thecosymoose 's review for:

The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

4.5

dark emotional lighthearted mysterious reflective medium-paced

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

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On the surface, it's a really funny heist story, as a group of pensioners break out of their retirement home and stage an audacious art theft from the nearby museum, which leaves the police baffled. 

It does, however, ask a lot of questions about social care for the elderly. They decide to break out and stage a heist because they feel they'd get better treatment and food in prison. Their care home is run by a private company who put business and profit over the care of their charges - a situation that has not changed in real life since the book was written in 2012, a situation that pushes the delinquent pensioners to take extreme action. It's also a comment on the invisibility we gain as we age - the pensioners are not seen as serious suspects. No one can believe old people would behave this way so are immediately discounted. 

For the pensioners that refuse to sit in a home locked away and rotting, the adventure unlocks a new lease of life for them. While some are timid in the beginning, each finds their own confidence and fun in their new criminal enterprise.