Against a backdrop of creeping authoritarianism in contemporary Sweden, this short novel takes us into the lives of two sets of friends: Petra and Julia and Axel and Johannes. The book reflects on the relationships between the four: close, often intimate at first, then grown apart and challenged as the political outlook changes. This isn't a book of loud noises and big drama - it's a story of quiet, unassuming tension that grabs hold of you.
Of course someone who looked like Axel would want someone who looked like Julia. He's Beautiful, there's no other word for it. There's no avoiding his profile, outlined against the window, but there's something else about him too. His clothes are pretty ugly, but somehow they're neutrally ugly: the fall of his overcoat, the fall of his hair over his collar, the way he rests his foot across his knee, the way he grins as if to say, This is all nothing, the way he wants his coffee black and turns his nose up at buns and chocolates, the way his Adam's apple moves under the skin. He still hasn't even looked at her, barely even once.
Meanwhile, Johannes keeps asking questions: which lifts they prefer and where they go to eat. He still thinks it's weird they've never seen each other before, when their families' cabins are so close to one another; weird they've never met before, when .... She smiles and smiles, and looks him in the eye, and keeps on smiling, and Axel and Julia's voices are like train tracks.
