A review by tiffyb
The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen
3.0
After reading the first book in this series, I was excited to read the second one! Overall this book kept my attention just as well as the first, and I was impressed that the author managed to write something that wasn’t just a rewrite with different names.
On the other hand- this book should come with a huge trigger warning!! These are the topics written about IN GREAT DETAIL throughout this book (not topics touched on, topics that took up pages or even chapters!)- rape and every kind of non consensual sexual interaction, miscarriage, marital abuse, animal cruelty, mental illness, and obviously murder, beatings, and torture. This book was much darker than the first one.
Lots of reviews of the first book int hai series discussed the author’s racism and sexism, which I had casually noticed- but not enough for it to affect my opinion of it. This second book really heightened the racism and sexism- it was pretty obnoxious.
Aside from Kimmy, women’s only role in this book were to be either sexy or annoying (and maybe a bit of both). We had to read several times about Morick’s blue balls. Rose was added to the team, but completely devoid of any understandable characteristics or personality traits (I mean why were we supposed to hate her again? She seemed really effective and worked super hard!). It could possibly be a translation issue because I struggled to connect with any character in this book.
Assad - poor Assad! - went from being a funny yet mysterious hero in Book One to a caricature of a middle eastern man in the second. They made him seem increasingly stupid (taking insults as compliments, adding the word “then” into every other sentence - which he didn’t do in the first book!- , not knowing how to interact with people they were interviewing…). Every person who was “brown” was middle eastern and suspicious in this book. Really bothered me, especially with Assad absolutely carrying the last book.
Also the author clearly was trying to keep our interest in the series as a whole (Hardy’s health, Assad’s secret past, Moricks personal life…), but too little of the book was dedicated to those topics so it felt a bit unnecessary and distracting.
Aside from those complaints, I enjoyed the ride of this book and actually thought it was fun to follow the different groups of people, knowing who the culprits were from the start! I’m going to try reading one more book and see if it’s worth continuing in spite of all the downfalls listed above!
On the other hand- this book should come with a huge trigger warning!! These are the topics written about IN GREAT DETAIL throughout this book (not topics touched on, topics that took up pages or even chapters!)- rape and every kind of non consensual sexual interaction, miscarriage, marital abuse, animal cruelty, mental illness, and obviously murder, beatings, and torture. This book was much darker than the first one.
Lots of reviews of the first book int hai series discussed the author’s racism and sexism, which I had casually noticed- but not enough for it to affect my opinion of it. This second book really heightened the racism and sexism- it was pretty obnoxious.
Aside from Kimmy, women’s only role in this book were to be either sexy or annoying (and maybe a bit of both). We had to read several times about Morick’s blue balls. Rose was added to the team, but completely devoid of any understandable characteristics or personality traits (I mean why were we supposed to hate her again? She seemed really effective and worked super hard!). It could possibly be a translation issue because I struggled to connect with any character in this book.
Assad - poor Assad! - went from being a funny yet mysterious hero in Book One to a caricature of a middle eastern man in the second. They made him seem increasingly stupid (taking insults as compliments, adding the word “then” into every other sentence - which he didn’t do in the first book!- , not knowing how to interact with people they were interviewing…). Every person who was “brown” was middle eastern and suspicious in this book. Really bothered me, especially with Assad absolutely carrying the last book.
Also the author clearly was trying to keep our interest in the series as a whole (Hardy’s health, Assad’s secret past, Moricks personal life…), but too little of the book was dedicated to those topics so it felt a bit unnecessary and distracting.
Aside from those complaints, I enjoyed the ride of this book and actually thought it was fun to follow the different groups of people, knowing who the culprits were from the start! I’m going to try reading one more book and see if it’s worth continuing in spite of all the downfalls listed above!