An enjoyable read, nice characters but at times they felt a bit one dimensional , the story was nice but it felt like it need more work

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion

I enjoy reading books that take place in other countries besides the USA, where I reside. That was one of the things that drew me to this book. I enjoyed the writing style and mystery part of the story. Thank you Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Good book, good story and characters, easy to follow and read. Really well wrote. Was glad I’d read it as it’s something different to what I normally would have read.

loved the whodunnit concept and found it to be very engaging read. the characters were what I wanted and the writing was super well done.

Deep family tensions run through this novel. Siblings, sent on a holiday to the past home of their Grandfather, discover a gruesome attack on a herd of reindeer that everyone seems to want to ignore. Deeply buried secrets, conflict and prejudices affecting the native reindeer herders, the Sami, are stirred up as the siblings are determined to investigate the crime.

Occasionally a confusing cast of characters, but on the whole I was engaged by the mystery. Would recommend to mid to upper secondary YA and Adult readers.

Overall I enjoyed this novel. At times some things were predictable but the story kept me invested throughout the whole book. Ellen and Simon seemed a little too young to go on a vacation together without their parents, at times this made the story a little unbelievable.
I did enjoy Simon's character a lot. I loved how smart he was and how he took charge in the investigation with Ellen. I felt Ellen was a little boring at times and her character was very one dimensional. This book was a solid read for me!

THere's a lot to like in this novel about a young autistic man and his older sister on holiday in Sweden. When they come across a circle of reindeer heads, Oliver insists that they investigate the crime. Ellen, his sister--who is also supposed to be his "minder" something Oliver clearly doesn't need, would rather go on package tours of the area. In the end, their curiosity about their own family history becomes interwoven with the killings of reindeer and other hate crimes aimed at the Sami people. Unfortunately, there are problems, too: everything is told from Ellen's perspective, and Ellen thinks that her autistic brother is difficult and unruly and a problem to be fixed. Finally she lets him go, and he proves to be just fine on his own: in fact finds his sister after she's been (rather easily) kidnapped by the culprit, who does a villain monologue before trying to kill himself. Ellen is not very observant, nor is she good at reasoning. She's not an interesting enough protagonist, and aside from Oliver, neither are the other characters. They're all rather flat and dull themselves, and their interactions with one another are awkward and odd. At first I wondered why their dialogue was so stilted, and wondered if it was because this book was translated from Swedish into English, but it appears to have been written in English. The hate crime aspect isn't explained well, and neither is much about the Sami people--in fact, more people in the novel say they're not Sami than those who do, so we learn little about the culture.

As a book featuring an autistic person, this one is ok. But I do wonder why the author chose to have an autistic character: is it for diversity? is it because a mystery might progress faster if an autistic character behaved in a stereotypical facts-oriented manner? is it to give Ellen an arc wherein she realizes that her brother is ok being who he is, and that it's the world that needs to be fixed? I can't tell.

Overall, not a terrible first novel, but one that feels very rough and in need to more development and copyediting.

I received this as an ARC on NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review

Actual rate: 4

Good:
- loved getting to know a new culture a little
- good autistic representation
- fun and well built plot which felt like it followed through

Bad:
- it felt a little... predictable from other ya books. but not too much.

This book was the best kind of murder mystery. I love to pick up a book about a new culture. I've read a few other young adult murder mysteries, and this was fairly similar, but seemed almost more mature. More realistic. It was definitely a page turner, and I really enjoyed the characters, apart from a few features.

However, and this is small but important to me. The autistic brother seemed very very one dimensional. He had no other features, apart from genius autistic boy. Although I genuinely enjoyed the representation, it is something i would like to see in other books in the future: a more realistic and 3 dimensional portrayal of autistic people.

Representation, page-turner and immersive.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves a quality whodunnit, or true crime. Also, to people who like to read about novels in places that aren't America and the UK.

Overall: 4/5

Free copy for review from Netgalley! 3.5 ish rounded up. I did overall enjoy reading this one although the siblings felt too young to be doing all this investigating. The book claimed they were around seventeen and fourteen but it felt like they were a couple years younger than that. The sister was meant to be in charge but Simon, her brother, completely stole the show and called the punches. She was basically along for the ride.

I wish the villain hadn’t essentially revealed themselves in the end for a final monologue—the sublings didn’t even really need to do any investigating at all to “catch” the culprit.

The setting was well done and I was creeped out by the events in the book the kids were blithely investigating. (Certainly Simon could have used a better minder...) it all could have been so much worse.