Emmy AbrahamsonRessenyes

Bold and modern, this tale set in Vienna, of a Swedish English Teacher and a homeless Canadian man, is an unexpectedly honest account of human relationships.

Allt Alicja ville var att ha ett lugnt och skönt sommarlov. Så hur kommer det sig att hon nästan blir styckmördad, får döda grävlingar kastafde på sig, tvingas äta möglig mat, skickas till en psykolog, förråder sin bästa vän och arresteras av polisen? Inte konstigt att killen som hon är hopplöst förälskad i tror att hon är helgalen. Och visst finns det en person som är helgalen, men det är inte Alicja ...

I wanted to like this book. A romance novel featuring a homeless man as the male lead sounded quirky and different. Unfortunately the writing style was not my jam (possibly a fault of the translation, it's hard to tell) and after over 60 pages I knew I couldn't care about whatever conflict came up between the two characters. I also didn't find the first person narrator either likable or compelling enough to want to spend time with. So better luck with other readers, book.½

Julia is a Swede living in Austria where she teaches English at Berlitz. She’s in Vienna because she followed a boyfriend there; now they’ve broken up and she’s at loose ends. One day, while waiting on a park bench she meets a smelly, dirty homeless man, Ben. They enter into an easy conversation and when she gets up to leave he virtually commands her to meet him again the next evening. Thus begins their relationship.

This was a quick, fast read and mildly entertaining. I shook my head at the chances Julia took, but recognized what she saw in Ben. He was clearly intelligent, caring, giving and willing to work at the relationship. She, on the other hand, was pretty closed off to any change in routine, and visibly embarrassed by her boyfriend. They are sometimes at cross purposes and have trouble communicating clearly with one another. The plot is rather implausible, including chasing him to Vancouver and wandering aimlessly in that city on the chance she’d find him. But there is a happy ending.

All told it’s a decent chick-lit, new-adult romance.

As an afterward, there is both an interview with the author, AND an essay by Abrahamson’s husband ... who was homeless when she met him on a park bench in Amsterdam. But THIS is a novel, not a memoir.

Julia is a young Swedish woman approaching thirty and living in Vienna, a city she loves. She teaches English for Berlitz while not writing a book. She has lots of ideas, like a family working as caretakers at an isolated hotel who are snowed in for the winter while the father becomes overpowered by the spirits who haunt it or the young governess who falls in love with a man whose first wife is locked upstairs. The advice to write what she knows seems so banal next to the fantastic plots she thinks up before recognizing her creativity was more recall than imagination.

One day she meets Ben, a homeless man whose body odor is so repugnant she is nauseated by it, though she is attracted to him and when he comes in for a kiss, she nearly succumbs to attraction before a whiff of body odor makes her gag. But she goes back to see him again, the move in together. He cleans up physically, but in terms of becoming responsible and finding ambition, he remains the same homeless and uneducated man he was when she met him. Can this relationship work?

So, How to Fall In Love with a Man Who Lives in a Bush is a fast and easy read. It’s a one-sitting book. However, I originally thought it required too great a suspension of disbelief. After all, smell is a central component of attraction. How do pheromones overcome the retch-making stench of a long unwashed body? Can you really fall in love with someone whose stink makes you nauseous? Can you love someone who you are ashamed of? And can the object of that shame forgive someone who claims to love them also claiming to be shamed by them?

But then I discovered this book is more memoir than fiction and the author actually fell in love with a man who lived in a bush. And to be totally contrary, this made me dislike the author, if not necessarily the book. So even though I thought it unlikely someone would see the rough diamond behind the stench, I found it kind of icky that Abrahamson thinks this is so amazing it’s book-worthy. Sure, it struck me as unlikely, but it seems that since it really happened, writing about it as fiction makes it seem like “Look at me, I did this impossible thing.” I actually said “Who does she think she is, Mother Teresa?” out loud. Does this necessarily make sense and is it fair, maybe not, but one thing I promise here is being honest about how I feel about books. When it was just fiction, I thought it was light and enjoyable but unlikely. When I found it was fictionalized memoir, I thought it was attention-seeking and kind of exploitive. I wonder if her husband ever gets tired of being this pathetic man that she is something so special and saintly for loving. So yeah, I confess I am being a bit unfair…but it is exactly what I think.

I received an e-galley of How to Fall In Love with a Man Who Lives in a Bush from the publisher through Edelweiss.

How to Fall In Love with a Man Who Lives in a Bush at Harper Perenniel/Harper Collins
Emmy Abrahamson story that makes this novel sound more like a memoir

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/08/16/9780062678041/

Ganz amüsant und leicht lesbar.

Not really my cup of tea. Too little plot, and too many events that I think were intended to be funny but which weren't.