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abbie_'s review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
2.5
I’m making a fun challenge for myself where all the books I read for the StoryGraph’d 2024 Genre Challenge have to also be queer 🌈 So I found this one for ‘a crime or thriller novel in translation’. Snare follows Sonja, a newly single woman fighting for custody of her son while being entangled in a drug smuggling operation, plus a messy affair with a woman who is in denial about her sexuality.
If I can just talk about Agla for a minute - I was in the closet as a lesbian until I was 26 (though out as ‘bisexual’ before then) so I get the denial. Being out can be hard. But Agla is so deep in denial it was painful - and I couldn’t help but wonder why Sonja continued to put up with it. It must be so difficult to be with someone who clearly loves you, yet refuses to acknowledge a core part of herself.
Onto the drugs and smuggling and the like - this part did keep me guessing until a giant clue near the end and I was actually able to sort of work out who the kingpin was! I *mostly* enjoyed Sonja’s methods for smuggling until she poisoned two sniffer dogs. That was awful. I know she was pushed to the edge but I really had a bad taste in my mouth after that. It also felt a bit iffy that the only characters of colour that appear in the story are all drug dealers.
Probably the most compelling part of this book was Bragi’s storyline! A customs officer being pushed out of work due to his age, he’s desperate for a way to help his wife who has been placed in a subpar care-home due to severe dementia. Finding out what happens to those two would be my main motivation to pick up the sequel.
The narrator, Suzannah Hampton, does a decent job, but I do wish publishers would make an effort to find narrators who at least speak the language a book was translated from, if not someone from that country altogether. Can’t help but think the Icelandic names were often butchered.
Overall, I probably won’t be in a hurry to continue with the series, if I do at all.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Drug use, Violence, and Dementia
tlaynejones's review against another edition
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Drug use, Homophobia, Violence, Trafficking, and Lesbophobia
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexual assault, Dementia, and Kidnapping
Minor: Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Gaslighting