Annika Rose

by Cheri Johnson

Ancient and contemporary myths—including both Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby—overlay a coming-of-age story set in remote northern Minnesota.

Seventeen-year-old Annika Rose and her father Wes have spent the years since the death of Annika’s mother in self-imposed social isolation on their farm on the edge of the woods. When a young woman named Tina moves into a house down the road, the result is a sudden explosion of feelings in both father and daughter and a fierce rivalry. At stake in the competition is not only their relationship, but the life of the vulnerable young woman at the center of it all.

Advance Praise:

“Part coming-of-age story, part ode to the landscape of northern Minnesota, this is also a horror story that reflects the larger horror of adolescence, of a girl’s fight for integrity in the face of demolished innocence. How could we forget Annika after we meet her? Her character is seared upon my brain. She is reminiscent of other stubborn, opinionated characters who struggle in the limbo between childhood and adulthood: Huckleberry Finn, Laura Ingalls, and Scout Finch.”—Amanda Coplin, author of The Orchardist

“Cheri Johnson’s novel Annika Rose is a marvel of invention whose always knowing prose, alternately heartbreaking and hilarious, simultaneously glimmers and cuts. A magician with character, Johnson’s most artful alchemy comes in her protagonist Annika, who, if there is a meritocracy, will become as memorable a first name in literature as Holden or Huckleberry as teenagers choked and befuddled by angst, adventure, and an ever-encroaching and frightening very real world. Annika—an eighteen-year-old post-modern Laura Ingalls inhabiting a little trailer on the prairie—is a breathing contradiction, both an old soul and a doe-innocent naif. Yet her battle—to speak when uncomfortable truths finally outweigh convenient myths—is as ageless as both life and death.”—Neal Karlen, author of This Thing Called Life: Prince’s Odyssey On + Off the Record

"Annika Rose is a coming-of-age story unlike any you’ve ever read. This novel peels back the skin of the genre’s tropes to reveal all of the sticky weirdness that exists beneath. Annika Rose’s narrative is a journey into deep psychic wildness where love, desire, envy, power, and violence collapse into one another. We open with what presents initially as a love triangle, but quickly reveals itself to be the face of a much more complex and multidimensional geometry of desire. The setting, at the edge of farm country in the age of supermarkets, is more than a backdrop. The creatures and hazards of the deep woods the characters still roam serve as an insistent reminder of the feral impulses powering our rational minds. Annika Rose is also a page-turner and compulsively readable, its sentences at turns as restrained and untamed as the country it describes." —Melanie Conroy-Goldman, author of The Likely World

Unknown Binding

Published May 21, 2024

About the author

Raised in Lake of the Woods County in northern Minnesota, Cheri Johnson has won grants and residencies from organizations such as the McKnight Foundation, the Bush Foundation, Yaddo, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She studied writing at the University of Minnesota, Hollins University, and Augsburg University. Her chapbook of poems, Fun & Games, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2009 and she’s written two series of nonfiction books for young readers for Full Tilt Press. Crocus Hill: A Ghost Story, a literary performance project she created with the composer Julie Johnson, the filmmaker D.J. Mendel, and the new-music ensemble Zeitgeist, was supported by the Knight Foundation. She’s published fiction and other work in magazines such as Pleiades, Glimmer Train Stories, Puerto del Sol, and New South, and her novel The Girl in Duluth, which she published under the name Sigrid Brown, won a 2023 Midwest Book Award. Her novel Annika Rose won the 2022 Women’s Prose Prize from Red Hen Press and will be published in May 2024. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she critiques manuscripts as an editor at the Loft Literary Center and writes about books and the performing arts on Instagram @CheriJohnsonArt.

Reviews

[Keri · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are all kinds of interesting, authentic, dark things happening in this novel. It’s very compelling!

[Brittany Moss · Rating 1 out of 5]

Annika Rose is a coming-of-age, contemporary psychological fiction. The story centers around Annika, an 18 year old who recently graduated, and her life on the edge of the wilderness in Minnesota. Annika and her father live alone in near total social isolation after the death of her mother. When a new young couple move into the property nearby, Annika and her dad both become nearly obsessed with them. There are several characters throughout the book, each with unique personalities and motivations. The book has an eerie, dark vibe and you understand almost immediately that some really unfortunate things happen in this town.

