When Sigurpall first told me about this treatment, I didn’t like the sound of it at all. Everything felt gray and distant. Eight weeks at the end of the world didn’t sound appealing, but then again, nothing did at that moment.

Una is on the brink of burnout and is sent to the remote Westfjords for a new treatment program called Anima. In a small seaside village during the darkest winter months, a handful of people confront what Hakon, the leader of the program, deems most important: facing the darkness within themselves. In this isolated setting, memories from Una’s past begin to resurface, her childhood in a small basement apartment with her mother and her brother.

As the stability of the treatment program, and Una’s own sense of self, begins to falter, everything she has kept frozen inside her starts to unravel, and her perception of reality begins to shift.

Sunfall is a captivating novel about light and darkness, a novel about the consequences of childhood trauma—but it can be said that it takes the subject matter a step further and describes how one can become frozen in the role of a victim, allowing it to color their perception of reality.