Finally done! I started out reading this mystery in Danish (for my Danish book club) while listening to the audio book, which turned out to be a bad idea because the narrator read faster than I did. I continued on in Danish on my own, but was having trouble following the plot because it is after all a mystery -- and therefore mysterious. Then I discovered about halfway through the book that it was available in a Kindle version in English. I read a chapter in Danish and then the same chapter in English for a while until I realized that this is one long book (800 pages?) and I was going to be spending the whole summer with characters I neither liked nor cared about. So...I read the rest in English. This is Valeur's first novel, and it has a lot to do with the feelings of adopted children (the author is himself adopted). Since I don't like mysteries I think I'm not the best person to judge the quality of this one -- but I was happy to get to the end and have all the pieces fall into place.Please note that I don't use the star rating system, so this review should not be interpreted as a zero. I started this book and thought the plot was somewhat interesting... by the 20% mark I was reading just to find out the answers to the plot questions (I even considered skipping to the end which is almost unheard of for me, but since it was a kindle book it's hard to judge where to skip to). By the time the book meandered to the conclusion, most of which I'd figured out, I was done.... but the book wasn't. To top it off, the plot was very dark and I kept getting characters confused with each other. I picked it up free, but if you're looking to buy, I wouldn't bother.
What do You think about Det Syvende Barn (2011)?
Highly disturbing and yet I couldn't put it down.
—Cirena
