This was a pretty dull and uneventful book, a disappointment although not painful to read. I should have heeded the warning, "European Best-Seller", because this usually doesn't augur well - memories of "Night Train to Lisbon" - where the author gets so philosophical and complex that the plot doesn't really matter. Here, that wasn't the case but the book never took off for me. Since it was hailed as a "feminist empowerment" novel, or some such, I thought that it was me but my wife didn't much like it either. It covers three generations of strong Scandinavian women, and the men who aren't worthy of these women, and hence the poor record in matrimony. This is not a new topic and no new ground was covered here. (In another note, this reminded me of Carrie Fisher's documentary on her mother, Debbie Reynolds, and her grandmother, three strong women with (at least for the last two) a string of failed relationships, something at the center of the film.) In spite of the rather favorable criticisms it received, many others just didn't get into it so I don't feel alone in this.