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Title: Norma

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Sofi Oksanen

Narrator: Fiona Hardingham

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-05-17

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 5 votes

Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fantasy: Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

From the internationally best-selling author of Purge and When the Doves Disappeared, a spellbinding new novel set in present-day Helsinki about a young woman with a fantastical secret who is trying to solve the mystery of her mother's death.

When Anita Naakka jumps in front of an oncoming train, her daughter, Norma, is left alone with the secret they have spent their lives hiding: Norma has supernatural hair, sensitive to the slightest changes in her mood - and the moods of those around her - moving of its own accord, corkscrewing when danger is near. And so it is her hair that alerts her, while she talks with a strange man at her mother's funeral, that her mother may not have taken her own life. Setting out to reconstruct Anita's final months - sifting through puzzling cell phone records, bank statements, video files - Norma begins to realize that her mother knew more about her hair's powers than she let on: a sinister truth beyond Norma's imagining. As Sofi Oksanen leads us ever more deeply into Norma's world, weaving together past and present, she gives us a dark family drama that is a searing portrait of both the exploitation of women's bodies and the extremes to which people will go for the sake of beauty.

Members Reviews:

A Painful and Beautiful Novel

Oksanen has traditionally written about Soviet-Estonian life with the eloquence of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy while (properly) demonizing the Soviets. Norma is a unique and interesting change for her that still remains wistful and amazing in her detail. There's no reason to not buy this book if you have enjoyed the rest of her works like I have. It's unique, for sure, but worth your time if you enjoy this author like I do.

Honestly? Finland's greatest author since Linna, hands down. A.H. Tammsaare would be proud, too.

Bad Hair

Norma has a secret she shares with only one person, her mother. When her mother takes her own life, Norma is devastated. A disturbing encounter at her mother's funeral leads Norma to question whether it was in fact a suicide and motivates her to investigate. Norma's secret, magical hair, serves her well. Her hair heightens her sensitivity to smells, provides her insight into moods and feelings, provides her with the ability to communicate with the dead and to detect lies. When smoked, the hair has narcotic properties as well. Needless to say, a nefarious global syndicate is interested in the source of the mystical hair that it appears Norma's mom was selling. Norma's investigation leads her into an international criminal conspiracy masked by the frivolity of beauty and salons.

While the author has some good points about the exploitation of women, it isn't the cunning feminist manifesto I was expecting. It is bogged down with two many plots and poorly developed characters. The pacing is uneven and the writing is, at times, bad. Not sure how much is attributable to the translation but at times the many plots get convoluted and confusing and any urgency regarding Norma's situation peters out. I don't mind weird or magical realism for that matter but this book is both too much and too little. The ending failed to satisfy and I was left strangely empty.There were some promising ideas that were never came to fruition.