I adored this. I love the backdrop of Stockholm, I think most of these contemporary / millennial / coming of age stories I have read have been based in the UK so it gave a fresh take to the overall story. I loved Sickan, even though she was hopeless and would probably drive me insane if I knew her in real life.

A first person descriptive narrative of a student's life & emotions.
Sadly the writing style was too basic, seemed to be trying to reach Cusk's but didn't get there for me.

I remember my critical view of Jenny Mustard's debut novel, "Okay Days", despite of which I decided to give her second novel a try. And I'm truly glad I did as it was so much more enjoyable.

"What a Time to Be Alive" is an interesting literary exploration of feeling out of place, in one's family or even friendship. The protagonist, Sickan, comes from a decent-on-paper family with a lot of emotional disengagement that seemingly shaped her to disconnect from her feelings and be hyperindependent. Lacking in social skills, she finds herself in many problematic situations and relationships that don't serve her, trying to fit in. Considering the character's background and age, Sickan's actions feel believable and probable. It's one of those novels that if it were a film, you only needed a different music to perceive it as thriller. On the superficial level the events seem quite mundane, typical to one's experience of very early adulthood. But there are bitter and tragic undertones, mostly presented as the protagonist's memories, that make "What a Time to Be Alive" feel quite heavy.

What A Time To Be Alive is a witty and poignant distillation of how it feels to work out who you are when you've left home for the first time.

Sickan grows up in a small town and starting university in Stockholm is a big change for her.
Her new life is what we follow through her own narrative.
I found this to be authentic, contemporary, relevant and relatable.
Mustard’s craft and Sickan’s voice were interesting.
Had this been shorter, I would have enjoyed it slightly more, marvelling at its compactness and quality and substance.

Sican has changed her name from Siv hoping to reinvent herself after moving to Stockholm but eighteen months into her course, she’s still friendless and living in spartan student accommodation, constantly anxious that her peers are laughing at her. She's a child of benign neglect, loved by parents too caught up in their work to pay their daughter the attention needed to raise a child or to notice the bullying she’s subjected to by her schoolmates. With her cultivated slovenliness, Hanna's a very different sort of misfi,t seemingly impervious to what others think of her. An odd sort of friendship begins between these two until eventually Hanna invites Sican to share the palatial, fin de siècle apartment she's inherited. When Sican meets Abbe, she begins a relationship which pushes Hanna to the fringes of her life. Over the year or so the novel spans, Sican learns how to be a lover and a friend, taking steps into an adult life that might be different from the one she'd thought she’d have.
Mustard uses the same understated, gently witty style that worked so well in her debut, Okay Days, conveying Sican’s painful awareness of her social ineptitude with a tenderness that made me want to cheer her small triumphs and ache for her setbacks. The end is brilliantly done, neatly swerving cliché and illustrating how far Sican has come. A quietly accomplished novel: I’m looking forward to Mustard’s third outing.