2022 ONTD Reading Challenge discussion

Use this topic to discuss whether you enjoyed your March picks from Norway, and whether you'd recommend it to your fellow readers! Did you find it easy/difficult to complete this task?

Please tag all spoilers in this post!

So i read The Snowman and i...didn't like it. I felt overwhelmed and confused for the first 2/3's of the book, and when it finally picked up at the end i was kind of over it. I also felt like the ending was pretty predictable.

My library hold for Don't Look Back is up so i'm going to give that a try and see if i like it any better.

I finished Medusa today and it was just meh.
The translation was a little iffy, as speech started with a hyphen and with dialogue going back and forth, it was a task to keep up with who said what. Across the board, the characters remained a little bland and I kept waiting - in vain - for the actual thriller to develop on the pages.
If you like Scandi Noir, it might be a book for you, but it didn't really grip me and is probably going to be one of the more forgettable reads this year.

I read The Wreath. It was a nice chill read, I am even considering reading the next two books in the series.

I enjoyed the descriptions of rural life in Norway during the middle ages. I also quite liked Kristin, she is a complicated character. There's a lot of religious angle in the book though, which perhaps is an accurate depiction of life at that time, although might not interest everyone.

I couldn't find a Norwegian book that I felt drawn to, so I'm hitting pause on the challenge for a minute and started Piranesi after someone in an ONTD book post called it eerie / mentioned something about the architecture being eerie? idk lol.

don't remember who that was but if you see this, thank you, cause I LOVE it so far.

I read Astrid the Unstoppable, which is a children's/middle grade book that my library happened to have. It was a quick, easy read and there were a lot of really sweet parts! I definitely recommend it!

I read the Solitaire Mystery which started well but became rather dull and repetitive. I also read a Scandi crime book called Fear Not by Anne Holt which was terrible! Am now reading Berlin Poplars. Enjoying it so far.

i finished my second book for this month, Don't Look Back - and it was good, but not particularly memorable. i didn't have as good of luck this month as i did in January and February!

This month has been a disappointment. Just finished Berlin Poplars, which started strong but fell flat. That's three Norwegian books which didn't deliver for me. But glad I gave them a go!

I read The Seafarer's Kiss by The Seafarer's Kiss.

The concept was cool and I loved the juxtaposition of Norse mythology with mermaid folklore but it was a bit too Young Adult for my personal taste.

I read Naïve. Super by Erlend Loe. It was a book and I read it. That basically describes that. I struggled to find something this month that interested me so I picked a modern(ish) coming of age. It was very slow and went nowhere. No stakes and I didn't care about the main character (if he had a name I don't remember it). Easy read though.

I read The Bat and it was ok? It was a nice enough ride, but as the plot went on, it felt more and more like it was on rails.

Also ha-bloody-ha at the "trick" of getting the Australians to pronounce Harry's last name as "Holy", they must be a lot more considerate than English speakers everywhere else... I say as someone whose last name can be pronounced in a very rude way in English.

After two months, I finally finished The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder. For the ONTD Reading Challenge, I always try to buy as little books as possible and instead read books that have been sitting on my shelves for ages. This was one of them. Well, and it certainly felt dated. It was dull but easy to read.

I read Astrid the Unstoppable after I saw that Darcy read it and I really liked it! It's a sweet little book that is a quick read. I also recommend it.