I’m glad I read this on kindle - it is long and I worry I’d have broken my wrists with a hardback. That shouldn’t, however, put you off. Sometimes all you want is an immersive long read to really get into the characters. This does this in spades.

An enjoyable compelling read. Characters and storyline well developed, at times it was confusing to read but that may have just been me.

I was really excited to read and fall in love with this book. However, I just had a hard time with the very descriptive writing style which made it very hard for me to connect to the characters or the story. Maybe would have been more enjoyable with I had ever lived in Gothenburg, and could appreciate the details about the city.

Thank you to Netgalley and Pushkin Press for sending me an advanced copy

I loved this book. I finished it yesterday and miss the characters as if they are friends I want to spend more time with. A synopsis can't give a true view of this novel but essentially it's the story of three friends - Martin (the main character) and Gustav meet at school, both outsiders, later Gustav becomes an artist and Martin a publisher and would-be author. Cecilia is the third who Martin meets at university and marries.

The narrative moves back and forth between the present day, the boys's schooldays and the young adulthood of the three, when Gustav is becoming well-known as an artist, Martin and Cecilia marry after she becomes pregnant, but we also see their daughter Rakel as a young woman. There is a mystery as Cecilia suddenly left her family one day and has not been seen since. Rakel is desperate to find her and Martin has never managed to move on without her.

The novel reminded me of Jonathan Franzen, with his focus on one family and the dynamics (but I think this is better) and also Knausgaard with the detailed descriptions of their everyday lives (characterised by enormous amounts of alcohol and horrible food in their youth).

I found it mesmerising and would love to meet someone else who has read it so that I could discuss it with them - particularly the ending, but I won't give any spoilers.

Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for a review copy.

How do you feel about big books?

It can go either way for me - I can lose myself in one, or it can drag on interminably. Usually, where it’s dragging, I’ve reached the stage where I’ve committed so much time already that it’s too late to stop reading and I’m on an irreversible trajectory of slumpish reading.

Happily, Collected Works (736 pages) was one I lost myself in, though it wasn’t one I flew through. I thought it really lost some of its magic towards the end and the final stretch wasn’t as satisfying as it could have been.

Collected Works is a Swedish novel translated into English by Agnes Broomé. It’s a Bildungsroman about the life of Martin Berg, a Swedish publisher whose wife, intellectual and eternal student Cecelia, walks out on him and their two children and goes off the grid.

Martin, Cecelia and their good friend Gustav (a successful, internationally renowned artist and portraitist) are inseparable, with the two men dependent on Cecelia to maintain a sense of balance in their lives.

While I wouldn’t describe the book as dense, it’s detailed in the sense that the minutiae of what the characters are doing is often described, which feels very involved and mildly annoying at times. Having said that, I became very attached to the characters, especially Martin and his daughter Rakel in her search for truth and meaning as she translates a novel that appears to hold the key to her mother’s disappearance.

There are lots of tangents on art, literature, philosophy and the meaning of life that are really wonderful and the book feels very nostalgic for anyone who has ever lived on the continent, studied in Europe or done a humanities degree. There’s the spirit of, and a yearning for eternal youth that permeates the whole book, and a poignancy to Martin’s life and how things pan out for him. I really enjoying spending more than a week with Martin and won’t forget him easily. That ending though - I felt betrayed as a reader. 4/5 ⭐️

*Many thanks to @pushkinpress for the arc via @netgalley. Collected Works was published on 6 April. As always, this is an honest review.*

This wa ssuch an enjoyable and compelling read that was well written with well developed characters and a storyinfused with mystery, secrets and drama. I couldn't put it down, I needed to know what happens.