Product Description

A dark, comic tale of perverse sexuality and slacker culture in Iceland's trendy capital city. Hlynur Bjorn is an unemployed thirty-something loner, still living with his mum, who spends his days on the Internet, watching satellite TV, and gazing at girls in the pub. But Hlynur's cosy, unthreatening world is shaken when his mother comes out as a lesbian, and her Spanish girlfriend Lolla moves into their home. 101 Reykjavik is a first-person account of a blackly funny and bizarre love triangle, poking fun along the way at such foibles of our culture as CNN weather reports and porn videos.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231286 in Books
• Published on: 2002-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Pills and chills
I bought this book on a recent visit to Reykjavik. I enjoyed it to a certain extent but felt that a certain amount of the charm must have been lost in translation. There are some genuinely funny moments, and much of it is very disturbing. Helgason does not inspire unnecessary sympathy in the protagonist. There are many evocative descriptions of the beautiful and desolate city though, and it was an interesting companion to my journey.

doesnt live up to its potential
this book has all the ingredients to be first rate, the problem is it just never seems to happen, in fact nothing ever seems to happen.
There are occasional moments where you feel the pace is about to pick up and then it just drops back down again.
No real momentum and a real struggle to maintain interest. cant help but feel its been done better many times before, most interesting aspect is the icelandic flavour.

Great, possibly for the wrong reasons
The Amazon description of the book captures this well: dark and comic. Some of the scenes in the book were so funny that my laughter frequently drew too much attention of my fellow early morning commuters. However, the book also has an ever-present dark undertone, and one cannot help feeling slightly disturbed about the night-and-day actions and thoughts of the main character. Although it is difficult to attract sympathy for him, you sometimes can't help him wanting to come out on top.

The description of Reykjavík and its surroundings are excellently portrayed, albeit cynically by the main character. The rougher edges, as well as the beauty, of this wonderful city are captured to a tee by Helgason. These will especially ring true with anyone who has visited Iceland or Reykjavík.

Read the book and watch the film; they are very different and I much preferred the book over the movie as they develop the main character, and some of the peripheral ones, a lot more.