Hösten från helvetet: Ebba Blaus dagbok review

I hugely enjoyed these, partly because they are genuinely funny and partly because they suggested to me that my male peers might be feeling as confused and awkward as I felt myself. And yet, there were limits to my identification with Adrian and Bert. Had I encountered Ellen Strömberg’s Ebba Blau, on the other hand, my 12-year-old self might have felt she had been written just for me. 

I haven’t really kept up to date with what has been happening in the world of fictional (pre-)teen diary fiction (though I’ve been vaguely aware of the Wimpy Kid phenomenon), but I welcomed the opportunity to dip back in and see for myself how this genre has evolved in the twenty-first century. That Autumn From Hell has a female protagonist-narrator was an added bonus. Ebba Blau is twelve going on thirteen, and on the cusp of great (and only partly welcome) change: not only does the book begin on the eve of Ebba starting her final year of middle school, but she is also due to move from Finland to Sweden to begin high school at the end of this year, as her mum, Sara, wants to move in with her boyfriend, Lennart. Ebba isn’t altogether keen on either Lennart or the move, but most of all, she isn’t keen on her life as it is and so she is determined, come what may, to transform herself and her life into something bigger, better and more exciting. What follows is a year of crushes, friendship struggles and adjusting to being a teenager, at the end of which Ebba is a lot more self-aware and contented than she was before.

Autumn From Hell is really well written, capturing with nuance and sympathy the tone of a slightly precocious, artsy, insecure pre-teen. I still have all my own diaries from this period of my life, which I re-read at intervals for my amusement, and the melodrama, hyperbole and occasional deep despair of my own early journaling is matched to a T by Ebba’s. Ebba’s diary is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, partly because Strömberg has endowed her narrator with a great sense of self-deprecating humour, and partly because the reader can of course often see where Ebba misjudges the people and situations around her, and most of all herself, leading to sympathetic laughter as she catches up with us over the course of the book. She learns important lessons about friendships old and new, grapples with her looks and her status among her peers, learns to appreciate her own strengths and finds her moral compass. 

Where Ebba is endearing to adult readers, she will be relatable to young ones, who will find her going through many of the same problems they face: struggling with self-image, first love and relationships, beginning to think about physical intimacy, and working out friendship at a time when they and those around them are all changing and figuring out who they will be as they move from childhood into adolescence. The portrayal of friendship dynamics is particularly astute. Probably the greatest lesson Ebba learns is to stand up for herself but also to be gracious to people who wrong us (in this case, her arch-nemesis turned friend turned betrayer, Lydia), even if those people make it hard for us to sympathise with them. I loved following Ebba on her journey, and can see much potential for this novel to become the first in a series. I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only reader pleased to meet Ebba again as she begins high school in Umeå.