Sunday 25 February 2018

Juurihoito - Miika Nousiainen

'Ilta jatkuu hilpeänä ja seurueemme pitää valtavaa älämölöä. Ympäröivistä pöydistä vilkuillaan paheksuvasti. Nautin tilanteesta. Vihdoinkin minulla on perhe jota hävetä. Kyllä ihminen läheisiltään rakkautta saa, mutta nämä hetket jolloin saa hävetä läheisiään, ovat korvaamattomia.'

'The evening continues to be cheerful and our entourage is making a huge racket. From the surrounding tables they are glancing disapprovingly. I enjoy the situation. Finally I have a family to be ashamed of. Sure a person gets love from their relatives, but these moments when you get to be ashamed of them are irreplaceable.'

Heyo!

I realise I read this book in December... Where have I been? At home and at uni and reading books and just growing my backlog of reviews to do. Hopefully in the next (couple of) week(s) I'll have reviews up for my last four 2017 books and then I'll move on to the seven(!) I've already reviewed this year. Whoops!



My brother borrowed me this book to 'read for my blog' - thank you! I finished it on Independence Day, so it really has been a while. It joins Metsäjätti in the books I've reviewed on this blog by the author, but my favourite is still Vadelmavenepakolainen, to which I'll probably forever be comparing the author's other works.

Juurihoito ('Root Canal Therapy') is a story of two long-lost brothers who meet by chance and find out that their father is a serial family leaver. They set out to find out more about their father, and along the way, meet new siblings across the globe, each with a similar story. The first two siblings are Pekka and Esko, the first works in advertisement and the second a dentist. The first is happy and has a child and an ex-wife, the second is very serious and a little lonely, and the group only grows with every trip to the other side of the globe.

The siblings were definitely one of the better things in this book - they were all so similar, yet different, and their interactions were an absolute delight to follow. I think anyone who's ever had / witnessed siblings will relate to it in some way.

As mentioned previously, I think Miika Nousiainen is at his strongest when he's describing Finland and being Finnish. This book has that too, even though it's set largely abroad. It also talks about some more global issues but while these were really interesting, I felt the visits were too brief to really get into it. Maybe if it was a little more selective (or longer), the book would have been able to really focus on them better.

I think I'd have to put this one under Metsäjätti on the scale of the author's works, not because it was necessarily worse in any way, but because it just didn't give me that many feelings during its course. I kind of think of it fondly now, but I still don't remember much of what happened. It's a solid 3/5 but I probably wouldn't really read it again.

1 comment:

  1. Same feelings: This was good but Metsäjätti better.

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