Bloody Awful in Different Ways

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I’m fizzing. I love not being his son.
Yes. I can feel it in my whole body. A great thrill – as if an adventure has begun. As if I’m the boy in a book about a boy who finds out his dad is the king of a magical and distant land.

Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev’s mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame – but even she can’t control how they behave.

Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years.

‘Pure joyous storytelling on every page … A little treasure of a book’ Fredrick Backman

'A delight from start to finish' Jennie Godfrey

‘Outstanding literature. Shamelessly entertaining’ Sydsvenskan

© Andrev Walden 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critics Review

'I challenge you not to fall in love with Andrev as he thrashes doggedly through life - perpetually hopeful and inept. This is a small gem of a novel, with an irresistible voice and a teasing sidelong wit
Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now
This is a truly special novel. A delight from start to finish. Captures the joy and pain of being a teenager perfectly. I adored Andrev and already miss him
Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
Darkly funny ... Distinctive ... Walden’s instinct for observation and his ear for prose are flawless. His understated humour is particularly winning … The writing remains so sharp, so beguiling, so acutely observed
Guardian
A proven winner ... It tells you things about growing up that you didn’t realise were true, not until Walden put them into words ... Comparisons will inevitably be drawn with another Swedish novel, Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove (2012). Similarly perceptive of human behaviour (albeit about an old man rather than a young one) and as tragicomic, that novel went from being Sweden’s bestselling book of 2013 to global blockbuster. There’s no reason why Bloody Awful in Different Ways can’t do the same. Bloody awful? Bloody brilliant, more like
Daily Telegraph
What a book! I laughed, cried, despaired and hoped for this young boy negotiating seven fathers in seven chaotic years, taking us with him for the wild ride. A story that reads this easily with consummate fluidity, pace and comic timing deserves the widest audience possible
Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness
Walden’s story is rich with dark humour and tender coming-of-age moments that make this a brilliant and beguiling page-turner
Daily Express
Darkly funny, and comically tragic. An absolute gem. I loved it
Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
Walden grips your attention with darkly comic verve, and there’s a truly ugly undertow to his portrait of toxic masculinity, rendered all the more shocking by the narrator’s partial understanding
Daily Mail
Walden has a distinctive voice and has crafted a wonderfully written page-turner that, despite its often bleak subject matter, made me laugh out loud
Mail on Sunday
Funny and profound ... With a distinctive narrative voice, this deftly balances humour and sadness
Good Housekeeping

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