A very different and unique tale, kind of a Mexican Gothic/Harry Hole hybrid?! Loved the chapters which were written from Nero’s perspective but didn’t so much love the descriptions of his means (I skipped a few of these to be honest). Twisty turny, unexpected and downright weird in parts. Good fun!

Unfortunately this story was not for me. I found parts of the storyline intriguing and was interested in other narrators/perspectives but did not enjoy Livs narration and found it quite uncomfortable to read.

I have read stories like this previously and thoroughly enjoyed them however I DNF’d this book.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Reptile Memoirs is a very different book. I haven't read anything quite like it before, and it certainly took me out of my comfort zone. Written from a number of viewpoints and over various timelines, it is clever and intriguing, and pretty dark. (I guess the presence of a very large snake was an indicator that it wasn't going to be a simple tale.)
The main themes are secrets, lies, loss and family. All of which were handled well. The impact of the past on the present emerges and leads the reader down a twisty path.
I very much liked the Nordic setting, and could envisage the landscapes and backdrop. This is large part of the pull towards Scandinavian authors for me, and it didn't disappoint.
Thank you to @NetGalley, the author and Atlantic Books for an advance copy to read and review. I think this book will do really well.

The story begins with 3 people getting a snake and their lives with the snake. There is another timeline where a young girl has gone missing. The timelines intertwine and the story of the missing girl is unfolded.
I’m not sure where to even begin with this book. There were many times I was going to DNF and there were times that I was hooked. Sadly the bad far outweighed the good.
I’ll start by saying this book has a lot of dark themes. There’s sexual assault, abuse, kidnapping and more. The first 50% of the book was an extremely uncomfortable read. It’s very disturbing in places (especially during the chapters where the snake is getting fed). I’ll fully admit there were a few paragraphs I had to skip past as it was a bit too much for me to take in.
However, the remaining 50% of the book was where I started to become invested in the story and I wanted to find out the answers to the thriller.
I found the timelines ambitious. Usually this doesn’t bother me but I think the fact that there were so many characters in the book made it too hard to follow.
I can’t decide whether the author is a genius writer or whether it was just a strange read. There was language used which I found very offensive. I’d say the author certainly succeeded if their goal was to make me feel disturbed and panicked. In that respect the book was well written.
Unfortunately this just wasn’t a book for me.
2.5 rounded up to 3

Not my usual kind of genre but I really enjoyed reading something different, I thought it was a good read and something I would recommend to my friends and family.

Did not translate very well at all, very difficult to follow and understand. I found myself having to re-read to try and understand what I had previously read and how the story flowed.

I’m sorry to say that this book really wasn’t for me. It’s a twisty psychological thriller told from multiple view points as well as two different time lines and would normally really appeal to me. However, for some reason, maybe the snake, it was just very hard work. The story was extremely plotted and I liked the multiple view points of the present day story but I found the earlier parts of the book to be quite unpleasant. In fact, some parts were quite disturbing. I know many people have really enjoyed it but I think it might be one that you really enjoy or not at all and I’m in the latter group.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I have read this style of book in the past so I knew it was going to take a while to get ibto it. However, I had to DNF as the character Liv was making me uncomfortable which I guess was probably the point of her storyline.

The writing was superb, the pace was fast, and the plot was incredibly clever with innumerable twists. At times I found the story very disturbing to the point of turning my stomach. I kept thinking to myself, ‘Please don’t let happen what I think is going to happen …’, but it did.
A few words to describe this book – unique, dark and disturbing, gripping and very, very clever. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"At least snakes were honest. They didn't try to conceal their actions with talk of morals. One minute we humans were speaking about good and evil; the next we were sinning against all we'd just said. The human being was a species that built walls of wood and stone around itself and its own so-called evils. Called its prey beef and pretended it had never been alive. Why play such games? When a woman killed her husband she was condemned, her actions deemed unnatural. Why not instead look to the female spider, who devours her partner as soon as they have mated? Realise that this, too, is part of us? That this is also nature."

