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sarahhough 's review for:
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
by Fredrik Backman
It would take 10,000 eternities to explain how much I loved this book. Mid-way through, I was willing to concede that it is almost as wonderful as Ove and by the end, Elsa and her grandmother had won my heart completely.
The fairytales and grandmother's abhorrent behavior were tough for me to get through at the beginning - I'm not much of a fairy tale person and grandmother seemed like a wholly unlikable person. As the story progresses and you begin to see that the fairy tales are something much more (and thus so was grandmother), the magic of the story really begins.
Fredrik Backman shines at character building and if possible, shines even more at world building. By the end, I felt as though I lived in Elsa's building and could smell the pizza on the Christmas decorations, see the wood shavings in the wardrobe and hear the crunch of the snow. His story telling is simply unmatched. Like with Ove, this is a book that left me confused about whether to laugh or cry more than once (spoiler: this one left me crying more often than Ove) but is suffused with joy and wonder at the human experience even when confronting head on the ugliest things human beings do to each other.
The fairytales and grandmother's abhorrent behavior were tough for me to get through at the beginning - I'm not much of a fairy tale person and grandmother seemed like a wholly unlikable person. As the story progresses and you begin to see that the fairy tales are something much more (and thus so was grandmother), the magic of the story really begins.
Fredrik Backman shines at character building and if possible, shines even more at world building. By the end, I felt as though I lived in Elsa's building and could smell the pizza on the Christmas decorations, see the wood shavings in the wardrobe and hear the crunch of the snow. His story telling is simply unmatched. Like with Ove, this is a book that left me confused about whether to laugh or cry more than once (spoiler: this one left me crying more often than Ove) but is suffused with joy and wonder at the human experience even when confronting head on the ugliest things human beings do to each other.