Sister
Original Title
Syster
Published
2022
Genre
Young adult
Pages
278
Rights Sold
English
Potuguese (SA)
Chinese (complex)
Tags
,

Sister

Sofia Nordin

Before the elevator stopped, mom handed Alva over to me and took out the car key. “Forget about the child seat, just put her in your lap and we’ll go” she said decisively. “Okay,” I said. We ran towards the car and threw ourselves in it. Mom turned the key and jump-started the car before I even managed to put my seat belt on. I turned around and saw dad standing there in the gray, cold afternoon. He did nothing. I don’t even think he shouted at us. He just stood outside the front door, one hundred percent abandoned.

Magda’s mother has finally made up her mind. It’s time to leave. Magda, her mother, and her little sister move to Jordasång, a sort of collective and women’s shelter in the countryside. Everything is different there: there is no TV or internet and preferably one shouldn’t use mobile phones either. Magda is sceptical at first, but she quite soon throws herself into their new life. Sister, who is the leader at Jordasång, becomes her new role model, and Magda listens to everything Sister says. At the same time, she is getting closer to Attila, who is the same age as her and doesn’t know anything about mobile phones but is very good at growing vegetables. And listening. It’s not so easy to leave the past behind, though. Maybe Magda could contact her dad once – only once – even though everyone says she shouldn’t? He is still her father…

Sofia Nordin writes about hardship in a low-key and toned-down way that makes the big feelings tangible and understandable, without ever letting the tension and lingering discomfort go. Sister is a novel about being co-dependent and a love story that shows that not everything is black or white, even though it may seem so at first.

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Press voices
”Sofia Nordin, an author with a wide register, not only portrays a heavy subject matter in a wellwritten and accessible way, she also manages to impressively balance its duality [...] Sister is made for us to twist and turn our preconceived views.” - BTJ

”About co-dependency’s mechanisms, budding teenage love, strong feelings of different kind, and normscepticism – all the time beautifully nuanced and free from moralizing.” - Borås Tidning

“... very captivating in its portrayal of a collective of women who have escaped violence and oppression, but who may still not have won freedom.” Stina Nylén, Göteborgs-Posten