An amazing novel by a young Finnish author Sisko Savonlahti. The cover is deceiving: one expects some easy reading typically known as “women for women about women”. Nothing of the sort.
On the contrary, the cover seems to ridicule the very type of such literature: the novel is about a woman trying to struggle not only through the loss of her boyfriend who left without any explanation, but with all the accompanying difficulties: constant lack of money, stagnation in career, social stereotypes.
The novel is written in clear and nice Finnish, so it will be easy to read.
In this text, the author uses one fantastic characteristic of the Finnish language to the full. It is 100% absence of distinction between “he” and “she”. It is “hän”. Unless the author explicitely clarifies who the person is, the importance of whether it is M+F, M+M or F+F is totally obliterated making it really “all-human”: to talk about a person and not their gender.
English title: Sisko Savonlahti “Everything might change this summer”
Original title (Finnish): Sisko Savonlahti “Ehkä tänä kesänä kaikki muuttuu”
First published in the Levinarium Telegram Channel (now closed and deleted)