Digital List Price:	$14.99
Kindle Price:	$9.99 Save $5.00 (33%)
Sold by:	Amazon.com Services LLC

Promotions apply when you purchase

Add an

audiobook with Audible narration for $7.49

Audiobook Price: $17.46

Save: $9.97 (57%)

Read with our free app

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Follow the author

Johanna Sinisalo

+ Follow

More books from this author

Troll: A Love Story Kindle Edition

by Johanna Sinisalo (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

3.9 137 ratings

See all formats and editions

This internationally acclaimed winner of the Finlandia Award is “a brilliant and dark parable about the fluid boundaries between human and animal” (The Boston Globe).

Angel, a young photographer, comes home from a night of carousing to find a group of drunken teenagers in the courtyard of his apartment building, taunting a wounded, helpless young troll. He takes it in, not suspecting the dramatic consequences of this decision. What does one do with a troll in the city? As the troll’s presence influences Angel’s life in ways he could never have predicted, it becomes clear that the creature is the familiar of man’s most forbidden feelings. A novel of sparkling originality, Troll is a wry, beguiling story of nature and man’s relationship to wild things, and of the dark power of the wildness in ourselves.

“[An] imaginative and engaging novel of urban fantasy . . . The stuff of ancient legend shadows with rather unnerving precision the course of unloosed postmodern desire.” —Chris Lehmann, The Washington Post Book World

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A young Finnish photographer makes a pet of an orphaned troll in this strange, sexually charged contemporary folk tale, a hit in Europe. Mikael, nicknamed Angel for his stunning blonde good looks, finds the troll behind some dustbins after a night of drinking, and feels compelled to bring it home ("It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen... I know straight away that I want it"). The troll is small and black, thoroughly wild but also oddly human, with an overpowering, arousing juniper-berry smell. Obsessed by his new companion, whom he names Pessi, Angel sets out to learn everything he can about trolls, which in the novel's world are a real but extremely rare species. Much of the book is composed of excerpts from reference works and novels, the most valuable of which is a rare volume by Gustaf Eurén, called The Wild Beasts of Finland. This book is supplied by Ecke, Angel's nerdy, fervid suitor; Angel also coerces help from a veterinarian ex-boyfriend; an advertising art director who buys his photographs and rejects his advances; and an abused Filipino mail-order bride who lives downstairs. Sinisalo's elastic prose is at once lyrical and matter-of-fact, but this is not a comfortable novel. The troll brings out Angel's animal instincts, representing all the seduction and violence of the natural world. As the troll becomes ever more unmanageable, the sense of doom grows; the ferocious ending is thoroughly unsettling.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine

Troll won the Finlandia Prize for the best novel published in Finland, and has garnered worldwide attention. Sinisalo draws upon Finnish folklore to create a sharp modern novel that explores the wild beast that lurks in each of us. The Washington Post reminds us, “[T]he runty dark creatures of our fairy tales are little more, symbolically speaking, than surrogates for our own darker urges.” Though Pessi is the only truly feral creature, Angel and his friends all reveal their baser natures as well. While the main drama surrounds Angel and Pessi, a host of engaging characters populates the novel, including a Filipino mail-order bride. Sinisalo takes the stuff of fantasies and twists it into a sophisticated parable for the 21st century.

From Booklist

Thirtysomething Angel, on the way home from the bar one winter night, rescues a young troll from a gang of boys. Bleary and hungover the next morning, he thinks perhaps he dreamed the rescue--until he discovers the troll drinking from the toilet. Falling utterly under its spell, he names it, a male, Pessi, and frantically searches for information on its care and feeding. He discovers that trolls emit pheromones with powerful erotic effects on others nearby, which explains why things become bizarre for Angel. Keeping the essentially wild Pessi as a sort of pet eventually leads to disaster and an accidental killing. Angel escapes with Pessi to the forest, where he meets Pessi's older relations in a show-stopping encounter. Sinisalo's unusual, Finlandia Award-winning book tackles several tough questions, starting with, What does it mean to be human? The biggest question, however, is that sine qua non of so much fantastic literature--What if?-- and pursuing an answer leads to a hitherto unimaginable place and an ending that leaves one reeling. Paula Luedtke
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"A wily thriller-fantasy . . . Each discovery sounds like the voice of a storyteller reminding us of how the gods play with our fates."New York Times

Winner of the Finlandia Award, Troll: A Love Story is an enchanting novel that has become an international sensation. Angel, a young photographer, comes home from a night of carousing to find a group of drunken teenagers in the courtyard of his apartment building, taunting a wounded, helpless young troll. He takes it in, not suspecting the dramatic consequences of this decision. What does one do with a troll in the city? As the troll's presence influences Angel's life in ways he could never have predicted, it becomes clear that the creature is the familiar of man's most forbidden feelings. A novel of sparkling originality, Troll is a wry, beguiling story of nature and man's relationship to wild things, and of the dark power of the wildness in ourselves.

