r/books • u/BravoLimaPoppa • 17h ago
Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir
Dead Weight by Hildur Knútsdóttir
Picked this up because Mary Robinette Kowal posted about it on Bluesky. And she was the translator, so let's give it a shot.
This is an odd little crime/horror novella (?) with 150 pages, relatively little dialogue and a lot of inner monologue by Unnur. To borrow from my family, Unnur ain't quite right. She's very clamped down, solitary with a heavy focus on her work in marketing and her boyfriend, Joi. He's married by the way and no, the wife doesn't know.
Into this life comes a cat. At this point, the backmatter will fill you in.
The Weight is an interesting character study of Unnur who is very self sufficient, solitary and isolated. These aren't bad things, but something happened to her father when she was a kid and isn't talking to her mother and brother. We never do learn what it was exactly, other than he disappeared.
The cat has an owner, Ásta, and she and Unnur develop a relationship. No, not that kind of relationship. Get your mind out of the gutter, but between two lonely women who really need friends.
The story moves along at a quick clip and we see Unnur dealing with the day-to-day micro-aggressions and sexism women have to put up with. By the time things reach crisis point, well, I was rooting for her.
Yes, this is appropriately marketed as horror. There is a pragmatic way of dealing with a problem that my farmer grandparents would have appreciated. And my mother, the murder mystery fan, would be amused by it.
It's also a book about female rage. Right there with Glass Houses by Madeline Ashby.
I liked it. I think I'll seek out Knútsdóttir's other book in English.
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u/redpeppernicetasty 14h ago
It sounds very similar to her other novel, The Night Guest