A review by m4rtt4
Tuulen puolella by Leena Lehtolainen

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This was not necessarily bad, but the thing with series is that the story needs to improve in order for the reader to continue the series... and in many ways this book just felt like a filler episode that relied on shock effects. I won't stop my Maria Kallio audiobook marathon because of this, but I'm seriously hoping that she gets a hold of herself in the upcoming books. It bothered me that underlying alcoholism is related to many male characters, yet Maria's habit of drinking whiskey after every inconvenience is completely ignored?? And why does she fantasize about every conventionally attractive man she meets and takes her husband for granted? Also she is STILL the epitome of "not like other girls" despite being over 30 years old, and her feminism is sooooo white it irks me that she's being called 'feminist' in every other sentence. She gets brownie points by condemning Ström's blatant racism, yet she makes so many subtly racist comments about Anu Wang.. "she was very tall for her race",, well,
1) at 170cm she's tall for Finns as well and
2) you could just say "tall"? :) :) :)

it unfortunately shows that these were written in the 90s. The stories aren't even bad, but Maria Kallio's personality is a huge turn off.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings