An unabashedly open and frank novel about growing into womanhood and becoming a mother. A dazzling autofictional debut for the new generation.

Emmi-Liia Sjöholm writes about her own life, including sex, the need the please others, and the struggle to assert one’s independence, with perfect clarity. The story resonates on several levels, and the book is a brutally honest description of real life where one’s past is always present: having an abortion at the age of fourteen, becoming a stepmother in her twenties, love, lust, having a child, searching for a woman’s place in the world, and eventually finding yourself.

Candid yet firmly rooted on the ground, there is a lot to read between the lines. This is prose you feel and breathe rather than just read.