Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - A Man Called Ove

I was hoping this would be a five star book for me based on reviews I’ve read but alas, it’s only a 3. I was really enjoying it at first but it started to become very repetitive and quite frankly, Ove kinda sucks. He has some good qualities! He’s saved lives! He does eventually help his neighbors! But he comes across less like a grumpy old badger who just is lonely and more like an outright bigot. He’s super misogynistic (and never really changes that). He’s racist (and never really changes that). He lets a gay man stay with him after he’s been kicked out of his home which is lovely! But he refers to him as (I’m presuming based off of Pervana’s reaction to the phrase) a slur 80% of the time. And I think the most annoying is that he is (but also quite frankly the author is too) WILDLY fatphobic. Like disgustingly so. And Backman himself also seems SUPER fatphobic as he can’t write about Jimmy at all without calling him a slob, talking about whether or not his clothes fit, constantly making him pester everyone about food, etc. It’s gross. I do like the overall message and there are moments that are sweet here but even in flashbacks to life with his beloved wife, Sonja, I can’t help but wonder why she stayed with a man who belittled her pretty frequently and also was just so nasty to others. His hatred of bureaucrats makes sense! His racism, sexism, and other casual bigotry really does not. None of that factors into his backstory and I feel like it’s odd that the author made certain qualities of Ove so repugnant when he could have just been a crotchety old man and loner who thinks everyone else is incompetent. The story would have been just as impactful. It all ties itself up by the end with a neat little bow but there are portions of this that are genuinely draining to get through.

Content Warnings

paperbackvacation's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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

5.0

Content Warnings

jkononova's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful 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

4.5

Man, I don't have much to say about this book, other than I just really loved it.

Rare is a book that makes me both laugh and cry, and A Man Called Ove succeeded at both (often and semi-frequently, respectively). I started reading it because I wanted to occupy myself with something light and heartwarming as a break from my heavy courseload this quarter in university, and all the sci-fi and nonfiction and such that were already in progress were not cutting it. I'll say that the plot definitely isn't a "live, laugh, love" brand of wholesome; Backman doesn't shy away from getting into some of the darker parts of life that damage us, be it the misfortunes that bring surface-level cracks or the trauma that shatters us in our entirety. He doesn't lean into the overly saccharine, so every bit of the characters' growth throughout the course of the story and eventual happiness in the closing chapters feels real and earned. (I will say that the epilogue started feeling a little too good to be true at some points, in my opinion. but I was so overwhelmed with emotion at that point to care about "gritty realism" or whatever.)

(As an aside, I'm really curious as to how this book reads in its original Swedish. The language in translated books always feels a bit simple and canned to me, which works great with the lighthearted tone in this case, but I can't help but wonder what the original contains without all the workarounds in regard to slang, politics, etc that they had to include for English speakers. Though I guess I won't know unless I learn to read Swedish fluently, aka never, lol.)

All in all, I'd really recommend to anyone who feels drawn in by the premise!

Content Warnings

reuben_books's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing 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

4.5

I feel emotionally wrecked after finishing this. I'm pretty sure I was crying solidly for the last 50 or so pages.

This is my first time reading Fredrik Backman, and I definitely understand the hype. It was such a real and heartfelt book which I think could bring just about anyone both comfort and emotional turmoil.

There are two reasons I haven't given this book 5 stars. If it weren't for these things, it would definitely be a 5. These are:

- Some pretty blatant fat-shaming/fatphobia. I would understand if this was just in Ove's point of view, as it is in his nature to be offensive about pretty much everything. However, this shaming was also in the main narrative voice. Jimmy - the only plus sized character in the book - was pretty much constantly eating, and described as greasy and no end of other fatphobic stereotypes. No other characters were stereotyped as much as him, and it did make me uncomfortable each time he was described.
- The words 'bent' and 'bender' to describe a gay character were used FAR too often, especially by a (as far as I can tell) straight male author. Again, this was in both Ove's voice and the narrative voice. It served a purpose when Ove was using these words in the beginning, but even after Ove was corrected and told not to use them, he still carried on, with seemingly no other repercussions. And the narrative voice just didn't have to use those words AT ALL. I do concede that these words and their true meaning could have been a little lost during the translation of the book, but I still do not like that they were used like this.

I hope that both of these issues are due to this book being written in 2012, and don't prove a problem in Backman's later works.

Content Warnings

More...