Let’s Hope for the Best

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What to expect

Bloomsbury presents Let's Hope for the Best by Carolina Setterwall, read by Vanessa Johansson.

'I think the world should read it' LISA TADDEO, AUTHOR OF THREE WOMEN

‘Brutally candid. The most compelling book I’ve read in years’ THE TIMES

‘It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with Karl Ove Knausgaard, but there is a unique voice here, a style of disclosure all her own, incidentally beautifully translated. I absolutely loved it' EVENING STANDARD

‘Every spare, controlled sentence has the ring of truth. Gripping’ DAILY MAIL

The last night, I fall asleep believing we have thousands of days ahead of us. We don't. This night is our last night.

One evening, Carolina says good night to her partner, Aksel. Things have been tough for both of them recently, especially with an eight-month-old son to raise. So when Aksel dies unexpectedly in the night, Carolina’s world is turned upside down.

Based on the author's own experiences, Let’s Hope for the Best details the small moments of life before and after tragedy. It’s a story about motherhood, family and the difficulties of loving someone who is distant, and then who is gone. Brave and unsparing, packed with emotion and humanity, it is about how the life we envisage for ourselves can be altered in an instant.

What if one moment changed everything you’ve ever known?

Critics Review

This book! Swedish, confessional, shockingly honest about desire, love, loss. I've read it twice now and can't stop thinking about Carolina. Utterly compulsive
Marian Keyes
Brutally candid. The book’s power lies in Setterwall’s lacerating honesty. It’s the most compelling book I’ve read in years
The Times
Quite simply one of the best bereavement memoirs I’ve read. It’s impossible not to draw comparisons with Karl Ove Knausgaard, but there is a unique voice here, a style of disclosure all her own, incidentally beautifully translated. It’s an emotional battering ram, I thought, and I absolutely loved it
Evening Standard
Every spare, controlled sentence has the ring of truth ... A painfully clear-sighted, unsentimental novel ... It’s about grief in all its raw messiness, but it’s also (as how could it not be?) about time ... Setterwall’s refusal to impose twists or false neatness is at first admirable then, as a fragile new love begins to blossom for Carolina, gripping
Daily Mail
Highly autobiographical, Let’s Hope for the Best explores life after sudden bereavement: the protagonist, also called Carolina, is left a widow with a young son when her partner dies in the night. The novel tells their love story, articulating Setterwall’s huge grief and guilt, as well as her newfound caution towards love and intimacy
Evening Standard
Heart-wrenching and unsettling
Rowan Coleman, internationally bestselling author
A moving and tender work of autofiction that depicts the obsessive interiority of grief
Kirkus Reviews
The kind of book that you’ll never forget. It gets under your skin. It moves into the heart. The story is so vulnerable and direct that one cannot avoid caring for the people it is about, and to love them ... I have never read a book that, so beautifully, puts into words how difficult it is to live without – but also to live with – the one you love. One of the best, most touching and most relevant books I’ve ever read
Randiglensbo.dk
An electrifying read. A book that forces itself upon you, impossible to resist and difficult to pause
Dagens Nyheter (SE)
A rich, honest, and poignant portrayal of the many dimensions of grief
Alba.Nu
One of the best books I’ve ever read ... You’re drawn into her raw grief, anger, guilt, bitterness, fear and loss – all of it, without any filter ... Real and alive
Sidses Bogreol
Breathtaking ... Astoundingly well told
NWT
A magnificent reading experience
Magasinet Liv
Honest and unvarnished ... Setterwall writes about the many nuances of grief, but also about love, family life and expectations of life before and after tragedy
Litteratursiden.dk

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