Whilst the mix of detective story and psychological thriller is not such an unusual blend, the introduction of a pet python in ‘Reptile Memoirs’ brings an extremely unusual focus to this genre. Silje Ulstein gives us a well written, complex narrative, with a shifting timeline and multiple narrators to ensure that her disturbing story is only revealed little by little. What begins with the report of a missing daughter, takes us back over a decade to another unsolved crime and other bereft parents.
Many of Ulstein’s characters are damaged people - this is not a story for the faint-hearted. Child abuse, murder, rape, and addiction all play their part. And, of course, there is the snake. As the python Nero grows so, too, does his appetite, and his owner has to take on the role of hunter-gatherer. Whilst the chapters narrated by the snake do not, in my opinion, strengthen the overall effect of the narrative, and there are the inevitable Freudian associations, such a device is a brave choice.
‘Reptile Memoirs’ takes a good, hard look at depravity, at how damaged people seldom make the right choices and why trauma creates a distorted view. This is not an easy read but it is a memorable one.
My thanks to NetGalley and Atlantic Books, Grove Press UK for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I don't like giving up on books. That's the only reason I finished this book which I found in turn, boring, revolting, absurd and confusing.

The narrative is from several points of view including a snake's. If I''d known that I would never have started reading it. At its centre is Roe, a policemen desperate to find out who killed his daughter and granddaughter. He is in a state of semi retirement but takes an interest when a young girl, Iben goes missing from a shopping centre. These two strands are vaguely interesting but wound in amongst them is the story of Liv and Mariam, Iben's mother. Liv's story, set several years before the main action, hints at incest and sexual perversion as well as ,graphically describing rape. She is clearly traumatised but it is hard to empathise with her especially when she finds live animals with which to feed her pet python, Nero. As well as their narrative we have that of a young policewoman investigating Iben's disappearance, which adds nothing to the story. As for Nero's story....

I didn't like this book. If you don't like graphic descriptions of violence then avoid it. I wish I had. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC.

Sinuous, sexual, and irresistibly dark, Reptile Memoirs successfully threw its coils around me. It weaves together two stories that, you come to realise, are inextricably bound together: in the past, a young woman named Liv becomes unhealthily obsessed with a python; in the present Mariam, a conflicted mother, comes under suspicion when her teenage daughter goes missing. Mariam and Liv seem to be quite different people, though it turns out they have far more in common than you first expect, and neither are particularly likeable. It makes it all the more challenging when you find points of relatability or empathy with them.

For fans of Scandi Noir, Gillian Flynn, and having disconcerting staring contests with snakes, Reptile Memoirs is only partly about the thrilling crime at its heart, and is mostly about the ways women are monsters. What is the right way of being a mother? A lover? When is a fun time girl too much fun? How long can you hide your weirdness? And when does it become too weird? Although, of course, sometimes you might actually just be, you know, way too weird… And Ulstein is particularly good, via a tense yet lyrical translation, at articulating the strange slipping of thoughts, and the way they slip out of your control or loop back on themselves.

I have exactly two complaints, one being the inclusion of a literal explanation for some of the dark impulses rocking our heroine(s) that robs Reptile Memoirs of what would otherwise have been a lovely Turn Of The Screw-esque uncertainty. The other is that the aforementioned weirdness ends up having quite a conventional source, and I would have rather preferred to see these characters just be grim, weird screw-ups on their own terms, not because someone else made them so. Monsters in their own right, as it were.

Still, Reptile Memoirs asks some utterly compelling, uncomfortable questions about agency, sexuality, and self. As the two timelines wrap ever closer together, you feel the overwhelming pull towards what is a dreadful, inevitable conclusion. The whole book pulses with a muscular intent in the prose, with almost no energy wasted. I daresay it would be easier to resist a literal snake than this literary one.

What's the book about?
Liv becomes obsessed with the idea of buying a snake as a pet after seeing one on a TV nature show. She eventually buys Nero, a baby Burmese python. As Liv bonds with her new pet, she notices changes within herself that surprise her.

Thirteen years later, in a nearby town, Mariam Lind goes on a shopping trip with her eleven-year-old daughter, Iben. They have an argument and Miriam storms off. In her anger, Miriam drives away believing her young daughter will make her way home . . . but she never does.

Detective Roe Olsvik, new to the local police department, is assigned to the case of Iben's disappearance. He realizes there's more to this case and slowly the secrets start to unravel.

My thoughts:
I initially faced some trouble in connecting with the book because of how disjointed it felt. But once I got into the flow of it, I enjoyed the twists, turns and how the story unfolded.

A mind-bending book with one of the most interesting and original new voices I’ve read in years. Dark and ambitious, it challenges the reader but rewards with a satisfying mid-point twist that turns everything on its head. Silje Ulstein is one to watch and Reptile Memoirs will worm its way into your mind and stay there for a long time.

This is a strange book, difficult to settle into because there are multiple points of view which also hop from time period to time period. One thread deals with a detective who is searching for answers as to how his daughter and grand-daughter died. If it had been written chronologically, it could have acted as some kind of stability for the other strands, as it was quite interesting.
Another thread deals with a girl, later a woman with a different name so you don't know for a while she's the same person. For some time, I thought they were two different people, but maybe I was supposed to. This character was so unpleasant and, frankly, unbalanced that I didn't enjoy her sections at all.
There are several young men who pop up in both the threads but at random times, back and forth chronologically, and in the end I gave up trying to follow who they were and why they were in a certain place at a given time.
And then we have the snake, who also has his own POV sections. In the end, I just stopped reading them because they were so far-fetched.They added nothing to the story whatsoever.
The girl/woman also uses the snake for sexual gratification and there is a scene involving the snake left me feeling sick. Like I said, a very strange book that I will always remember for all the wrong reasons.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Family secrets, past traumas and a terrible accident collide together to make an unusual and intriguing thriller.

