I wanted to like this book, but it never quite hooked me emotionally. At the same time, it was easy to lose myself in it, and a quick, interesting read. A lot of points felt intentionally unresolved, which bugged me some. I felt sorry for all the characters that Clarissa ditched on her literal/metaphorical journey. The sense of place was great, and the characters were often compelling (except, sometimes, Clarissa herself). But the language felt a little too self-consciously almost cute sometimes...

Perfect polar vortex reading. No need to travel to Lapland for constant flurries and ice. A spare, brittle, quick read. Lots of white space. One of those books with two pages on either side of a standalone chapter title page, so at the end of every chapter you're shot ahead five pages, which makes it seem longer and quicker -- turning blank pages maybe also creates some space in a reader's brain. My particular brain has been suffering some freeze lately. Unable to make it through a few dense nov...

When Clarissa was going through papers after her father died, she found a copy of her birth certificate showing that he was not her birth father. Her mother had walked out the door when Clarissa was a teenager, leaving without a trace. She felt that the important people in her life had not told her the truth. Clarissa wanted to know her true identity and she traveled to Lapland to search for her birth father.In northern Norway she unearthed some of the secrets that had been hidden from her. She

SPOILER ALERT: There is no way I can discuss my mixed feelings about this book without revealing key plot developments.The good: This is a beautifully written novel with a compelling flow, inventive use of language, and at times brilliant descriptions of people and places.The bad: This is fashioned as a resurrection story, but it didn't feel that way to me at all. Instead, I'd say it is a story about escape and disavowal of responsibility, masquerading as resurrection.The narrator is a young wom...

3.5 rounded up

This was more a novella- a finish it in one sitting sort of read. It slim size and spare style belie a great depth, however. I am also estranged from my mother; though our histories are very different, I could relate Clarissa's rage, antipathy, guarding of her heart and her rejection of the central characters in her immediate past. The ending was satisfying- closure followed by opening; an ending greeted with a beginning. Good stuff, this.

I didn't care for this story of 'who the hell am I?' When a young woman's father dies she finds out that he is not actually her father. Her mother had left years earlier, disappeared to who knows where. She finds out that her boyfriend of many years had known that her father wasn't her father. She feels betrayed by everyone and so she, wait for it....takes off, telling no one where she is going. She travels to the back of beyond, to Lapland, looking for her father. She is obnoxious, extremely ch...

I’ve mentioned once or thrice that where I work we have constant book donations coming in, and before we add them to our collection I get to peruse them and take what I want to read. It’s a fringe benefit that has saved me hundreds of dollars. Anyways, the other day a box of books showed up on my desk with a note. It said: Thought you might like these. No name was attached. It was like a mystery. Who would send me these books? What could be in this box that someone else might think I wanted to r...

Like The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty, this is a quest novel about abandoning who you are or have been and eventually free-falling into a new life. It’s tautly written and, in a way, as icy as the Lapland terrain where much of it takes place. It’s a good story. I was never bored. Nor was I emotionally swept away. Nevertheless I enjoyed the book.

I'm on the prowl for books about mothers leaving their daughters and this novel doesn't pull any punches. The narrator's voice is funny, worried, caustic, and she's insistent about going to the source for an answer. The story takes you to Finland and farther north, and the characters and landscape and outcome are frozen now in my memory. Vendela's sentences are compressed and multi-layered, a schooling in diction, rhythm, spareness and unfettered beauty.

Of the books I've read so far during 2022, this has been my favorite. I liked the voice of Clarissa, the main character. The setting, Lapland, is unusual for a novel The pacing was perfect for the story, and I appreciated the author's use of wry humor that I found helped to diffuse some of the grief inherent in the story.

What rock have I been hiding under that I hadn't heard of Vendela Vida until recently. I have a few GR friends to thank for bringing this author to my attention. And I'm very grateful. I just finished Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, and definitely plan to read Vida's other books in 2016. Clarissa's mother abandoned her family when Clarissa was 14. At the beginning of the book, Clarissa is 30 and the man she had thought was her father dies, after which she finds out that he wasn't in fac...

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name is kind of a cold-climate twin of The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty. In both books, a heroine learns a dramatic family secret. In both books, learning the secret causes her to set off alone for distant locales without letting anyone know where she's going. In both books, Vendela Vida takes a location I've never been to and makes me never want to go there ever.However, as with actual twins, there are a few differences between the novels. In Diver's Clothes, we

I own all of Vendela Vida's books. Even before I read her first book, "The Lovers", I've admired work that both she and her 'author/ husband' Dave Eggers have been doing in the world ... starting years back in San Francisco with a tutoring program for children.I love Vendela's simplistic & eloquent writing ....In "The Lover", Yvonne starts over in Turkey after her husband died. (where they had honeymooned 28 years prior)... She returns hoping to immerse herself in memories of their happy time......

After I finished reading Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, by Vendela Vida, I ruminated on it for a few days. I didn't much like it, but why? Were the reasons that I didn't like it more indicative of the book being good, or being bad? After all, much of my ambivalence came from my disapproval of the choices that the main character, Clarissa, made. If these poor choices were entirely within Clarissa's character -- if the author, Ms. Vida -- created a consistent and believable portrait of a...

It is sometimes very hard to explain why a book affects one the way it does. This was such a perfect little book, quiet and unassuming ,but an in depth study of a young woman's mind when she finds out that everything she believes in, is not the truth. Clarissa's mother abandoned her, her father and mentally challenged brother, when she was fourteen. After her father dies she makes the shocking discovery that he was not her real father, that her mother had been married before to a Sami priest. He...

Despite the blurb, this was more about the mother than the father and hence it left me infuriated and wrecked.  Damaged people having children and damaging them in turn.  It's fairly familiar literary terrain, and Vida writes about it in a detached way, so I was mainly along for the ride to Lapland, not particularly expecting an emotional punch to the gut, but the final quarter did me in.   

Let the Northern Lights Erase Your NameHow far will you to go to try to unravel family secrets that have profoundly affected your life?Travel across continents? Traverse a few times zones? Brave indomitable weather? Go all the way to the end of the world? That last sentence doesn't seem too farfetched to describe Lapland, the Scandinavian region where Finland, Norway and Sweden merge. This is the place, which is located above the Arctic Circle that serves as the main setting for this beautifully...

Finnish Lapland was a deliciously cold place to visit, especially the Ice Hotel, on a couple of brutally humid 98-degree days. But I did not appreciate reading the story of the mother, Olivia, repeated virtually verbatim in the story of the daughter, Clarissa. Two rapes in successive generations? Two wordless, noteless, callous desertions? Two “retards”? Ugh. Also, I’m no ‘f’ word prude but it should be used sparingly and judiciously - this is simply in-your-face: “Your fucking mom knows who my

While I enjoyed this throughout and was entertained by Vida’s story, writing and humor, it seemed too lightweight to rate more than 3 stars -- until I got to the end, when its themes emerged more clearly: those of having the courage to create one’s own identity, to refuse to be defined by circumstances. In true Vendela Vida fashion, the protagonist Clarissa travels to exotic locations seeking identity and a home. Clarissa, on an actual journey to the northern edges of Scandinavia, seeks knowledg...