Reviews

• “You can close your eyes, open Stina Jackson’s third novel and point to a page at random – and still you can be sure that the sentence you’ve just pointed to is so elegant you will want to quote it. Not a line is wasted on trivial vagueness.”

• “Ruin the World Tonight is at once a shimmeringly beautiful and truly grimy, murky story. Stina Jackson has the ability to tie it all together. There’s a tone like that of Sara Stridsberg, a movement reminiscent of Jack Kerouac, and a destructive darkness that recalls Vladimir Nabokov. Combined, it simply becomes Stina Jackson’s very own voice. I fall, head over heels, for Ruin the World Tonight. /…/ Ruin the World Tonight is a road movie of the mind and body. /…/ And the landscape – both in Skellefteå and in the US – is as present as the characters themselves. /…/ There are many elements that refuse to let go even when the novel is over, and my wish to linger in its world fights my desire to flee. Perhaps that is the best mark of a brilliant novel.”

• “A gripping novel that will turn your sleep schedule on its head. /…/ A good book is one you can’t wait to return to. Stina Jackson’s Ruin the World Tonight is such a novel. /…/ It will easily turn your sleep schedule on its head for it’s a book you’re loathe to put down even when the hour has passed midnight. It’s such a beautifully told story, without weak spots, and the people in it are so well portrayed you can see them behind the letters.”

• “A gripping novel about loneliness and belonging. /…/ The novel is permeated by a longing to belong and a desperate wish to find home. The story is written with beautiful darkness and intensity; as a reader you cling to the frail hope that everything will be all right in the end.”

• “Captivating mother-daughter dystopia. /…/ It’s arresting, frank, and just a little bit frightening – as it should be.”

• “Best of all this summer was Stina Jackson’s Ruin the World Tonight. A gripping novel about a mother’s desperate search, and longing, for the daughter who’s left her behind. /…/ The type of story that will stay with you for a long time.”

• “The lauded Stina Jackson excels also outside of the suspense genre.”

• “This is a Stina Jackson who is darker, grimier /…/ It’s so unrestrained, so well-written, that it makes one’s stomach twist. /…/ [Ruin the World Tonight] is different, and very, very worth reading.”

• “A striking drama about being a parent, or young and searching.”

• “Stina Jackson writes with an intensity that sets the words ablaze.”

• “Stina Jackson has kept the momentum from her suspense novels. The fate of these characters is uncertain; all the reader knows is that the future won’t hold luxury and riches.”

• “Lyrical and well-written milieus. /…/ Worth the read, not least for the author’s beautiful prose.”

• “Jackson mixes the US with Sweden, the Rockies with Västerbotten in a tale that’s a combination of ‘road novel’ and country noir. /…/ References: Cormac McCarthy, actually.”

• “Dusky angst’s beauty. /…/ Here there are complex relations on different levels, all headed for disaster, the only question being which form it will take. The prose is also blindingly brilliant; [Jackson] is a wordsmith who’s seemingly endlessly ambitious, eager to polish her talents, something that she succeeds in.”