Trigger warning: rape, death of a child, being eaten by a snake.

After reading the book, I was like 'hmm it was fine, maybe a three'. But I waited and reflected a while and feel like a lot of the genius only comes out after the novel with hindsight.

At surface level, the book is about a woman who has a pet snake, a dead child, a missing child and a detective style-thriller. The book runs on multiple timelines from different perspectives, including that of the snake. It's extremely clever and leaves out no minute detail, allowing the snake to fill in the gaps.

The book is so much more though, as it touches on human vulnerability. The reliance we place on others, the demands others set for us, often placing us on a pedestal and dooming us to failure. There is love, there is loss, there is grief from multiple parties and there is a desperate desire to become free and leave the past behind - something ultimately, we can't do. There's also a random python and a little bit of mild beastiality which took me by surprise but emphasises the surprises at every turn.

Bravo Silje, bravo.

Thank you to NetGalley for the Arc.

This debut novel by Silje Ulstein and certainly had the most unusual plotline that I have read in years.

Set in two separate timelines with numerous narrators, we learn the story of Liv and her housemates who decide to adopt a baby python tiger snake. And the investigation into the disappearance of 11 year old Iben.
The first storyline is set in Ålesund in 2005, while the investigation is set in Kristiansund in 2017and as the tale progresses, we learn of the creepy and indeed deeply disturbing manner in how all of these events and narrators are connected.
Ordinarily, I do enjoy a storyline with a mix of narrators and timelines as this provides an insights into the attitudes of the protagonist (s). This time however, I found myself becoming confused and having to re-read sections to understand the tale. In fairness, this may have been due to the role played by Nero the python which proved to be greater than I had anticipated.
An unusual and very different take which I imagine will appeal to many thriller fans but just not one for this (unexpectedly) squeamish reader.

We start, how so many crime fiction novels start, with a missing blond girl. She is not just any missing blond girl though, she is the step daughter of a local politician, last seen arguing with her Mum in a shopping centre.

Ulstein is to be congratulated for a pacey and twisty police procedural, which could have easily been a paint-by-numbers scandi-noir missing girl story. Instead we dance back and forward between the present day search of Iben Lind, and people and places from twenty years before a town away. What do they have to do with Iben? On the surface nothing, but slowly the story unfolds and Ulstein manages expertly give us just enough information to keep us hooked on guessing what will happen next, without giving away too much.

It’s not just the pacing that is expertly handled here but Ulstein also manages to deliver quick character sketches, which none the less leave us with rounded, interesting and relatable players in the story. There is very little to dislike in this book, and while I personally found some of the linguistic world building in the more slithery parts lacking in rigour, I doubt this is the kind of detail that would prove a barrier to anyone else’s enjoyment of the novel.

Wow, what a book. I really don't like snakes so I nearly did not request this from Net Galley but I read the blurb and I am so glad I asked for it and it was granted.
It was gripping, such an unusual story, I loved the multiple narrators and the different timelines. It's a perfect creepy book noir for a winter's read.
Thank you so much for the advanced copy.

It's been a while since I picked up a Nordic-Noir so was intrigued when offered this by Netgalley. At first sight, I thought that it would be a typical thriller, but it turned out to be so much more.

We have multiple timelines and perspectives and it was a little confusing in the beginning to remember which month/year I was reading about. A physical book would have been so much easier to flick back through pages to refresh my memory - the inconvenience of doing this on a Kindle is one of its drawbacks. Nevertheless, I found that this confusion disappeared the further that I got into the novel.

The book begins with Liv, a girl escaping from something that will be revealed, who sees a python on a nature programme and persuades her housemates that they need such a pet. Nero arrives and rather than being the house pet, Liv locks him in her room and had exclusivity. He makes her feel safe and also seems to almost satisfy her sexually as she sleeps beside him.

We then jump twelve years to another town and another woman, Mariam, who is a successful businesswoman married to a local politican. She is shopping with her daughter and they argue and Iben runs off. Mariam isn't worried as they are 10 minutes from home, but when she gets home, her daughter isn't there. Investigating the child's disappearance is 60 year old Roe who has just started at the local station, a man hiding his own tragedies.

As I said we have various perspectives, including that of the python and this adds to the many coils in the story. As the snake sheds its skin so so the characters and there are many reptile references throughout the narrative and the way that the connections between all the characters are revealed is like the snake slowly uncoiling. The story is one of family secrets and depravity. The cold-bloodedness of humanity.

Although some of the reveals, I had sort of guessed, others took me by surprise. This is a novel that is not for those whose triggers are animal and child abuse and i would also add triggers for addiction and rape. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed it even though there was not a single character that I had any empathy for. A super debut novel, thank you Netgalley and Atlantic Books for allowing me to read it.

I loved this dark and beautifully written thriller set in Norway, and the snake angle lent it something truly unique. I'm not normally a fan of when thrillers mix in other genres, ie, supernatural, but I feel like being able to hear the snake's thoughts in some chapters actually added to this strange and twisty story rather than taking me out of it. A missing girl, a murder, and a story to unpick from the past all combine to make for a truly captivating story. I'm not sure I've ever read anything quite like Reptile Memoirs before, and will be thinking about this one for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher, who granted me a free ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When a young girl goes missing the case seems straight forward until secrets lies that have been kept for years slowly start to unravel and then what appears to be a kidnapping turns into something far more tragic.

I had never read any Silje Ulstein books before but the synopsis sounded intriguing and I wasn't disappointed; the way that the book was written was perfect in that slowly more layers of secrets and truth were revealed and I found myself completely gripped. The juxtaposition of the present and past added to the novels interest and I was desperate to finish to see not only what happened to Iben but the whole cast of characters who even though some were flawed were so well written that I had to know their fates. A must read for anyone who is a fan of nordic noir - 5 stars!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

Ulstein presents us with a truly unsettling crime thriller here, one which I’m still attempting to wrap my brain around. Her utter commitment to the disturbing and macabre is clear, and her unique ability to shock is something I wasn’t quite prepared for.

Initially, we are looking into the case of a missing child. Pretty standard fare for a thriller, and although the reality is terrifying, it’s still pretty comfortable ground for crime fiction readers. But the story of the child and mother is much more intricate and weird than any of us could imagine. We flick through multiple voices and multiple timelines to reach an answer - an answer which comes blessedly, as Ulstein puts us through a lot to get there.

Each chapter is headed with the name of our narrator, and the date which they are narrating from. It’s important to pay attention to these, as some characters flick back and forth through time and, as I’m not someone who pays particular attention to dates and times, it became confusing for me pretty quickly.

I did really enjoy the plot itself, although I really felt it could have been chopped considerably. There’s a lot of time spent on characters woefully pondering past mistakes, tearing themselves up, and exuding misery, all of which became excessive. I also couldn’t get behind the chapters narrated by the snake - all these seemed to say were ‘I am a hungry, loveless snake’ which I feel I could have worked out quite easily by myself.

A truly unique and ambitious novel, and definitely something I hadn’t experienced before. Although it could have benefitted from the removal of many words, and sometimes entire chapters, it’s a good twisty thriller with odd angles and dimensions.

Did not finish. I am struggling with this one. Found it hard to get into. I will come back to it and try again at a later date.

Silje Ulstein has produced a very good first novel. Unlike a lot of crime novels these days this one does not centre around a dysfunctional copper, although there is one in the story. The main character is a young woman whose life we follow in an intricate tale split over two locations and timeframes. This can lead to some confusion as the story flips between the two but didn’t distract from my enjoyment of the book.

Silje has created some unusual characters in this book but I found them all believable

This was an absolutely terrific debut novel and a gripping psychological thriller filled with memorable characters and a good premise