Reviews - Ένας άνθρωπος που τον έλεγαν Οβ

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Ένας άνθρωπος που τον έλεγαν Οβ

Fredrik Backman

4.39 AVERAGE

sanla's review against another edition

5.0

emotional funny hopeful 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

debated a 4.5, but honestly, that would be a disservice to the sheer volume of tears this novel wrung out of me. my face was basically a public fountain by the end. this book left me alone, contemplating life, time, age, and the strange ways we both resist and stumble into love.

ove himself is such a paradox. cantankerous, rigid, convinced the world is going to hell because no one knows how to reverse a trailer properly. he’s the cranky neighbor you’d avoid at all costs … until you realize that behind every sharp corner of his personality is grief, loneliness, and a love story so devastatingly beautiful that it cracked me open. ove without sonja is like a house with the lights turned off: the structure is still there, but the warmth is gone.

what makes this novel brilliant isn’t just the sadness. it’s the humor threaded through it. ove threatening to kill himself only to be interrupted by a pregnant neighbor, a broken radiator, or a cat with more personality than half the human cast. it’s absurd, it’s tender, it’s deeply human. backman never lets the tragedy consume the comedy, or vice versa. instead, he balances them like weights on a scale, and the effect is devastatingly good.

thematically, it’s about grief, yes, but also about community. about how other people—messy, loud, irritating people—sneak into your solitude and remind you that life is unbearable and beautiful at the same time. ove doesn’t just live again; he is lived through by the people who insist on loving him, despite his best attempts to shove them away.

backman’s prose is deceptively simple, almost conversational, but every line lands with emotional precision. this isn’t purple prose. no, it’s surgical prose, cutting exactly where it hurts most.

a man called ove is about the terrifying ordinariness of love. about how it can shape a man so completely that when it’s gone, he becomes nothing more than a shadow. and yet, somehow, he finds his way back to the light — through neighbors, through friendship, through the stubborn insistence of others that he matters.

i closed this book gently, like it was fragile, like it might bruise if i moved too quickly. and i sat there, hollow and raw, but also oddly uplifted. because to love, even when it’s ripped from you, is still the most human thing of all.

5 stars. because ove deserves nothing less. because backman deserves nothing less. and because my heart will never recover anyway.

mustangmoe's review against another edition

5.0

All the feels!! I’m not bawling, you’re bawling! I thought I wasn’t going to like this at first. Ove is very hard to like and understand. Honestly I don’t know why the new neighbors put up with him.
I listened to this one and enjoyed the narrator very much. However, he didn’t sound like a grumpy old man. But still, loved this book!