Willful Disregard: a Novel about Love / Lena Andersson, trans. by Sarah Death, 196 pp.

A very simple story: woman meets a man, falls for him mind and body, and he doesn't want her (except for the occasional body business).  She wants him to the exclusion of everything; she can't have him; it's excruciating. Most of us have been there at least once, so where's the story?

Yet I devoured this short novel. The reader cringes with every foolish step the main character takes, willing her to step back from the psychological cliff even while we know (again, because we've been there) she won't. She analyzes her mistakes in painful detail, dismissing the advice of what she calls the 'girlfriend chorus.' Unusual and dark.