It's unlikely that Pintaremontti is ever translated to English. That's too bad. It turns modern worries - finding a presentable partner, finding happiness and finding the right baby clothes - into Greek comedy. Miika Nousiainen is a well established Finnish author, journalist and TV personality. Pintaremontti - the title is perhaps best explained as "some surface renovations" - is much more fluid and natural than a previous work from him that I read years ago. It's genuinely funny, observant and a great guide to relationships in a world, where the pressure to conform is stronger than ever.
Sami has been looking for a partner, one that's ready to have a family and settle down, without much luck. He's the archetypal young male: indecisive, non-committal, yet harbours high hopes that one person could lift him up. When he sees his girlfriend get on a motorcycle with another man, he takes his frustration out on a row of well-kept Harley-Davidsons. Though it turns out that the man on the motorcycle was his girlfriend's brother, the owners of the Harleys are not as docile. It's all farcical, and just the beginning of a fun, light-hearted journey, and Nousiainen never lets up on the jokes.
The descriptions of family life are especially well conceived. You can tell from the details that Nousiainen has kids of his own; he compares different brands of toddler clothes and understands how some brands confer status in downtown parks. Dress your kid in Polarn O. Pyret if you want them to look well off but not luxurious, Reima if you think every piece of clothing needs to have a waterproof Gore-Tex layer or Gugguu for the homemade hipster look. I've been to a few of these stores and I know that Nousiainen knows his material. There's even a bit about how the shoe straps on Reima are superior to anything else on offer, which captures the level of vanity nicely.
Another prominent theme is the struggle to keep up appearances. All of the main characters do this on some level. A popular blogger fakes a happy marriage and joyful children. Her blog, the eponymous Pintaremontti, is a catalogue of eat-pray-love cliches and absurd wishful thinking. In the blog, which perhaps reflects better the internalized pressures of its writer than the real world, her children never eat added sugar, her husband doesn't cheat and a yoga play date has 7 year olds learning about mindfulness. You can guess how this differs from reality. Like any good farce, Pintaremontti forces us to face our real world fears by amplifying them and pushing them to their limits.