Review: A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This review is also found on my Goodreads profile here! :)

I had just spent the majority of my weekend reading the most delightful--and at the same time, heartbreaking--story of a lovable curmudgeon. I consider this book one of my best reads this year. It wasn't at the same level as reading Dark Matter, but Ove's story will stay with me for a lifetime.

I didn't find this book "hysterically funny" as Kirkus considered. I'm not sure if it's because I find it extremely difficult to relate to humorous writing, and so I don't usually gravitate towards funny [or humor-genre] books. Though I still did find myself smiling and chuckling at the funniest moments of the book. More than the humor, the book broke my heart in a hundred different ways. It was a love story between Ove and his wife. It shows how even a physically strong man crumbles in grief. It was a story of unlikely friendship between angry Ove and his jovial neighbors. It was a story of fierce loyalty to a man's principles.

Review: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars


When you read this book, expect to be bemused and derailed on most part. That's what you get from reading at the perspective of the lonely but shrewd little Elsa. The fairy tales fused within the story are often confusing, but so Delphic and lovingly constructed, it makes you want to reflect on life after reading any profound details from them. As the story progressed, it became harder to distinguish which are part of the plot and which are part of her Granny's fairy tales. Nevertheless, I think I would've enjoyed reading this story more at a younger age. And it's really easy to relate to Elsa, seeing as we both love Harry Potter and how as kids, we were both different from our peers.

I was willing to give this book a three-star rating halfway through. Like I said, the book was confusing in almost all aspects. But when I got to the end, everything fell into place, and I can't help but feel so ecstatic and undone by the sheer magic and simplicity of Granny's fairy tales and how they continue to help Elsa cope (hence, three became four). I realized, the fairy tales ARE the story. I can't help it, I'm still a sucker for happy endings. 

Few of my favorite lines:

"Maybe she was disappointed in you because you're so disappointed in yourself."
"The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people left behind want to stop living..."
"...because the people who reach the end of their days must leave others who have to live out their days without them."



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