatnot—is not easy to read as it is and the trouble is compounded by the writing style with literally no punctuation—speech marks, capitalisation of names, or spaces between phrases. But, amidst all the bleakness, there is an underlying hopefulness that makes life bearable for the lead characters and the book eminently readable.

I certainly feel that my perseverance with My Brother was amply rewarded and I eagerly await the English translation of the remaining two books from the trilogy. My sincere thanks to NetGalley for the e-ARC of My Brother courtesy of Pushkin Press who deserve much praise for their splendid job of making world fiction accessible to booklovers all over the globe.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from My Brother by Karin Smirnoff. Initially I found the lack of punctuation and the way in which the names ran into each other challenging. As such, it took me a while to settle into the book. I did eventually sync into the rhythm of this book.

Jana returns to her remote hometown, Smalangar, where with the exception of Jana no-one really ever leaves. Because of this, everyones lives appears to weave into everyone else’s and where people’s foibles are tolerated and even overlooked. Jana returns to stay in the old family home with her twin brother Bror. She finds a job and finds herself meeting up with people from her past through her work. It felt quite an understated book, exploring the lies and truths people and family tell themselves. How sometimes there’s a need to forget, sometimes to remember and also forgive.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, Pushkin Press, for making this ARC available to me to read for a fair and honest review and introducing me to Karin Smirnoff. I will definitely look out for her Millennium books.

When you read a 300-page novel in 1.5 days you know it's good. This is the story of a woman returning to her childhood home in a village in Northern Sweden, where everybody knows everybody, where her brother still lives and where we knows some awful things happened long ago.

Lots of snow, derelict farms, alcohol, secrets, violence, and hunters, but most of all lots of broken families - which means one or the other family secret is revealed in almost every one of the 51 short chapters. Still, it never feels like a soap opera. An extremely compulsive read; I can see why it is such a success in Sweden and can't wait for the translation of parts 2 and 3 (and the TV adaptation).

Many thanks to Pushkin Press for the arc via Netgalley.

Jana Kippo has returned to Smalånger to see her twin brother, Bror, still living in the small family farmhouse in the remote north of Sweden.

Within the isolated community, secrets and lies have grown silently, undisturbed for years.

Following the discovery of a young woman's body in the long grass behind the sawmill, the siblings, hooked by a childhood steeped in darkness, need to break free.

But the truth cannot be found in other people's stories. The question is: can it be found anywhere?

Absolutely loved this one! The evocative details and impeccable research make for a delightful reading experience.
The writing style is great and it's fantastically written. A wonderful story, beautifully told. I absolutely tore through it! A sparkling, emotional read! This authors books are one to look out for!

Another book set in Sweden! I was drawn to this book from the description and the author does an amazing job of making you feel like you're actually in this cold, snowy town. This book is about dark family secrets and they are revealed throughout the book. I really enjoyed this and I can't wait for the follow-ups.

I LOVE a book where the setting is like another character and where it is so important to the story that you could picture it occurring anywhere else. This is that type of book! The stark and desolate landscape reflects the trauma that this brother and sister has dealt with in their lives. It has shaped them and made them who they are, the trauma and the landscape. This is not an easy read, the content and emotions are heavy, but it is at once beautiful and painful.

My Brother by Karin Smirnoff
I had noticed the publication of My Brother when it was published by Pushkin Press in early 2021 which i have just got to around to reading. .
My Brother is definitely distinguished from the usual styles of Nordic Noir. It tells the story of Jana who returns to her twin brother Bror in the remote family farmhouse they were bought up in the rural north of Sweden.

The prose translated by Anna Patterson stands out as unpunctuated, stark and uncensored.
Saved in a blizzard by a local man called John, Jana introduces us into a dark world of depravity and decrepit homes, of alcoholism, cancer suffers, victims of incest. Everywhere she goes she seems to follow the footsteps of a girl called Marie who died mysteriously just before she arrived. It is a bleak story of rural life, limited opportunities and only just a little hope.
It reminds me a little of Hurricane Season by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor, although the climate is obviously vastly different.
This is still Smirnoff's only English language translation although she has written other books and will be the next Millennium author.
My Brother be available on Kindle in Northern American from 27 September.

Dark, really dark Nordic noir without the cops and murder mystery. (well, sort of). Jana and her twin brother Bror were raised in a small, rural town by horrible parents. She left, he didn't but now she's home for a visit and all the bad things come roaring back. This is a bleak town where there is substance and other abuse. Who is Marie? No spoilers from me. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. It's a challenging read but intriguing as well.

This was a difficult book to read and is difficult to review. But I did think the writing was outstanding, painful but outstanding.

Jana Kippo is heading back to Smalånger in northern Sweden to see her twin brother, Bror. I suppose it was time for her to set some demons to rest. One the way she gets caught in a blizzard and is rescued by John, another very complex character, with whom she ends up having a physical relationship but she never quite seems to trust him.

It was a harsh story set in a harsh climate. Jana ends up questioning everything about her past and it is a bleak and unforgiving past at that. Think of a trigger - this story has it. It could have been unremittingly bleak but somehow there were moments of hope. Her upbringing was harsh - ruled by a father who was always right, even when was being cruel, and a mother whose only solace was praying - there was little joy in Jana and Bror’s childhood.

She learns that the truth is a fluid thing depending on who is doing the telling and when. It seems in Smalånger everything is connected to everything and everyone else. I’m sorry to be so cryptic but the story was like trying to catch smoke in your hands. I’d like to think it ended on a comparatively happy note but I can’t be sure.

The format took a bit of getting used to with words running into one other and minimal punctuation. I can’t say I really enjoyed the story as it was so, so bleak but I do commend the talent of the author. She does pull the emotions out of you and the book will stay with me for some time. Many thanks to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for the much appreciated arc which I reviewed voluntarily and honestly.

Scandi Noir at its finest!
It took me a while to get used to the writing style of Smirnoff and it took me a couple of attempts before this book fully grabbed my attention but when it did, I was wholly captivated. The setting, the characters and plot all written with care and detail. I expected more of a thriller element to this book from the synopsis, but this isn't a complaint, this book was so much more. I really enjoyed My Brother and will look out from more from this author, I really admired her writing.

Well written, addictive and unpredictable. This is a book I have really enjoyed and devoured. i definitely want to read more from this author. Full Review to follow.

This was dark and twisty. I love reading novels in translation because I never know where they're going to go, and this one was truly no exception!