“Marie Aubert continues to impress with her finely chiseled sentences. This autumn’s novel, I’m Not Really Like This, is a smoothly flowing chamber play for four voices. In I’m Not Really Like This she gets to show her gift for the secret reefs and pits of trivial conversations. An innocent line can pierce you, a single word can sink your joy. What a delight it is to read a writer who has such control, not only of the weight of words, but also of the speech of silence.”
Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen, Books of the Year 2022
“Marie Aubert has been one of the most exciting writers to follow in recent years … In I’m Not Really Like This, Aubert takes another step forward … As always in Aubert’s works, we get solid doses of both humour and pain, and there’s no lack of embarrassing moments … The book is far more complex, but just as sore and funny as its predecessor”
5/6 stars
Ole Jacob Hoel, Adresseavisen
“Pokes where it hurts … In these portraits, Aubert aims for the most fundamental points of pain in life – sibling jealousy and the struggle to win your parents’ favour – and she hits the mark. In her extraordinarily effortless prose, the author pokes around in a plethora of dark feelings, making you read this novel with growing dread. … But Aubert has more tricks up her sleeve than just give the reader heartaches. She also has a well-developed sense of razor-sharp witticisms. … Marie Aubert writes both tenderly and revealingly.”
Anne Merethe K. Prinos, Aftenposten
“It’s a joy to read a book that so effortlessly sneaks up on the reader, pretending to be weightless. Which it isn’t … I’m Not Really Like This has a seductive flow and variation through its use of several voices … It’s in this stream of harmless conversations that Marie Aubert shows her literary skills … Aubert manages in an exemplary way to reveal the fragility in our relationships and emotions. In this autumn’s novel, she shows us clearly how elegantly she can portray these contradictory emotions that torture us when something is at stake in our lives”
Turid Larsen, Dagsavisen
“Nerve-wracking family dirt. It’s boiling hard beneath the surface when a family gathers for a confirmation celebration in Marie Aubert’s new novel … A family gathering is a classic set-up, but the themes Aubert brings up are new and seldomly described in literature … Through the changing perspectives, we get an expanded and nuanced picture of the characters and situations … a nerve-wracking story of loneliness, grief and anger in a family on the verge of collapse”
5/6 stars
Maya Troberg Djuve, Dagbladet
“In her second novel, Marie Aubert writes about highly ordinary things in a quite ordinary family. The author does so extraordinarily well … The loneliness, insecurity and frustrations that pervade the lives of Bård, Linnea and Hanne, are presented by Aubert in a clear, everyday language that flows easily and gives life to the dialogues … While Aubert’s prose is light and inviting, the main characters’ reflections on their own lives and the family’s past, give the author the opportunity to draw colourful portraits of times past, packed with sharp observations”
5/6 stars
Leif Gjerstad, Bok365
