i really really liked this, especially for the first half or so. it's definitely not for everyone, as those 300 or so pages, that i liked so much, didn't really have much happen at all. it was just language and friendship and character development. plus a wee bit of obfuscation that made me wonder where things were going, and why i was confused. i loved that.

i am not sure i loved the clarification of that confusion, but i think it was well done. it was less deeply explored, which i thought was unfortunate, and the very end seemed a bit of a cheat. but i still really liked this. the writing was enough for me. i don't think i've read a book this long mostly just for the language in a while, and i so enjoyed it. i'd definitely read her again. ( )

1986: Adrien, Etienne og Nina er kun ti år gamle første gang de mødes, og de bliver hurtigt nære venner. De lover hverandre at de en dag skal forlade byen de bor i, flytte sammen til Paris og aldrig miste kontakten med hverandre. 2017: Et bilvrag trækkes op af en sø, med en død person indeni. En lokal journalist begynder å grave i sagen. Langsomt, men sikkert afdækker hun det usædvanlig stærke bånd mellem de tre venner. Hvordan er deres fortid knyttet til personen i bilen? Og hvorfor har de ikke længere nogen kontakt? Fra forfatteren af den internationale bestsælger "Vand til blomster".

“They were three, or nothing.”

On the third of September, 1986, Nina Beau, Étienne Beaulieu and Adrien Bobin are placed together in the same fifth grade class of École Pasteur in La Comelle, Burgundy. Nina, abandoned by her mother as a baby, father unknown is being raised by her loving grandfather, a postal worker. Étienne belongs to an affluent family and lives with his parents, younger sister Louise and has an elder brother who is away pursuing higher studies. Adrien is being raised by his mother who was once the mistress of Adrien’s father who is a fleeting presence in Adrien’s life, paying support to Josephine and meeting Adrien infrequently.

“Étienne was the leader, Nina the heart, and Adrien followed with never a complaint.”

What follows is a wonderful childhood- inseparable friends sharing their joys, their sorrows, their families and their respective dreams - dreams beyond La Comelle - making plans and promises of a future spent supporting one another as they pursued their dreams.

“Adrien secretly dreams of recognition, he wants his compositions to be lauded to shut his father up, and never have to smell his chlorophyll breath ever again. Étienne dreams of what accompanies fame: the gilded existence, the easy life. Nina hopes to sing, draw, and fall passionately in love.”

But when Nina’s grandfather meets with a fatal accident in 1994 weeks before Nina is to leave for Paris with her friends, life changes for all three of them. Three friends embrace their new realities and their lives take them in different directions and away from one another. Nina stays back to marry her obsessive suitor which leads to an unhappy marriage. Adrian and Étienne leave and eventually, Adrien finds fame as a writer and Étienne becomes a police officer.

On the very same day, 17 August 1994, eighteen-year-old Clotilde Marais, known to all three of them, disappears without a trace. On 5 December 2017, a car reported stolen in 1994 is found after having been submerged in “Lac de la Forêt”. Human remains are found in the car and after years of being apart, the three of them are drawn together once again by “the secret that only the three think they know” and much more. After years of avoiding one another, the three are forced to confront their secrets, lies and betrayals and accept who they have become and reveal the same to one another.

"We think we know everything about our friends, when really we know nothing.”

It is rare to finish a 550 page book and come out saying that you wish it hadn’t ended. That is how I feel about Valérie Perrin’s Three (brilliantly translated by Hildegarde Serle). From the moment I met these three characters, I felt invested in their stories- both as individuals and as friends. As we follow Nina, Étienne and Adrien from their childhood through their adolescence and adulthood we bear witness to their struggles, their resilience and their friendship. They triumph, they stumble, they hurt one another, they are hurt by one another and others, they make mistakes, they are weak, they are strong - in other words, they are real and relatable, simple in what they want from life yet complex in their emotions and their relationships with one other, with others in their lives and in how they perceive themselves.

While we not may always agree with what they say or do, these are characters that we want to stay with and be a part of their stories. The mystery surrounding Clotilde Marais’s disappearance and the discovery of the car found submerged in the lake is intriguing and serves as the bridge between the past and present. Virginie’s first-person narrative, which is interspersed throughout the main narrative, also lends a sense of mystery around her relationship with the 'Three', and her intimate knowledge of the three friends and their lives also keeps you guessing as to who she might be.

“My name is Virginie. I’m the same age as them. Today, out of the three, only Adrien still speaks to me. Nina despises me. As for Étienne, it’s me who can longer stand him. And yet, they’ve fascinated me since childhood. I’ve only ever become attached to those three. And to Louise.”

The author does an excellent job of transitioning between past and present-day events and never for a moment does the reader lose interest. The author touches upon many important and relevant themes in this novel such as abandonment, jealousy, obsession, sexual identity,spousal abuse, and grief- and does so with great emotional depth and the utmost sensitivity. I loved how the love for and protection of animals was woven into the narrative. The writing is exquisite, the narrative is engaging and flows seamlessly across different timelines and the characterizations are superb. The author does justice to not only the main characters in the novel but also every one of the supporting characters in their lives, Louise , in particular.

Having loved Valérie Perrin’s Fresh Water for Flowers, I could not wait to pick up this novel and I was not disappointed. I cannot thank Kristi Bontrager at Europa Editions enough for the digital review copy of this beautifully written, compelling and immersive novel.

“Imagine you’ve been unable to move for years because your fist is clenched inside a container, and to manage to pull your hand out, to free yourself, you just need to let go of what you’re clutching in your clenched fist…..You open up your hand, you lose what’s inside it, it falls to the bottom of the container, but you are free.” ( )

Nina, Etienne, and Adrien meet on the first day of school when they are 10. From that day forward, they are inseparable, and plan to go to Paris together when they receive their bac degrees....But circumstances intervene, and in the "present" of this book, 2017, the three are estranged and have not spoken in years.

The book skips around in time and varies the pov character, as we learn the story of their intense friendship and what torpedoed it. I found this an engaging tale of growing up, young adulthood, and even early middle-age. It has an intricate plot, an appealing setting (small French country town and Paris), and is a well-written page-turner.

Recommended. 3 1/2 stars

First line: "This morning Nina looked at me without seeing me."

Pertinent quote: "In every life there are some befores and afters" ( )

Half way thru this novel I gave up. Just too boring. ( )