Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book Three (translated from the Norweigan by Don Barlett).

Book Three of Knausgaard's series is more straightforward, at least in time, than the first two volumes.  It focuses on his years with his parents on the island of Tromoya, from when he was six (he says he can't remember anything before that age) until about twelve.  It concentrates on his parents, his one brother, school, friends, nature, soccer, books, and music.  It captures quite effectively those years, when there is much pleasure but, often, much fear.  Karl Ove is very much afraid of his father and fond of his mother, "all the things mothers do for their sons, she did for us."  About his father he says, "Inside my room there is only one thing I longed for and that was to grow up.  To have total control over my own life.  I hated Dad but I was in his hands.  It was impossible to exact any revenge on him.   Except in the much-acclaimed mind and imagination, there I was able to crush him."

She (Knausgaard is talking about his mother) saved me because if she hadn't been there I would have grown up with Dad, and sooner or later I would have taken my life, one way or another.  But she was there, Dad's darkness had a counterbalance, I am alive and the fact that I do not live my life to the full has nothing to do with the balance of my childhood.  I am alive, I have my own children, and with them I have tried to achieve only one aim:  that they shouldn't be afraid of their father.

Knaugaard's father blames Karl Ove for everything and punishes him accordingly:  he is sent to bed without supper for breaking the television, which he did not do, and for losing a sock at the swimming pool, where he is forbidden to go again. 

Karl Ove falls in (puppy) love with Kajsa and conveys the tenderness and beauty of walking together.
The walk across the field had never been so long as it was this evening.  Holding her hand was almost more than I could bear; all the time I felt an urge to withdraw my hand to bring this unbearable happiness to an end. 
Of course this love comes to an end quickly, as he insists on setting a record for a kiss:  fifteen minutes, beating a friend's record by ten minutes.

The winters are long and dark, the time spent reading The Hardy Boys and Jules Verne (his mother takes him to get a library card and discourages his dependence on comic books) and listening to The Beatles, but Spring returns every year.
Outdoors we do what we always do every Spring:  cut branches off the birch trees, tie bottles onto the remaining stumps, collect them the next day full of light-colored viscous sap, and drink it.  We cut branches off the willow trees and made flutes from the bark.  We picked large bunches of white wood anemones and gave them to our mothers.
Karl Ove returns to soccer, riding his bike, exploring the woods and streams of the island, and flirting with girls, conveying it to his readers in exquisite detail.  He also cries many times during these years and is unafraid to express his emotions, even though he does not fully understand them, then or later.