Una, Unwanted


Una, Unwanted has a lot going for it: plenty of themes to get your teeth into and characters with real depth.

Una is a child conceived during an affair. In her early years, her father would return regularly to see her, but then his visits stopped abruptly. Now an adult, Una lives for only one thing: to be reunited with her beloved father. She believes that this is all she needs to heal her loneliness.

Her father is a charismatic self-help guru, the MotivaTor. He appears to Una to be a wonderful personal with a loving family, adored by his audiences. Una obsessively follows everything he posts on YouTube and social media, trying to work up the courage to make herself known to him.

As the reader suspects from the start, Tor is not the wonderful person he pretends to be, and all does not work out smoothly. The novel touches on dark themes that I can’t really list without spoilers. It also shines a harsh spotlight on the world of self-help gurus and motivational speakers.

I did like the way the novel contrasts the apparently ‘broken’ people (e.g. Una) with the apparently ‘enlightened’ (her father, notably), then turns the tables on the cast of characters to reveal who, really, is damaged, and who is responsible for the damage done. There are passages that are extremely moving, some that are quite horrifying. The ending is all in all a satisfying twist.

Una, Unwanted is also, I believe, a critique of Norwegian/Scandinavian society and values. Having spent much of my life with connections to Scandinavia, there is a vein of hypocrisy that I recognise here: a hypocrisy that underlies the schism between the sanitised picture that people present of themselves, their family, their lifestyle and their values, and a reality that is much darker. Obviously, it’s silly to generalise and sweep entire cultures with a broad brush, but this feels — to me, an outsider — pretty true to what I have observed.

So all in all, a good story, strong characterisation and insightful observations.

I was less enamoured of the translation. The prose is not smooth, expressions sometimes seem to be too literally translated and the dialogue doesn’t always quite ring true. I kept wondering if the translator might be a non-native English speaker (albeit with an excellent command of English).

3.5*

My thanks to the publisher Books on Demand, the author and @NetGalley_UK for providing an ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.

NetGalley_UK #bookreview #UnaUnwanted #NetGalley


You might also like: Just Ignore Him | Alan Davies


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *