2026
It is New Year’s Eve. Iris is celebrating with her boyfriend and old friends, the midnight countdown is approaching, and fireworks are starting to light up the sky. Then, she receives a message from her very first boyfriend – an ex she hasn't seen in years. She hesitates but opens it. The text is only one sentence: "Do you remember if I was ever violent towards you?"
The book is a poignant novel about the physical and psychological abuse that haunts close relationships, and the pervasive sense of unease women carry with them. Strømsborg illustrates how the burden of truth is so easily shifted from abuser to victim, forcing her to validate his behavior and answer for his past actions. It is a story both deeply harrowing and disturbingly ordinary – and all the more harrowing because of how just how ordinary it is.
'Uncomfortably good on the violence that leaves no bruises: Linn Strømsborg writes with energy and an urge to provoke discussion about a manipulative relationship between young people. No One is Looking Out for Us is an easy-to-read, airy, and engaging novel where timely questions about violence, power, sex, and consent are never far away, and where its use value is indisputable.'
'Iris’s story is one in which many women (unfortunately) can recognize themselves. And as in her former books Linn Strømsborg, with great precision, puts her finger on the tender spots and asks questions of great societal relevance. […] Linn is to me personally one of the greatest and most important contemporary Norwegian authors.'
Linn Strømsborg
Heidi Furre
