Literature and Fiction2019 · 224 pp
IDA TAKES CHARGE
Kjersti Halvorsen
Ida's greatest fear is terror. This doesn't get any better when she meets Aksel at University; a lone wolf with dubious interest in weapons. Aksel has become an outsider, and Ida needs to take drastic measures: How can she save Axel – and the world? Perhaps equally important: How can she save herself?Ida Takes Charge is a dark and funny debut novel about overcoming fear and finding your calling in life.NOMINATED TO THE TARJEI VESAAS DEBUT PRIZE 2019.
Brilliant language ... precise and observantThe novel explores, among other things, what can create a breeding ground for loneliness and xenophobia in young boys, which allows them to end up as misogynists, despisers of society - or school shooters. It is well portrayed, and you have to confront yourself with it while reading.DAG OG TID
This book is freakishly well written about anxiety in general, and specifically anxiety about terrorismThe peculiar double nature of compulsive disorders, and what is actually reality, is masterfully communicated. The story is a thriller, in the shape of a detective novel where the reader turns the page with great expectations of what revelations they will find on the next page. Ida´s emotions move in waves, between catastrophe thinking and good experiences. Between her thoughts and the events that calms her, and a fear bordering on paranoia. And the reader experiences the waves too, accompanied with the hope that she will find a way out of her anxiety. This is freakishly well written, in content as well as topic and style.ADRESSEAVISA
This book is a gem, in many ways a mystery novel. Halvorsen writes with a razor sharp edge about internet stalking, anxiety and fear in general. It is a story about keeping our catastrophe thinking in check, something many of us might need right now.DAGENS NÆRINGSLIV
Fear and loathingKjersti Halvorsen strikes a nerve between fear and crippling anxiety. She is good at writing about what is nasty and disgusting. The book has a dark humour in its mellow deadpan way, a humour that suits the anxiety.KLASSEKAMPEN
At no point does it become boring. Halvorsen keeps a steady course through the entire novel. During the reading of Ida takes Charge, you will inevitably ask yourself what you would have done in the same situation. How to treat someone who is on the outside of society? It is an excellent debut, character driven, with no need to lean on some meticulous plot to attract the readers.MINERVA
The debut of Kjersti Halvorsen is founded on a brilliant idea. Like Elfriede Jelinek or Albert Camus, Kjersti Halvorsen works in uncompromising ways, taking her main characters in extreme directions. She dissects the most problematic sides of contemporary society in a very interesting way, by investigating two damaged twenty-year-olds.STAVANGER AFTENBLAD
