I firmly believe that books come to you when you are meant to engage with them, and this is proof positive of that theory. It came to me via an apartment I was subletting from a person who turned out to be a friend of two close friends (both of whom I had also met under interesting circumstances and who showed up in my life at interesting times). The apartment is now mine, in that the person I was subletting from moved out and made me aware of that fact, so I’ve been living there since I came back to Finland, though I haven’t been in touch with any of the people I just mentioned since that fateful time.

The book was there on the shelves, one of the few (if not the only one) available in English. At that time it was precisely what I needed in that it allowed me to get engrossed in a book to take my mind off things but also provided enough relatable material for me to jump into it heart and soul, hoping, praying, fretting as I was making my way to the end. It was just what I needed and the fact that the story resonated so much with me was a bonus on top of a writing style that already had me hooked from the start.

The irony of identifying more with the monocultural character than the cross-cultural one was not lost on me, but it also added to the meaning of this book in my life. Everything of significance in my life can be summed up with the formula of the more ironic the circumstance / event, the more significant the relationship / outcome. And though I never found myself in the same situation as the main character, it was still easy enough to identify with the emotions and heartache she was going through. It was one of the best welcomes I could have hoped for when coming back to Finland, and I might not have gotten the message across sufficiently when I thanked that particular friend of my friends for not only providing me with a place to stay when I needed one but for bringing this book into my life.