Reviews

The Exception by Christian Jungersen

esther_habs's review

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

sof00's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

andrew61's review against another edition

3.0

An interesting plot sees four women working in a research centre for the study of genocide in Denmark. Thus two characters Marlene and Iben are liberal, free thinking , with a passion for human rights. However when they receive apparent threatening emails from a Serbian war criminal after publishing an article about him in the centres journal they quickly attribute the source as Anne Lise the newly appointed librarian in the centre and with the fourth woman Camilla start a campaign of bullying against her. the contradiction with their own ideals and ability to see their own faults is obvious.
So not a bad premise and the plotting was enjoyable if you could manage to wade through feeling that the reader was constantly being lectured at with repeated essays on war crimes and psychology which at times annoyed me as I felt like I was being lead by the nose by the author and treated as if I had to reminded of the horrors of genocide or what exactly psychology experiments such as Milgram prove. The feeling of being patronised therefore was what I was left with at the end of the book and a feeling that it could have lost 100+ pages very easily.

carolinestadsbjerg's review against another edition

4.0

Var ikke helt med i starten, men den blev hele tiden bedre og bedre, eskalerede på smuk og drastisk vis. Fik low key Shutter Island-vibes, og det er selvfølgelig et kæmpe kompliment. Kan absolut anbefales!

marylandgeorgia's review

4.0

The dialog was very unnatural and it took me out of the story. I'm assuming it was from the translation.

I wonder, had it been smoother, if I could have believed the pace of the plot better

clara0304's review

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Genuinely A really really good book. The writing was not complicated but at the same time not boring and dull. I enjoyed the twisting plot and the fact that it questions the human psychology. It really twist and turns the concept of evilness in a great way. The way the 4 women are described makes them complex and like they could actually be real people. The characters irritates you to the core but your still interested in them and you really want to figure out was is really going on behind these women’s facades. 
The ending was a bit disappointing, didn’t match the rest of the book, it felt like a quick rap up. Still a really recommended  book! 

jessalynn_librarian's review

4.0

Anytime I try to describe this, it comes off sounding boring or depressing. While it's not a light book, and I wouldn't describe it as a page-turner, either, it was gripping and I could easily read it for an hour or two at a time, only putting it down and turning off the light when my eyes started to hurt. It was, bizarrely, a perfect accompaniment to the library management class I'm taking - but please don't interpret that as meaning it's boring. The management class is dull, but not this book. Really interesting things with multiple viewpoints, interweaving fact with fiction, and the way groups of people behave and distort reality.

missnicolerose's review

5.0

#readtheworld Denmark

This might be one of my favorite books I've read so far this year.

The story follows four women working for an agency in Copenhagen that promotes education regarding genocide. When the women begin receiving threats, it turns the story into a magnificent psychological whodunnit.

The women initially suspect the subjects of their exposes on genocide, but then shift to suspicion of one another and even of themselves. The internal turmoil and anxiety send the characters into different depths of despair and madness as they try to identify the perpetrator.

Also, as a bonus, if this were a film, it would pass the Bechdel Test!

Highly recommend.

sdc46250's review against another edition

3.0

For me, this was well written and definitely interesting with lots of facts and information about genocide that I didn't know. However ultimately, I found it ponderous and difficult to read. Not as in dark but confusing. Maybe it was because of the translation but there were a few editing errors that I always find irritating. Multiple points of view. I don't know. I definitely was glad to be done with it. Not my favorite, for sure. For me it was a B+ for writing but a C for my enjoyment of it.

cilie's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Bogen er perfekt det meste af vejen. Den er velskrevet, spændende og giver massere af stof til eftertanke uden at være tung. Men jeg synes den faldt noget fra hinanden til sidste og det irreterede mig så meget at den falder to stjerner ned af ranglisten