At first, I thought this book would go into more of a paranormal psycho thriller direction but that was not the case. I did feel the author did a wonderful job with the descriptive scenery. Unfortunately, however, the story itself and the plot were also incredibly slow and delivered in such a way that I was uninterested the entire book. At 15% in, I had to put it down for a few months because I just couldn't get into it at all. The story seemed all over the place, jumping from seemingly important conversations or situations to more in-depth descriptions of the scenery. Even after coming back, I had to force myself to finish it. I never developed an emotional attachment to Annika or any other characters, except disdain for the protagonists.

I understand this was a coming-of-age story and I would have been able to give higher ratings, even with the painstakingly slow and uneventful first half of the book, if there had been some kind of development for the characters or conclusion to the story. At the end, if felt just like the ending of another chapter - not the ending to the story. Personally, I did not feel Annika grew or matured at all throughout the book. She seemed just as confused and conflicted by the end as she did in the beginning, if a little less innocent to the ways of the world.

If you take out all the setting descriptions and unimportant conversations/facts, you would be left with a very short novella. I think the entire "plot" of this book could be described in less than 20 pages. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy my time while reading even though I really pushed myself and tried to.

[Marie Zhuikov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cheri Johnson's book births a new genre: northern Minnesota noir. Set in rural Lake of the Woods, it explores almost-adult Annika's struggles with her anti-social, widowed father and the disruption caused when new neighbors move in nearby: Tina -- a voluptuous mystery woman who everyone wants-- and her newlywed husband Jesse, an up-and-coming fiddler from Iowa. Creepy, rustic, harsh, and surprising, this eerie story will haunt readers long after they close the back cover.

[Cathy Geha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Annika Rose by Cheri Johnson

This is a book that has mixed reviews. Some are glowing and others much less so. The prose is well done and the dialogue easy to follow. I began reading and two young women meet on a country road. One lives with her father and is out for a walk and the other has just moved into the cabin next door. They talk, tour the cabin, and Annika worries but admires Tina while thinking about drawings she has made. I was underwhelmed so read the end, as I sometimes do, to see if I wanted to continue reading based on the conclusion of the story. I wasn’t sure but still uncommitted so went to the middle and read a bit more here and there and found that there were characters that seemed charming in spots while also feeling rather dangerous. There was a dark vibe throughout and a feeling that left me thinking that this is probably a book for someone younger than I am who might be drawn in and be able to make more sense of it. So, did I read the entire book word for word? No Will I return to it? Probably not because I could not relate to the characters and their story did not draw me in. Would I read this author again? It would depend on the synopsis and if it was of interest.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Red Hen Press for the ARC – This is my honest review

2-3 Stars

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to describe the feeling one gets when launching into a new book and suddenly finding the setting to be fully one's own. To read the descriptions of the bogs and the bugs and the smoked fish and navigating Rainy River and Lake of the Woods and pick-uping to Baudette and Warroad and Williams....it's an other-worldly feeling that one only shares with other natives of the Rainy River landscape. I shared so many of the same places from this book with my dad.....but my dad and my memories were wonderful and heartwarming (except for the bugs). It made me sad to have my magical place tainted by all the sicko characters in this book, I must say, but I guess one needs to have a more exciting story line than what I would have created in order to sell books. Maybe write a mystical dreamy and exotic Rainy River saga for me, Cheri?

[Sari Fordham · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this book and it is fantastic! Annika Rose is such a wonderful and real character and the setting of Northern Minnesota will crawl into your body in the best possible way.

I want to particularly recommend this novel for fans of Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto by Maile Chapman. They're both brilliant novels that are so original that they just hang out with you for years.

[Michael Mallory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cheri Johnson has an eye for detail and a heart for subtle and deep emotions. She paints word pictures. Annika Rose shows her love for the Northwoods in a story that keeps you wondering how it will end with a young protagonist who finds herself with enticing new neighbors that crash-land into her familiar, predictable world. Johnson’s vivid prose takes you by the hand and pulls you tenderly along on Annika's journey.

[Kimberly Tierney · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started strong with an odd story that was engaging. However, by the halfway point, it was getting weirder and going downhill with each page turn. I found myself avoiding it so much that I had to walk away.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning book that transformed my brain as I read it. Atmospheric, moody, vividly written— just so gorgeous. I will be reading it again and again.

[Kylie Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 | writing was great but plot kinda made no sense