“To point out authors that the author shares commonalities with can often be more obscuring than informing. Yet I would like to mention Hamsun. Both because of the sensual, confident language, and the surprising literary devices. A very promising debut – I look forward to more books by Maria Børja.”
Fædrelandsvennen

“…she has the ability to discover a sort of nakedness in the depiction of relations, that can’t help but leave an impression. (…) The strength of the stories is in the establishment of situations. Here, Børja is very good.”
Hamar Arbeiderblad

“Sensual, close and moving about women, about women and men, about sex, about relationships, and about loneliness. Børja depicts social settings and experiences efficiently and precisely. (…) [She] touches on many literary genres in this collection, but has already established her own style and tone that bind the stories together.”
Adresseavisen

“Penetrating prose. Børja goes in close, finds the point where social dancing becomes off-balance, pokes at it. She does this in crafty and interesting ways, with dark humor. (…) Grown-up Things has that something that leaves you pondering, a little surprised and fascinated at the same time.”
Klassekampen

“Erotic super-debut from Børja”
Moss Avis

“Maria Børja’s debut is a powerful short story collection about one-night stands and other grown-up things… Børja writes unabashedly and direct from the first sentence…What elevates this debut is the mixture of the politically and esthetically conscious. When I think the text goes in one direction, it twists, makes a stop, and changes direction. It touches me.”
Bergens Tidende

“It is really really distasteful. And therefore great.”
Dag og Tid

“Børja uses a language that hits you in the gut and walks the fine line between what is personal, and what is just vulgar and disgusting, but also between what is sad, and what is comical – or rather tragicomic… This read is intense and unusual, wrapped in a quick and concise language. Knowing that this sounds like a cliché: this must be one of the year’s best debuts.”
Universitas

“…here are no speculative or lewd depictions. (…) For me, it is exactly the tension between focus on the body, and the lack of warmth and security, that the women in Maria Børja’s text are marked by, powerfully and thoughtfully described.”
Tønsberg Blad