About the Author

Johanna Sinisalo was born in Finnish Lapland in 1958. Not Before Sundown, her acclaimed first novel, has been translated into six languages, and is the first Finnish fiction to be published in this country for six years. Also known in Finland for her television and comic strip writing, Johanna has, in addition to the Finlandia Award, won the Atorox prize for best Finnish SF or fantasy story six times and has been the winner of the Kemi National Comic Strip Contest three times.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B008UX3PAG
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Grove Press (December 1, 2007)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ December 1, 2007
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4456 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 292 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #713,519 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #577 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #889 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books)
- #3,741 in Gay & Lesbian (Kindle Store)

Customer Reviews:
3.9 137 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Johanna Sinisalo

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5

137 global ratings

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

bee13

A keeper

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2013

Verified Purchase

Once upon a time not too long ago, in a faraway land of pine, birch and pristine lakes, there lived an angel of great beauty who loved none until one day a strange creature of the forest--half-cat, half-ape, with glossy black fur and golden eyes--caught his eye and then his heart.

Parable, fable, erotic fairy-tale, Finnish fantasy writer, Johanna Sinisalo's "Troll," is all of these and more. A work beyond classification, it manages to be a highly entertaining dramatic thriller and a great creative work all at once.

Angel--flaxen-haired Adonis--talented photographer wants those things just beyond his reach--namely a handsome colleague, Martes. Yet, Angel could have anybody. There's Ecke, the nerdy bespectacled bookseller who swoons at the very thought of Angel. Then there's Angel's old flame, Dr. Spiderman, who regrets not having grabbed perfection when he had the chance. Even Angel's neighbor, Palomita, sees him as her savior. But nothing snags Angel's vain and elusive heart until IT shows up behind a dumpster, threatened by local thugs. Upon seeing IT, Angel sighs, "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

Thus, Pessi, cat-eyed and ape-faced, enters Angel's glittery emptiness and never leaves. The next two hundred pages flash along like a driverless troika across the steppes. The story jumps between each of the characters's perspectives as they all move closer to Angel and the creature hidden in his apartment.

This inventive structure makes "Troll" a quick-paced and gripping read. The story is fleshed out from all points of view giving it an intimacy and immediacy. They read like emails or text messages, conveying a spare drama while letting imagination do the rest.

Amongst all the perspectives, Sinisalo wedges tidbits of troll-lore salvaged from a myriad of sources: Finnish folk-lore, the Kalevala, and the internet. The effect of all this is as dazzling as it is dizzying. As the narrative surges along with increasing intensity, you sense this tale will end very badly for somebody and shocked when it finally does.

With its page-flipping drama and suspenseful conclusion, "Troll" is a fantastic ride, but what is Sinisalo trying to communicate here? Is Angel in love with Pessi? Is this a bestial romance? Angel craves the forbidden...Martes..."Pessi's juniper-berry smell...(that) overpowers my nostrils."

"Troll" offers up a lot of fascinating and equally disturbing questions for us humans. What happens when we, like Angel, cold shoulder our fellow humans and seek succor in other species? What are the consequences when we embrace the 'wild,' when we attempt to control and contain it?

If your fancy is a well-paced, imaginative thriller full of the fantastical and yet all-too-real, then "Troll" is a must read.
It will torment, provoke, and perhaps even enlighten. For to paraphrase the Bard, there is much more to this earth than meets the eye.

18 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kasey's Book Hoard

wonderful and disturbing

Reviewed in the United States on March 22, 2024

Verified Purchase

genre: magical realism, LGBTQ+, Cryptozoological, New Weird

This debut novel was unexpectedly wonderful and complex. I wasn't sure as I started it, had picked it up merely for the title. It is the tale of a naive artist who brings home a dying stray and tries to care for it, but his efforts are misguided, as is true about so much of his life, so much of all of our lives. The twist is that Angel (his oh-so-symbolic nickname) does not bring home a stray dog or cat, he brings home a troll-cub, a wild thing.

It is a tale of innocence, cruelty, predation, exploitation, lust, manipulation, misconceptions, and misfits (in a very literal, fish-out-of-water way). It is told by various 1st person points of view and the narrative itself is interrupted by bits of folk tales, newspaper stories, and scientific articles. The depiction of being an outsider is layered over and over: the toll in the city, the gay man, the artist, the Fillipino child-bride, the straight man on the gay scene. All of them existing just outside the mainstream; no character in this book fits the world quite right, except ironically, in the end, perhaps, the troll.

The whole thing is somewhat unsettling and uncomfortable, slightly erotic and leave the reader asking: Who is the real demon? Who is the uncivilized animal?

"There are cities within cities, just as there are circles within circles, existent yet invisible. And those cities are inhabited by creatures more terrible than imagination can create: man-shaped but man-devouring, as black and silent as the night they prowl in."

Helpful

Susan

The writing is fine and the story is creative

Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

I'll give this novel one thing - it is different. The writing is fine and the story is creative. I wasn't crazy about how sexual it all was but maybe I needed to read the description more carefully before I bought it.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Foster Corbin

This Novel Will Give You Pause!

Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2004

Verified Purchase

By definition, a troll is a supernatural creature from Scandinavian folklore that lives in caves or in mountains. It is stumpy, mishapen, and can be as big as a giant or a small as a dwarf. It has been known to abduct children. Trolls have made appearances in such literary works as BEOWULF, LORD OF THE RINGS and HARRY POTTER. With that in mind, you should be prepared for the unexpected in this novel by the Finnish author Johanna Sinisalo. You will not be disappointed. This writer has crafted a bizarre but strangely moving love story between Mikael, nicknamed Angel, a young Finnish photographer, and a troll whom he rescues from a pack of hoodlums one midnight as the young man staggers home from a night of drinking and unrequited lust for one Martes, who says he is only looking for "good conversation." Angel takes the troll in, nurses him back to health and starts down a path from which there is no return. With each passing day, Angel finds himself becoming more hopelessly attached to the troll with the juniper-berry smell-- whom he names Pessi-- and having to hide his new housemate from his friends and neighbors. As you would expect, a novel about a love affair between a man and a troll will not have a happy ending. Even so, I was not quite ready for the explosive finale.
Ms. Sinisalo's prose is both concise and evocative: "I look him [Martes] in the eyes. His face wears a friendly, open, and understanding smile. He seems at once infinitely lovable and completely unknown. His eyes are computer icons, expressionless diagrams, with infinite wonders behind them, but only for the elect, those able to log on." The author raises questions about man's relationship with wild creatures-- how much we know or don't know about them and what they know about us. She seems to say something about the animalistic tendences that lie deeply hidden in the most civilized of us just waiting to be let loose.
Although on one level, TROLL is just a great story that you cannot stop reading, on another it asks questions about the very nature of us all.

34 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Stella

Contemporary fantasy at its finest.

Reviewed in Australia on October 27, 2021

Verified Purchase

In the alternate Finland of Troll: A Love Story, Angel returns to his apartment after a night of drink and thwarted love to find a group of teens tormenting a juvenile troll. Trolls, an accepted denizen of Finland's forest don't usually stray into the city. They're a sort of wild animals, falling somewhere between a cat and a primate on the evolutionary tree. But Angel, falls in love with the fragile beast at first glance, and brings him home, believing he's rescuing a baby animal. Or is something very different going on? This short novel also explores loneliness, isolation, and transactional sexual maneuvering. The inventive text includes multiple points of view, snippets of poetry and folklore, and excerpts from "scientific articles" about Felipithecus trollius, making for an interesting read. Judging by the beautiful prose, the translation is excellent. The juxtaposition of myth, science, and modern society, and the tale's ending twist makes Troll contemporary fantasy at its finest.

Debby Shoctor

Unusual Tale

Reviewed in Canada on October 18, 2022

Verified Purchase

This very unusual tale of man and beast is nonetheless one of the oldest stories ever told, What is “wild”? What is “tame”? Will we ever really come to grips with nature vs. Civilization? What is love? A very thought-provoking read!

J. Willis

A highly original book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 28, 2011

Verified Purchase

A gay photographer nicknamed Angel living in Finland comes home one evening drunk after being rejected by a man he has fancied for sometime, he notices that some kids are kicking a small troll outside his apartment and he decides to take the little fellow in (despite it being illegal to keep a wild animal) and nurse it back to health. Oh because Trolls were discovered in 1907 and although rare are accepted as part of Northern Scandinavia's wildlife. If you then throw in Angels complicated sex life (forget love triangles, how about a love rectangle) and his increasing sexual and protective attraction to the troll as it grows up, you have yourself one very quirky book.

There are several narrators throughout which change with each chapter which are typically 1-3 pages short and interwoven throughout are academic writings, Poems and stories on Trolls.

This is a very quick read and proves rather intriguing and it's certainly different. Yes it is a love story of sorts but certainly not in the conventional sense and there are some funny moments as Angel adapts to living with a Troll which poos on his floor and eats live guinea pigs.

But rather than having the feel of a fable or fairytale, the book looks more at relationships and how some of the characters will use sex for their own gain.

Would I recommend this? Its funny, sweet and sometimes downright gross and disturbing but its certainly interesting and says a lot more than it first appears to.

Oh and in case you were wondering, there is no 'sex scene' between a man and a Troll (considering the Troll is a juvenile it would just be all kinds of wrong.)

One person found this helpful

susiejohnston

prepare yourself with a stiff drink for this...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 25, 2014

Verified Purchase

Not sure that I actually 'like' this book but it certainly is a page turner! Ive never read anything like it and it caused more discussion in our book group than anything else for a long while. It is challenging, disturbing and frankly, rather weird but well worth the few hours it will take you to read

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the author

Image Unavailable

Troll: A Love Story Kindle Edition

Customers who bought this item also bought

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From Bookmarks Magazine

From Booklist

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

About the author

Johanna Sinisalo

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries