Something That Helps

From acclaimed Norwegian writer Mona Høvring comes Something That Helps, an intimate and stirring portrait of a girl’s sexual awakening, of inner strength and the turbulence of family life, of friendship and loss.

Laura is in her late teens, living in a small coastal town in Western Norway, the summer before her final year of school. Haunted by the death of her mother by suicide, she has a strained relationship with her fisherman father and feels the absence of her brother and closest friend, both of whom have moved away. Equal parts lonely and bewildered, a lack of guidance has made her independent, determined, and vulnerable.

When Laura meets the older and more experienced Vivian Koller, the encounter kickstarts a series of events that will come to define her and her future. Crucial influences converge that push the simultaneously childish and adult protagonist into dark places—and eventually to the start of a new life.

Written in sensual, poetic prose and masterfully translated by Kari Dickson, Something That Helps presents a multi-faceted coming-of-age story of a young woman following her own path to destruction and reconciliation.