Late Bloomers: Short Stories of People Overachieving Wi… (2025)

Late Bloomers on hieno ja tarkka ajankuva sekä myös iätön katsaus itsensähehittämisuskonnon valheellisuuteen. 5/5

Lukemisesta on jo ehtinyt tovi vierähtää, mutta muistelisin pitäneeni! Hauska pieni kirjanen. Osa tarinoista tuntuu vähän liian övereiltä osoittelevaisuudessaan (että katsokaa nyt näitä hölmöjä suorittajaihmisiä), vaikka samalla ne ovat överiytensä takia just niin osuvia. Tunnistettavia juttuja ja piirteitä esimerkiksi työelämässä. Konsulttiläpät nauratti, koska ne liippasivat vähän liiankin läheltä. Helppoa ja luettavaa englantia, mutta en ikinä osaa enkkutekstejä arvioida jälkikäteen täysillä. Epäilen aina omaa kielipäätäni ja sitä, että ehkä mä en vaan tajunnut kaikkea tässä. Mutta oli tämä niin kiva, että annan joululahjaksi eteenpäin!

Very interesting and intriguing book.
The premise is simple. The book is short and the illustrations very nice and cute.
Something about this still took me by surprise: the stories were very well written. They had a kind of classical quality to them. Something very stylistic. They were also funny, and clever.
Before starting, it felt kind of pretentious that this was all written in English. But when I got going, I understood why: the language was very tight and would maybe not have worked in Finnish.
Very interesting to see what Nieminen is up to next!

3,5 stars, highly dependent on reading moment.

Perhaps one of those cases where simplicity reigns. Simplicity, as in not terribly original, not mind-blowing good, language good but not shuddering. Perhaps it could be read as a thematical choice. Perhaps we can just let it be.

In short, snippets from the overworked/ing, some with more bite than others, stylewise ranging from tame dystopia to deeply emotional to fables.

Thumbs up for illustrations!

Maybe more like 2,5. I wanted to like it, but at sometimes it went a bit overboard and sometimes I felt that the fault was in me. I just didn’t maybe grasp the point in all the stories. I liked the structure though.

This book tries too hard to be quirky and relevant, but you can't really connect to the characters as the whole story is just a mess. The whole plot is so confusing and the ending is the most cliche message.

Possibly a bit too realistic description of what's going on in today's world. A bit more depth and artistic aspects wouldn't have hurt since the assumed target group already knows how the cookie crumbles. It got better towards the end though and I did enjoy that latter part.

Why was I under the impression, that this was a collection of short stories about real people? I was already disappointed, even before starting. I enjoyed these surreal, satirical vignettes, and how they criticized the current need to develop the self constantly, making all aspects of life all about achieving. However, the flow of this book was all off. The editor did a horrendous job of piecing together something coherent. This felt much more like a first draft (at best) than a finished collection. But, regardless, this was still pleasant to read.

Surprising easy to read, hard to forget, awakens tons of thoughts.

Hauskoja ja karmivia tarinoita nykypäivän työ- ja muustakin elämästä, jossa ylisuorittaminen on uusi normaali. Parhaiten jäi mieleen toimistokoira, joka sai potkut koska ei ollut tarpeeksi tehokas.

2,5

The second part & the illustrations I liked. Not sure about the rest, which was well written, but... Did not spark anything in me, really.

It’s one of those- at times, it’s so bad that it’s good.. 😁

Nopsasti junamatkan aikana luettu setti lyhyitä tekstejä, jotka muistuttivat pikemmin hahmotutkielmia kuin ihan tyypillisimpiä(?) novelleja.

Kirja käsitteli tärkeitä aiheita, mutta jäi latteaksi. En ymmärtänyt kaikkia tarinoita ihan kunnolla tai sitten ne ei vaan iskeneet muhun. Kirjan kuvitus ja idea ovat kyllä kauniita.

Tarkkanäköisiä havaintoja ylisuorittamisen kulttuurista, mutta en jotenkin tajunnut pointtia. Satiiriksi kai tämä luetaan, mutta sen huumoriarvo jäi omalla kohdallani vaisuksi. Kuvitus oli kyllä kaunis ja kirjassa oli kohtia, jotka puhutteli kovastikin, mutta sanoisin, että kokonaisuutena jäi vähän lattea "mitä sitten?" -fiilis. Ehkä 2,5 tähteä.

Not a book to read before going to bed because the overachieving people made me even more anxious than I was. Nieminen is a sharp writer and she made me laugh several times but she seems to also be awfully right with her depictions of overachievers.

The illustrations were lovely.