Magma

Lilja, the hapless and hopeful heroine of poet Hjorleifsdottir’s unsettling English-language debut, shares her passions and vulnerabilities with an achingly plausible mix of verve and bluntness. In Reykjavík, Lilja, 20, is blindly devoted to her first serious boyfriend and fails to register the ways he takes her for granted while continuing to see other women. The short, blithely titled chapters read like diary entries and land like snapshots of a young woman stumbling her way into adulthood. (The extent of “Willpower I” reads, “He called, left a message, but I was a Teflon woman—everything slid off me.”) But things soon take a darker turn as Lilja chillingly unfolds an account of a date rape that occurred three years earlier with the same matter-of-fact precision as her thoughts on smoking and descriptions of awkward evenings out. As the boyfriend continues to treat her with indifference, she begins cutting herself. Eventually, the couple move in together, and Lilja cautiously allows herself to feel hopeful for the future. Throughout, Hjorleifsdottir’s fresh prose disturbingly evokes the young woman’s unmoored state. The burnished micro-chapters form a narrative necklace of gems. (July)