4.5
adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad 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: Yes

You know a book is good when you are crying and it's not even a sad part. I feel like I really know each character on a personal level. I just want to give them all a hug.

2020 reread: I feel the same. It made me cry a second time which is hard to do.
adventurous emotional funny sad 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: Yes

das buch in der Bahn zu lesen war keine sooo gute Idee.
aber das ist okay weils n grandioses Buch war und ich alles daran liebe.
ich war nur nich drauf vorbereitet wie traurig es zwischendurch ist. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional funny inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: N/A
emotional funny hopeful slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes

A little hard to follow at times but very sweet and interesting trip through Elsa's world. 

It took me three starts on this one! And then I loved it--got lost in it. Hooray for Backman and a great translator!

This is the most heart felt, real life interpretation mixed with a child's fairy tale point of view. I laughed and I most definitely cried like I haven't in forever. Elsa captivated my heart and soul. She made me feel her every hurt, frustrated, anger and sorrow moment. You go on an extraordinary journey that will leave you looking at the world in a a new way.

It can't be a complete year without a Fredrik Backman book. It took a while for me to finish this one, and there are reasons. 

First of all, I was close to DNFing this book at so many points. The thought of doing that to Backman was eating me up. This book was difficult for me to get into at first because it started feeling like a children's book and the characters were just coming left, right and center. The fact that I'm used to realism was another factor. But I kept going and the story started grabbing my attention. 

Having a grandmother is like having an army. This is a grandchild’s ultimate privilege: knowing that someone is on your side, always, whatever the details. Even when you are wrong. Especially then, in fact.

In his constant amazing style of writing, Fredrik Backman takes us through the life of almost 8-year-old Elsa, who goes on an adventure trying to deliver letters to people at her grandma's request. We get to see how various characters have been affected by Elsa's grandmother in the past secrets which Elsa wasn't aware of. I didn't know this was the prequel to Britt-Marie Was Here, and I was surprised to find out she was once a ‘terrible’ person. 

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...