I'm so sorry. I really wanted to like this book as it sounded intriguing and thought provoking. I didn't realise that it is a very old book rereleased and that may explain some of the issues I had with it as it did feel very dated which I thought was odd as I was reading it.
What could have been a beautiful story some how got boring.
It's possible that the translation didn't help.

I am grateful to Torborg Nedreaas, Penguin Press UK – Penguin Classics, and Netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy. Here follows my review of the book.

The former English literature student in me was curious to read this book. The premise was interesting and a tale that may very well resonate with young people today who are dealing with unrequited love or, indeed, exploitation. The story follows an unknown woman spotted at the station by a man who is taken by this mysterious woman. He approaches her and guides her to his house where she proceeds to tell him the story of an obsessive infatuation she once had with her former teacher.

At first, the tale intrigued me. I was captivated how the book plodded along without naming the characters. Everyone was a he or a she, and the way you knew who was talking was from whether the writing was in italics or not. At first this was fun and novel. Given that the story has been slated to be about the effects of capitalism and patriarchist society on us, and in particular, women, I saw this storytelling device as indicative that the protagonist could literally be all the women. She could be you, your daughter, your friend…me!

However, I reached the 40% mark and found the book grew quite tiresome. The main character behaves as though she is in a trance-like state in that she has little awareness or care for the man in her presence, she just needs to tell her story. At the same time, she is sitting and smoking like a trooper, and the more she drinks, the more she goes off on a tangent and has to rein herself back in. In all honesty, as much as I wanted to hear all the details of this relationship, I was unable to dedicate any more time to her seemingly tipsy state, and I certainly did not want to reach a fully inebriated state. I also found that once the originality of using purely pronouns for the most part wore off (we do learn the lover’s name eventually), the inability to give everyone a name and a face kept me distant and unable to fully absorb and relate to the characters. The fact that the book contained a substantial number of errors did not help either. Words that contain ‘ff,’ ‘fi,’ and ‘ver’ were often misspelled from where these configurations were missing e.g., office became oce, first became rst, and over was simply o. It just became burdensome and zapped away the remaining possible enjoyment that might have been had.

I would not discourage anyone from reading this story. In the right headspace, having now had a dose of the book, I may even return to it in the future, albeit from a research perspective as it does make for a good study piece. The reader most likely to appreciate this book will be no stranger to Penguin Classics. They are also likely to enjoy the type of books presented for Writing Awards like the Booker Prize i.e., clever, and literary books, and translated texts, this book originally being written for a Norwegian audience. Consequently, at this time, I personally find the book to be below average with room for improvement and rate it 2/5, although I do ask you to note that I did not finish the text before coming to this conclusion.

"Nothing Grows by Moonlight," first published in Norway in 1947, is a rediscovered work revealing the unspoken struggles of women in a world that confines and ignores them. The story opens at a train station, where a man meets a mysterious woman. Over cigarettes and schnapps, she pours out her haunting past, recounting twenty years of pain and longing that have led her to this moment.

She recalls her youth as a small-town girl, dreaming of escape and beauty, only to become entangled in a doomed affair with her teacher. This relationship traps her in a cycle of heartbreak, hidden pregnancies, self-induced miscarriages, and societal shame. Her story becomes a indictment of the hypocrisy and cruelty women face under rigid moral codes that punish them for simply existing outside societal norms.

The novel offers a bleak sense of inevitability, capturing the psychological obsession and dependency that chains her to an abusive love. Her homelessness, both literal and emotional, reflects a soul searching for a place in a world that denies her autonomy and acceptance. Her longing for freedom and beauty stands tragically against the desolation of her circumstances.

For some, the novel’s sorrow may feel relentless and harrowing, yet the lyrical voice of the narrator lends a poetic light to the darkness, revealing a precious inner beauty even as her life crumbles. The prose, though sometimes heavy, gives a poignant and prescient voice to the female condition, reflecting the isolation and co-dependency many face in the pursuit of a life they are denied.

Nothing Grows by Moonlight is a haunting exploration of a woman’s yearning for life beyond the narrow limits of her birth.

I found the writing style a little difficult to fully absorb myself in, but the story itself was entertaining. The way the story was told made it feel like you were talking directly to the characters, which was an interesting way to present such a traumatic story. A different yet intriguing book.