"When I Forget" by Elina Hirvonen (Portobello, 2007)

9/11, suicide, domestic violence, and mental problems are combined with restrained writing. Anna neglects his institutionalised brother and Ian neglects his institutionalised father, later finding out that his father's dead. Given the material, the novel has surprisingly little impact though when similes are used, they work well enough

• " His grip was like what you'd use to grab a runaway horse or an underwater handful of hair", (p.44)
• ""We had talked to each other as you'd talk to a stranger you'd met while drunk after the barman calls for last orders, sure you wouldn't remember the other's face in the morning", (p.69)