Liv shares an apartment in Alesund with two friends and together they buy a baby python, Nero. Liv is obsessed with Nero and although he was meant to be the household pet, she keeps him in her room and keeps her door locked.

Some years later, Mariam Lind, the wife of a well-known politician, goes shopping with her eleven-year-old daughter, Iben. They argue over a magazine Iben wants, and Iben leaves her mother in the shop. Mariam expects to find Iben waiting for her in the car park and, when she doesn’t, she assumes Iben has decided to walk home alone. Mariam is both angry and conflicted about her relationship with her daughter, and drives off for the rest of the afternoon. When she returns home she finds that Iben never arrived – she disappeared en route.

The police are called and it seems that one of them, Roe, has some secrets of his own which include a keen interest in Mariam’s past.

A compelling read.

I almost didn’t request to read this novel. The front cover put me off – with the title Reptile Memoirs and the image of a snake. It just didn’t look like my cup of tea somehow (although I love all animals). Then I read the description and thought it sounded like a good thriller. OK, so one of the characters has a pet snake. ‘It surely won’t figure much in the story …’, I thought. I thought wrong!
The multiple timelines and narratives had me really confused during the first part of the book and I found I was constantly flipping backwards and forwards on my Kindle to try and work out where we were and what was happening. I must admit that at one point I almost gave up. It’s so easy with a book like this to quickly glance over the new section details (date and POV) because you can’t wait to carry on reading. With hindsight, at the beginning of each section or chapter or whatever they are, I should have jotted down the date with a few brief notes to remind me what had happened! Maybe it’s just me (because I’m old) but I sometimes got confused with the character names as well, especially as some began with the same letter. Roe/Ronja, Shahid/Sverre … I eventually worked out that if Roe’s boss was Shahid we were in 2017, but if his boss was Sverre we were back in time. Oh my lord.
What surprised me was the POV of the python. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it – a snake ‘speaking’ in a novel. What sounds even more ridiculous is that it was amazing and added so much to the story. There are several pages where he talks about breaking free from his egg, and I was totally fascinated.
The writing was superb, the pace was fast, and the plot was incredibly clever with innumerable twists. At times I found the story very disturbing to the point of turning my stomach. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Please don’t let happen what I think is going to happen …’, but it did.
A few words to describe this book – unique, dark and disturbing, gripping and very, very clever.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for allowing me to read this ARC in return for an honest review.

Reptile Memoirs is a brilliantly twisty thriller that I couldn't put down. It has proper gasp out loud moments, and an ending I didn't see coming. Highly recommended.

One of the most unusual crime thrillers I've ever read. Come for the Scandi noir, stay for the snake.

I really enjoyed this book, it was dark suspenseful and full of norwegian crime greatness. I couldnt put it down it was such a good read

I liked this a lot, and it's certainly unusual. It has some divisive features (multiple timelines, multiple narrative perspectives, including one of an animal) but also the classic beats and twists of a noir thriller.

The writing is very accessible, which helps because the shifts in time and perspective can be very confusing, but it comes together very satisfactorily. There is a certain amount of disbelief-suspension required, but this is the kind of book that can get away with it - slightly fantastical, slightly other-worldly.

I think this is not for everyone, but for the right readers, it will really hit.

My thanks to Atlantic Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I found the first half of this book boring. The second half tied everything together (except what happened to Nero) but it wasn’t worth it.

Oh boy, this is strange one indeed...

After tripping out at a party Lin awakes to see a programme about a snake on the television. Fascinated by the creature she decides she has to have one, and so buys a baby one, and its pretty obvious she's sexually attracted to it. As the snake grows so does its appetite, and so feeding it small live mice is no longer enough so Lin has to find larger furry animals – kittens and puppies.

Thirteen years later Miriam and her eleven year old daughter, Iben, are out shopping, having a “girly” time together which doesn't actually work, because Miriam doesn't really enjoy being with her daughter, and is actually irritated by her. Iben wants a particular comic which Miriam objects to, so Miriam just abandons her.

I told you this one was strange....

I found this a really difficult book to get into, partly because of the two stoty lines, partky the constant tie shifts. I find thi style, the time shifts, really difficult on a kindle as I keep having to swipe backwards and forwards ro keep track of where I am. A hard copy book is easier for me where this sort of thing is concerned.

I'm having to put this down for now as I'm really not into it at all. Maybe I'll go back to it at a later stage, but for the moment, it's not doing it for me.

As twisty as the coils of snakeskin that hang from a lamp in the story! Fans of Norwegian literature, here is a new entry fit for your shelf. It combines with hard-boiled noir of Jo Nesbø with the mundane uncanniness of Vigdis Hjorth!!

This book just wasn't for me,had to keep re reading what I'd read to try and take it in but I just had to stop.

I struggled with this book. The characters are all unappealing, and the storyline is just too far-fetched. The chapters written from the snake's point of view were just risible.