Review: SEE YOU TOMORROW by Tore Renberg

From the back of the book:
Pal has a shameful secret that has dragged him into huge debt, and he is desperate that his teenage daughters and ex-wife don't find out. Sixteen-year-old Sandra also has a secret. She's in love with the delinquent Daniel William, a love so strong and pure that nothing can get in its way. Cecilie has the biggest secret of them all, a baby growing inside her. But she's trapped in her small-time, criminal existence, and dreams of an escape from it all. Over three fateful September days, these lives cross in a whirlwind of brutality, laughter, tragedy, and love that will change them forever. A fast-paced, moving, and darkly funny page-turner.


My Review:
With passages reminiscent of the poetic styling of Megan Abbott combined with characterisation akin to Douglas Lindsay’s trademark dark humour, SEE YOU TOMORROW is a delightful novel of introspection, loss, love, hate, and misguided redemption. Author Tore Renberg takes his characters to a place so dark they can’t see the light for the poisoned haze of addiction. Wallowing in the depths of despair, suffocated by poor choices and semi hidden flaws, each uniquely tainted character battles an all-consuming affliction.

Despite the enveloping sense of hopelessness following the characters like the proverbial raincloud there is an underlying theme of love and the desire to see the better of people despite the cracked façade.

SEE YOU TOMORROW is crime fiction yet it’s not the criminal components that drive the story, rather the characters individual voice and perspective of how they arrived to their present day predicament.

Each character, be it the single parent Pal, the overweight and abandoned criminal Jan, or the teenager with a dark past that threatens to surface in Daniel, was well articulated and three dimensional with enough backstory to add context without detracting from the story.

I found SEE YOU TOMORROW hard to put down and will be on the lookout for more books by Tore Renberg.