RaveThe Cardiff Review (UK)...a book of passionate intensity with a facade of emotionless calm. The book’s interior is deep, dark, forlorn, and afraid; its exterior is cool, distant, and grey—perfectly reflecting the city in which it is set. It draws its readers into a state of calm before unloading an almost unbearable emotional weight on us. Cleanness is not an easy book to enjoy; it is a paradox of style and substance. But it is, nonetheless, a small masterpiece ... With incredible frequency, Cleanness behaves less like a story being told and more like a four-dimensional experience that we are thrown into and must live through. By the end, though there is little catharsis, we have nonetheless survived, and we should feel glad for it ... Cleanness is not a novel that could be called lyrical or even beautiful. Like Sofia itself, it is brutalist and cold, but filled with intense emotion and artistry. There is so much disquiet fuelling our protagonist and his story, and we feel every moment of it. There’s love here, though it is often felt from afar; while the fear and the trepidation—the rare moments of confident assertion—these are all felt with assuredness and complete gravity. Though our protagonist is often at war with himself and holds himself back from the world around him, living with him is a theatrical and exhausting experience, and one that forces a greater engagement between reader and character than most literature could possibly hope to achieve. In short, Cleanness is a masterpiece of characterisation and storytelling.
