Reviews tagging 'Death'

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman

85 reviews

abitofcourage's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Stalking, Domestic abuse, and War

alienexpert's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

An extremely moving novel discussing the complexity of grief and the stories that live on long after. Elsa is such a spunky kid and her wise yet youthful mind cuts through so much sadness.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Grief, Death, and Medical content

Minor: War and Cancer

jackielane's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Animal death, Toxic relationship, and Bullying

sweetandspicy's review against another edition

adventurous funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Abandonment, Death, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Bullying, and Cursing

Minor: Cancer, War, Violence, Stalking, Infidelity, and Kidnapping

A very sweet and relatively light-hearted book. The narrator being a child added a fun adventurous dimension. The last quarter or so is when it really picks up and becomes harder to put down. I would recommend to a friend :)

rhubarbpi3's review against another edition

adventurous funny hopeful lighthearted reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Ok so I started out not enjoying this book, but about 60% of the way through I started really enjoying it. It is written from the perspective of a 8 year old which is interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Alcoholism, and Animal death

anniebg's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Cancer, Violence, War, Blood, Alcoholism, Addiction, Child abuse, Animal death, Death, Physical abuse, and Car accident

passionatereader78's review against another edition

emotional inspiring lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is a great book for dealing with grief.  It's not extremely emotional and it's told from a child's point of view. This little girl learns about who her grandmother was before she was born and about her regrets. I loved all the stories. Well written!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Death of parent, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Stalking

Minor: Car accident, Cursing, and Violence

hayleyressler's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Loved. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death

Minor: War, Drug abuse, and Domestic abuse

jessamo19's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Grief, and Death

Moderate: Violence, Terminal illness, Animal death, Physical abuse, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Infidelity, War, and Alcoholism

james1star's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Read this for my Bookish World Cup (video link: https://youtu.be/hV87o_hJqKI?si=lsQjjW_YXGSWreM-) but if not I’d definitely of DNFd this book.

I don’t think the story or character are anything particularly bad but the writing’s extremely dense and overwritten. We follow soon-to-be-eight year old Elsa via a third person perspective and her relationship with her wacky granny. Their bond is so strong and clearly important for Elsa given an up-and-down family life and bullying in school, he grandmother tells her stories which were nice to start. Not long into the book, we find out granny has cancer and sadly dies but not before instrumenting an adventure for Elsa embark on. Via letters to other characters in the real world, she gets to understand the past lives of her granny and I would say the piecing together of the story was certainly the best part of this book. It was a rewarding reading experience to some extent but… 

…It is just so dense that on the whole I was left very unfulfilled and slightly irritated after finishing this. So much of the book is filled with repetition after repetition of the same messages, names, and in many ways mini plot twists/turns that after a while you do see coming. Backman goes on far too many tangents including mountains of unnecessary detail and storytelling that was okay to start but became extremely monotonous as the book went on. I had a similar issue in reading ‘A Man Called Ove’ but at least in that we were following characters that I cared for (take a moment of appreciation for Sonja) and it wasn’t that bad. But here… ugh I dunno I didn’t find a lot of what occurred all that realistic and I feel the formatting took me out of the story. This could’ve been helped had Backman chose first person POV from Elsa but then again I don’t think he truly grappled with a child’s understanding all that well. 

Overall, this was fine. I liked how things fitted into place but was certainly overwritten. Not the best from Backman. 

Note: no chocolate for dogs! Or much else they give them tbh. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Grief, and Bullying

Minor: Alcohol, Child death, Alcoholism, War, Drug abuse, Cancer, Domestic abuse, and Cursing