Integrity

Integrity
Anna Borgeryd
Translator from Swedish: Cindy Kite
New Internationalist
Oxford, U.K.
ISBN: 978-1-78026-235-2
2016 English
2013 Swedish
$16.95
512 pages

'You have to want to change. And that doesn't have anything to do with me. Nobody else can change you-it's something you have to want to change."
Peter has a problem.  A truthful impression about him is, "Good-for-nothing without direction and 'a bit of a reputation,'" perfectly describes him.  He is spending part of his summer teaching a beginning economics class since his father will not give him money unless he is working at his father's office doing currency hedging.  This seems like the perfect temporary solution to avoid his a domineering parent.
He is not focused on school, enjoys partying, women, as long as he can stay in his father's good graces.
Peter's favorite book is The Game educating the nerdy male about females.   Getting the girl drinking is part of the book's first step towards success.
Vera, at the age of thirty, is returning to Sweden after volunteering her services and skills as a nurse in Columbia. Unfortunately, she returns to her home with a knee injury causing her tremendous pain and difficulty in walking.
From her experiences, she now views the world slightly differently and realizes the importance of economics in health care.  Does your health insurance determine your level of care?   Does economics determine your personal health care everywhere in the world?  Vera's perspective globally connects the two as she now pursues university classes in this new field.
Vera has Peter as one of her first instructors, pushing, questioning, and challenging the basics.   With his inexperience he resents her smudged glasses, clumsiness and overall grayness of her appearance.  However there is something attracting him to this odd elf-like creature?   This is not Peter's usual type of woman.  He prefers more flash and color.
Integrity is phenomenal with taking an event, being with either Peter or Vera and understanding their prejudices and logical decisions. Depending on the sounds and limited visual witnessing, frequently conclusions lead to erroneous conclusions.   Do all of us tend to do the same thing?
One aspect of the book is the discussion about the indigenous Kogi people living on Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria in northern Columbia which happens to be the world's largest coastal mountain contains all the climates of the world in a few thousand square kilometers.  These people who live as the time before Christopher Columbus is their isolated agricultural village always moving upwards as more people inhabit aged the area.
Integrity educates the reader into the realistic world of economics throughout the story that is completely enthralling.  By including the financial managers who are irresponsible but exude arrogance along with an access of ambition, our global situation is approaching a critical impass incorporating poverty, welfare, disease, women's inequality, climate change and prejudice while intermixing romance.  This is masterful from both the author and translator to so smoothly incorporate into the story.
This is a phenomenal novel intertwining numerous subjects into a wonderful journey for all adult readers.