“It is such a joy catching up with the unique style of this Norwegian writer … the author has seen the light, put the door ajar and approached these women who in their Nordic manner fill their Desperate Housewives days”
Pelerin (France)

“With great originality and a delicate voice, Anne B. Ragde writes out the premisses for female liberation. It’s universal.”
Le Figaro Magazine (France)

“After The Hermit Crabs and The Arsenic Tower, we are getting familiar with the rawness of Ragde, who loves exposing her characters … The reader goes from floor to floor as the story proceeds, and is let into the private lives of these families, who reveal all their secrets. Then, the author throws in a young salesman, who offers to install a Judas eye in the doors. We recognise Ragde’s flair for character portrayals, her ability to play on the reader’s feelings, and her urge to dig up all that lies beneath the banalities of everyday life.”
Le Figaro Littéraire (France)

“From the very first page I am hopelessly captivated … As is usual in Ragde’s novels, the coziness in one scene can quickly give way to a painful depiction of woman abuse and neglected children … The lives of these seven women are otherwise directed towards making their husbands happy and providing the family with a perfect (or at least spotless) image. To those of us who grew up after the 1968 revolt and with two working parents, this feels as exotic as a novel of the French revolution. But in fact, a lot of the characters’ thoughts and actions are terrifyingly timeless. And that is another reason why I Will Make You so Happy is a novel you both read straight through and read again.”
(Uppsala Nya Tidning, Sweden)

“Ragde describes the everyday routines of these families with an unbeatable kitchen sink realism that doesn’t shy away from either dirt or beauty. And she captures the atmosphere of the times to such an extent that it  produces a choking sensation and a flashback to the 60s … a bouncing, growing feeling that the world was radically changing. Something had opened the door to the future. And something old refused to go away.”
(Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sweden)

“It is an entertaining story from the time when being a housewife was still an acceptable occupation, written with tenderness and humour. Anne B. Ragde gives all of us who remember this era a trip back to the mild 60’s. The book is a fine reading experience suited for all ages.”
(Litteraturmagainet, Sweden)

“Meanwhile Ragde tries to give dignity to the women’s lives she portrays. Even if the socially and economically vulnerable house wife is difficult to see as an ideal, it would be even more tragic to also consider all these housewives’ lives as utterly wasted. Here is a vivid picture of all the information and knowledge of detail needed to keep a household going at a time when resources were scarce. And not just keep them going, the aim of several of the families in this novel is to move forwards, to climb the social ladder. To gain entrance to modernity … Ragde is a skilled storyteller, who knows how to establish a character and make it come alive to the reader quickly, by means of a few, carefully chosen details.”
(Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden)

“With her epic novel of the joyful 1960s, Anne B. Ragde has returned to the high level of the Berlin Poplars trilogy, this time turning her attention to life in eight apartments in a suburban apartment building … Ragde knows how to describe dishwashing or an attempt to find something to talk about in a way that brings us deep into an unhappy marriage. She can do it with humor, but she can also send shivers down the reader’s spine. She provides a sharp and accurate image of the times … Ragde shows what the feminists were up against, when they confronted the conditions their mothers’ had to live under, and where all the protesting members of the great movements came from. She does it brilliantly.”
5/6 stars
(Berlingske Tidende, Denmark)

“Anne B. Ragde has written an interesting collective novel which gives us a useful look at the efforts to keep up appearances at the time, and at all the human fates that were trapped. And in spite of the grave things she describes, the novel is told an an entertaining manner.”
(Fyens Stifstidende, Denmark)

“Anne B. Ragde’s new collective novel is a book to look forward to … Ragde has been gifted a special talent for creating portraits of real, living people, so that the reader – in spite of her characters’ bad traits – still feels sympaathy for them. Yet again she has written a novel full of real people … You can’t help being captivated!”
(Litteratursiden, Denmark)

“her portrait of life in the 60s in an apartment building says – in its own way – something about what we all have forgotten”
(Politiken, Danmark)

“Yet again, Anne B. Ragde has managed to create a phenomenal story … The book is a complete image of its time, and at the same a time completely timeless story, where everyday situations are described with detail and precision. Great enthusiasm and warm recommendations from this critic.”
(Kulturnaut, Denmark)

“A charming, entertaining and authentic story”
(NRK)

“A melodrama with a sure touch for style… I Shall Make You So Happy offers [Ragde’s] usual storytelling skills, and you have to be rather grumpy not to be impressed by her ability to quickly bring every one of the flats to life for the reader, like a light that is lit in room after room inside the building…. As an author, Anne B. Ragde has an exceptional talent for describing the tasks of everyday life, and their hypnotic poetry.”
(Dagbladet)

“Well oiled entertainment”
(Aftenposten)

“I Shall Make You so Happy contains an impressive amount of descriptions of objects and activities typical of their times, where the author shows a keen eye for details … Like the TV series Mad Men, the novel has a critical subtext that make it something more than nostalgic reminiscing about times long gone … I Shall Make You So Happy has a genuine eye for children’s vulnerability that make it something more than light entertainment”
(Bergens Tidende)

“The time travel Anne B. Ragde takes her reader on is charming and nicely done with all the correct details … Ragde’s strength, as she proved with the super popular Neshov Trilogy, lies in creating people we feel we know from before. That is a demanding task. When she’s at her best, the characters become three dimensional and colourful, “real” people living real lives, even though we only catch glimpses of those lives “
(Dagsavisen)

“Elegantly the author opens door after door in the low apartment block with eight apartments, and allows us to get to know the families living there … the character depictions are exciting … Ragde’s prose is well crafted as always, in particular she show herself a master when it comes to drawing characters and situations through the dialogues. In few words she creates living people, people we can identify with … Thoroug research … All in all a fine Ragde novel, entertaining, witty and with a bite to it.”
5/6 stars (Fædrelandsvennen)

“A lavish cast of characters, filled with charm and humour”
(Vårt Land)

“With her stories from the social housing of the 1960s, Ragde enrolls to a field of realistic chroniclers of postwar ‘ordinary people’ and new suburbs”
Dagens Næringsliv

“The invisible inner justice of the building ties the personas together, even if they have nothing to do with each other. It’s a nice psychological detail … Ragde is a driven illustrator of environments. She has a good memory, but there’s also a good deal of research behind the things she writes about, so typical of their time”
Dag og Tid

“Like an advertisement from the 60s. Like a doll house where one wall is removed, allowing us to look inside … I Will Make You So Happy makes voyeurs of us. A little uncomfortable, a little funny, a little remenesscent and a little sad … The novel is an image of a time. Happiness comes, hapiness goes … It’s up to the reader to figure out whether it is a bubble of happiness”
Hardanger Folkeblad