Overview

The phenomenal internationally bestselling novel about a boy who has seven fathers in seven years- 'a little treasure of a book' - Fredrik Backman Once I had seven fathers in seven years. This is the story of those years. I'm fizzing. I love not being his son. Yes. I can feel it in my whole body. A great thrill - as if an adventure has begun. As if I'm the boy in a book about a boy who finds out his dad is the king of a magical and distant land. Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev's mother lets him in on a secret- his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame - but even she can't control how they behave. Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years.

Full Product Details

9781405971270

Table of Contents

Reviews

A LITTLE TREASURE OF A BOOK. Hilarious but vulnerable, clever but raw, and pure joyous storytelling on every page. You’ll come for the laughs, but you’ll stay for the love letter, from a grown man to his boy self, promising everything will be all right * Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove * 'I challenge you not to fall in love with Andrev as he thrashes doggedly through life - perpetually hopeful and inept. This is a small gem of a novel, with an irresistible voice and a teasing sidelong wit * Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now * This is a truly special novel. A delight from start to finish. Captures the joy and pain of being a teenager perfectly. I adored Andrev and already miss him * Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things * Darkly funny ... Distinctive ... Walden’s instinct for observation and his ear for prose are flawless. His understated humour is particularly winning … The writing remains so sharp, so beguiling, so acutely observed -- Rebecca Wait * Guardian * A proven winner ... It tells you things about growing up that you didn’t realise were true, not until Walden put them into words ... Comparisons will inevitably be drawn with another Swedish novel, Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove (2012). Similarly perceptive of human behaviour (albeit about an old man rather than a young one) and as tragicomic, that novel went from being Sweden’s bestselling book of 2013 to global blockbuster. There’s no reason why Bloody Awful in Different Ways can’t do the same. Bloody awful? Bloody brilliant, more like * Daily Telegraph * What a book! I laughed, cried, despaired and hoped for this young boy negotiating seven fathers in seven chaotic years, taking us with him for the wild ride. A story that reads this easily with consummate fluidity, pace and comic timing deserves the widest audience possible * Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness * Walden’s story is rich with dark humour and tender coming-of-age moments that make this a brilliant and beguiling page-turner * Daily Express * Darkly funny, and comically tragic. An absolute gem. I loved it * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground * Walden grips your attention with darkly comic verve, and there’s a truly ugly undertow to his portrait of toxic masculinity, rendered all the more shocking by the narrator’s partial understanding * Daily Mail * Walden has a distinctive voice and has crafted a wonderfully written page-turner that, despite its often bleak subject matter, made me laugh out loud * Mail on Sunday *

A LITTLE TREASURE OF A BOOK. Hilarious but vulnerable, clever but raw, and pure joyous storytelling on every page. You’ll come for the laughs, but you’ll stay for the love letter, from a grown man to his boy self, promising everything will be all right * Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove * 'I challenge you not to fall in love with Andrev as he thrashes doggedly through life - perpetually hopeful and inept. This is a small gem of a novel, with an irresistible voice and a teasing sidelong wit * Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now * This is a truly special novel. A delight from start to finish. Captures the joy and pain of being a teenager perfectly. I adored Andrev and already miss him * Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things * What a book! I laughed, cried, despaired and hoped for this young boy negotiating seven fathers in seven chaotic years, taking us with him for the wild ride. A story that reads this easily with consummate fluidity, pace and comic timing deserves the widest audience possible * Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness * Darkly funny, and comically tragic. An absolute gem. I loved it * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground * In a perfect balance between levity and sadness, Andrev Walden depicts a boy's attempt to come to terms with a life where fathers are constantly replaced. Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a humorous examination of a different kind of childhood, which, despite the pervasive blackness, is portrayed with an inexhaustible warmth and presence * August Prize Judges * Outstanding literature. Shamelessly entertaining * Sydsvenskan * An incredible account of growing up * Ann-Helen Laestadius, author of Stolen * Through Walden's precise and evocative language, we are invited into a young boy’s observations of the world and his journey into manhood. A sharply critical view of the male-dominated world is interwoven with tender portrayals of how a person is shaped by their relationships. It becomes unmistakably clear how vulnerable and strong we are in relation to one another. I laugh, I ache, and I reflect as I read Walden’s book * Lisa Ridzén, author of When the Cranes Fly South * Walden makes both trivialities and atrocities sparkle * Aftonbladet *

Author Information

Andrev Walden is an acclaimed Swedish journalist and columnist who has worked for Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. In 2017, he became the first columnist to be nominated for the Swedish Grand Prize for journalism, praised for his ability to 'find the everyday drama in the big questions', and to make us 'laugh and see the world, the family and ourselves in a new and slightly wiser light'. He lives in Stockholm. Bloody Awful in Different Ways is his first novel.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available