Jag lever, pappa: Utöya, 22 juli 2011 - Dagen som förändrade oss

The book describes the terrorist attack, 2011, in Oslo from two perspectives. Siri, a 20-year old girl, was at a Labour party summer camp on the island Utöya when the massacre occurred that killed 69 people. She called her father, Erik, a former journalist, when running for her life. Erik tries to understand what is happening.

First, the government quarter were bombed, killing several people. Two hours later, people on Utöya began to hear gun shots, ran and tried to hide. When a man, dressed like a police officer, arrived, people were relaxing, never imagining that the man was in fact the terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik. He shot everyone he could find, except small children. Siri found a way down the cliff to the shore, and hid with several others in a small cave that barely covered them. At the same time, her father tried to understand what was going on, and when he realized that someone was killing people, he drove out to the nearest point on mainland, feeling afraid and powerless.

How do you handle life after terror? How do you manage everything? Do you change? If you do, then how? The book gives insight to the massacre and how the people that survived were marked deep for ever, struggled to carry on, mourned the dead and remembered the attack, but refused to let themselves be defined by it. After the terror, Siri was very tense and reacted on every sound around her. She thought it uncomfortable to be around police officers. At the same time, she was strong and very determined to not let the fear win. In this way, the book is offering a deeper insight, a reflexion of what such a experience do to people, and how they are feeling weeks later when everyone else is carrying on.

The book might have been shorter. It is about hundred pages of memorials and other gatherings, and they are all very similar. They are important, of course, but it feels like the book drags on. It is not written in the best of ways, the language is a little uneven and sometimes repetitive. First, we get to read about Siri’s experiences, and then we get to reread the same situation from Erik’s point of view. During the terror, it’s effective because it’s interesting to get to know as much as possible of the time. But after the attack, occasionally, it slows down the pace.

However, it's an important portrayal of the worst attack in Norway in modern time. In all, 77 people were killed in the two attacks. Both Siri and Erik realized the importance of reporting, and through this book, they contribute to the event not ever being forgotten.