Troll is a masterful work of speculative fiction that weaves Finnish folklore into a modern-day narrative of obsession, desire, and the boundaries of human and animal nature. The story begins when Angel, a young photographer, discovers an injured troll and brings it into his home—a decision that unravels his carefully ordered life in unexpected and haunting ways.

Sinisalo’s prose is hypnotic, moving seamlessly between different perspectives and literary forms, from scientific texts to diary entries, creating a layered and immersive reading experience. The troll itself is both enchanting and menacing, embodying the primal forces that the novel so brilliantly explores.

At its heart, Troll is about the collision of the wild and the civilized, the rational and the instinctual. Sinisalo examines these themes with unflinching honesty, crafting a story that is as intellectually stimulating as it is emotionally charged. The tension builds steadily, culminating in a finale that is both devastating and inevitable.

What makes this novel truly exceptional is its ability to blend the mythical with the mundane so seamlessly. It’s a story that feels grounded in reality while maintaining an otherworldly edge, making it unforgettable.

A dark, dazzling gem of speculative fiction—Troll is a must-read for anyone who craves stories that challenge, unsettle, and captivate in equal measure.

I have no idea how to rate this so I’ve settled on a conflicted three stars. This book follows a man who found a young troll, the folkloric creature that is real in this world, and kept it. But the troll is sick and caring for it becomes complicated. The main character, Angel, isn’t the most likeable, but not in a way I found difficult to read. He’s cold and calculating, using sex as a tool of manipulation to get access to the knowledge and resources he needs to take care of the troll.

I really enjoyed the snippets of troll folklore and poetry and veterinary articles, although as a biologist I was mildly aggravated by certain sections on animal behaviour that, even for being published in 2000, were outdated (no!! All mammal do not in fact have an innate desire for either dominance or submission!!). Then there’s the plot arc that hinges on pheromones. Human’s can’t detect pheromones! Isn’t it interesting what fails your suspension of disbelief lol. Trolls I’m on board with, the pseudoscience not so much.

I will say, this book feels extremely of its time (derogatory). The Sami people are referred to as ‘Lapps.’ Angel does advertising work for a fashion line called ‘Stalker.’ There is some minor debate between PC and Macintosh users. A character references ‘the Judeo-Christian ethic’ (this is admittedly an ongoing bit of bullshit, but I include it for the irritated eye-roll it provoked). This list goes on.

The chapters are very short. Like, many if not most of the chapters are a single page. Some are only a few chapters long. They would jump between POVs for single paragraphs, sometimes within the same scene. Adding this to the short excerpts of faux-secondary material, it was a very choppy reading experience. It is difficult to connect with or care about the characters, although I get the impression that this was deliberate. There was one POV, a victim of human trafficking living in same building as Angel, who didn’t really bring much to the story beyond providing YET ANOTHER person to demonstrate how Angel is so stunningly beautiful that everyone gets obsessed with him. (Seriously, why does his pretty blonde hair make everyone fall head over heel for him??) Despite all that, I wasn’t inclined to put it down.

I don’t know. It certainly was something.

Description:
Angel finds a young troll outside his apartment complex and rescues it. Attending to the troll's needs brings Angel into contact with acquaintances old and new, but the troll is still a wild animal, and he can't keep it a secret forever.

Liked:
The characters were nuanced and interesting - the book doesn't overexplain anything at all, but each of them felt like they had their own very distinct tone. The description of the ad imagery was awesome; I really felt that I could see the image in glossy magazine print.

Disliked:
This book made me quite uncomfortable, and not in a 'that's painful but true' way so much as a 'what are you trying to say?' way. It, uh, certainly treads some lines around sexuality. It was initially published in 2000 (I guess this is a rerelease?), so I think it might have aged badly, but it could also be partly down to translation? Not sure. Troll felt like a short story padded out with a lot of extratextual stuff - almost half the book seemed to be fake fairy tales, scholarly and news articles etc. Overall, a bit of a mess.

Wouldn’t recommend, unfortunately.

I went into this expecting a cute story about a human finding an adorable little troll and the hijinks that would follow.

This book was not that at all. I found the constant switching of character POVs, sometimes confusingly (mostly the book would tell you which POV, other times it just switched without any warning) to be unnecessary. I disliked every character with the exception of one possibly, and didn't really care what happened to them.

Also some of the characters were referred to by several names which just added to the overall confusion.

The bestiality aspects of this book (bear in mind this is a small, young troll, not an adult) just made me feel incredibly uncomfortable, and not in a way that made me think. Just in a bad way.

The only interesting thing I found were the historical and folklore snippets that were thrown in, in this alternative version of Finland.

Overall not a book I would recommend.

Mesmerising and disturbing. This book is so full of rich themes that it's hard for any to coalesce, forming a bewitching reading experience that defies classification. Is it a book about how obsession with ownership undermines our connection to others? About the consequences of climate change? About obedience, transgression, desire? Or all of the above, and also... a love story between consumerism and the consumed.

Fell a little bit short for me. Our main character stumbles across a troll on the way home from a bar one night. It has been badly beaten up by a group of teenagers and so he decides to take it home. In this universe, trolls are rare but real creatures and he spends the novel trying to take care of it despite the troll becoming more aggressive and unpredictable each day.

It’s broken up by snippets of ‘non-fiction’ pieces about trolls and their existence in the wild for us to get more of a feel for the animal and how it lives in this world. I didn’t find they added much to the story. Despite the troll being really cute I didn’t find myself attached to any of the characters and found the book slightly dull. The ending made up for it as I found it quite gruesome and satisfying but I wanted a bit more life to this book. It could have been down to the point of view and how it kept switching between characters it just made the book feel a bit messy. But if you want to read something unique from Finland then I would say give this one a go.

I'm mot entirely sure what I just read. The story is set in a world where trolls are real. Our protagonist, a young man, finds a young troll being abused by a gang of youngsters. He rescues the troll and decides to nurse him back to health. From then on the story gets more complicated, as the protagonist develops an unhealthy obsession with the animal, and the world around him (relationships, job) crumbles.

Despite the brevity, the book also packs interesting punches: the similarities between keeping a wild animal at home and buying a young child bride from an improverished country and keeping her under lock and key, the obsession (and perhaps sexualisation) of wild animals in popular culture, the objectification of beautiful people, etc.

The book is well written (mostly), the characters are vivid, and the story is engaging. It is shocking enough to make one gasp, but not overly emotional. The ending, in particular, is well executed - it's unexpected and allegorical, in a nice way.

I didn't like the myriad digressions the author took to quote fairy tales, old books, and imagined news articles about trolls and their role in human life. I just didn't find them playing an important role in the story, and most seemed to have been there just for show.

Overall - I'd recommend this book. It is genuinely thought provoking and the topic is handled very neatly.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an early copy of this book in return for an honest review.

I found this one hard to get into as the actual storyline of Angel and the troll was scarce between the large portions of research on trolls. I stopped at around 20% as I found the research was too long winded and found myself wanting to skip over it to get back to the story of Angel and when I did I wasnt overly invested in what was happening. A shame as the concept sounded very interesting, but turned out not to be for me.

Reads like a natural history of the Troll on modern Finland. Not quite what I expected.
And I wasn't a fan of the writing style because it was unstructured and hard to follow, it could be because it's an early translation or the Kindle formating but it wasn't a good reading experience

I requested this book because as a child my grandparents bought a troll from Norway. It was a horrible scary creature that lived in the room my sister and I slept in. So we moved the troll to my grandparents room and hid it somewhere. By morning though the troll had come back. This may have sounded scary but it wasn't, this is a memory of my grandparents that I cherish.

A book about a troll, yes please! However, this is not the book I was looking for. Very confused by the storyline and I did DNF.

This review isn't going to be long, because I simply think I didn't get what was the point. The story is weird but not in a nice, purposful way (at least for me). Undertstanding why and what mattered, why the events were important flew way above me, and created a story that I only wanted to be done with, not really caring about the characters. It's a little sad, because the premice hooked me up. Troll? Hell yes! But the way the relationship is built, the interactions with the various characters, all felt off.
Sorry, for the low rating, but I can't see what would please other people like I usually do.