“Impressively composed … The Tøyen Effect isn’t just a splendid work of fiction, but a historical chronicle of enormous significance … Read this book! Do it! … an impeccably well-crafted novel where big ansd small stories play on each other’s strings, in a way that make them complement and nuance each other, giving both a stronger resonance. Anybody who considers themselves a citizen a fellow human being – or especially those who don’t! – should read this book”
Thula Kopreitan, NRK Bok (also chosen for the Best Books of 2021 list)

“A touching novel about people with a burning social commitment … The Tøyen Effect is a novel which is easy to recommend, carried forth by local knowledge, cultural tolerance and a political-humanistic commitment that makes a big impression”
Steinar Sivertsen, Stavanger Aftenblad

“This novel about Tøyen is an undetonated bomb. Bjarte Breiteig shows that a novel can be a sociological analysis of the greatest quality … precise prose … It’s an honest, nuanced portrait. The sociological analysis of the concept “we here at Tøyen” is outstanding in all its nuanced disillusion”
Henning Howlid Wærp, Aftenposten

“Breiteig takes on the inside of an urban environment we rarely read about in Norwegian novels. Bjarte Breiteig has until now chiefly been know for his good short stories. This time he has written a novel that scores high both when it comes to confident prose, tight composition and good flow. In almost naturalistic fashion, we come close to misery and dire poverty in this book … a solid, interesting and not least topical novel”
Hilde Vesaas, Dag og Tid

“A shrewd portrait of both the commendable and the petty sides of idealism … a remarkably powerful literary read and shows the downside to burning passion and the friction that can arise between getting involved in other people’s well-being and one’s one little family’s happiness … The tension builds, simply and efficiently, from the very first sentence.”
Margunn Vikingstad, Morgenbladet

“insightful and interesting about the experience of belonging to the majority population, while at the same time being a ‘minority’ in your own neighbourhood. Even though you sometimes wish that the book’s main characters weren’t quite so ‘liberal’, it’s these thoughts, and not least all the doubt that they share – often over a couple of beers and whiskeys when the day is over – that make this book such a great read … to convey these kind of tensions takes quite a writer, and Breitig succeeds remarkably well … It’s all refreshingly free of romantication”
Jonas Bals Klassekampen