Butterflies in November by Auour Ava Olafsdottir

Butterflies in November

Auour Ava Olafsdottir

A woman, dumped by her husband whose mistress is pregnant, takes a road trip around Iceland with the four year old deaf son of her friend. The protagonist is engaging and the relationship she builds with the child is endearing. This is an unusual road trip story, funny and sweet and charmingly odd!

Extract
Many consequential events can occur in a woman’s life in the space of less than twenty-four hours. Most mistakes are made in a fraction of a moment and can be measured in seconds: taking a wrong turn, stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake, saying a yes instead of a no or a maybe. Mistakes are rarely the outcome of a logical sequence of decisions. A woman can be on the brink of total surrender to love, for instance, without even pondering on it for so much as a minute.
Parallels
  • The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
  • Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss

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