Apart from that, the surprise was wonderful. A Man Called Ove was one of my all-time favorite books, still is. This book, with a quirky, lovable, eccentric, unique cast of characters; its cheeky sense of humor; social commentary and tongue in cheek approach to the absurdities of 'Society', combined with fairy tales in the Harry Potter zeitgeist, kept me cemented to the plot and pathos of an extraordinary as well as entertaining story, written by a highly talented author. This may not be for everyone but if you loved A Man Called Ove , although a different story , you will find the same humanity here with imperfections, vulnerabilities and triumphs of spirit . This is about a little girl and fairytale but this is definitely a book for grownup kids . The northern European based Nordisk Film acquired the rights for the book for development in May 2018. [3] Audiobook [ edit ] I want someone to remember I existed. I want someone to know I was here.”Grandma's letters turned the building and its inhabitants upside down. Life was changed for all of them. But, dear readers, hang on and try to follow the tedious fairytales which in fact, you will come to realise, are the life stories that in turn explain the problems/issues faced by the different characters in the book... Sorry, I refuse to say more in fear of releasing spoilers!!

The story takes place in Sweden and follows Elsa, a 7 year old who knows she is different from other children her age. She has a habit of correcting others' grammar, is smart for her age, and is especially close with her grandmother (Granny). When Granny passes, Elsa slowly discovers more about her grandmother's past identities, as well as the lives of people affected by her grandmother. Creating fairy tale-metaphors for little Elsa, was her grandmother's way of teaching the hard realities of life in story form to the little girl without friends. Nobody understood this bright child, not even the teachers and headmaster at school, where she was constantly bullied. Her busy parents did not know what was happening to her. And, you know . . . we can tell your mum the scarf got torn when you were trying to stop me climbing the fence to get to the monkeys.” If you loved Ove, you might love shrewd, intelligent, wise, cranky, funny as hell Grandma too. You will recognize the humor and daring thoughts at play.I get what it was going for. And it’s admirable. It’s supposed to be all imagination-y, and isn’t-childhood-cool, and family is important and let’s all love each other and smile.

A Christmas tale has to be written with every pen you own,” Granny used to say. And they have to have happy endings, which is something that Elsa has decided completely on her own." Granny's fairy tales from Miamas was fairly dramatic as a rule. Wars and storms an pursuits and intrigues and stuff, because that was the sort of action stories that Granny liked. Elsa immediately Googles it on Granny’s phone. It takes her a few attempts—Granny’s always been a terrible speller. Meanwhile the policeman explains that they’ve decided to let them go, but Granny will be called in at a later date to explain the burglary and “other aggravations.”There are clear themes here, nominally: the importance of stories; the honesty of children; and the obtuseness of most adults, putting him firmly in league with the likes of Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman. A touching, sometimes funny, often wise portrait of grief. * Kirkus * At the heart of the story is a seven year old girl without friends, an outsider in her school who is loved deeply by her cantankerous , seventy-seven year old grandmother. I was taken by Elsa and her grandmother from the very beginning. It's the story of the beautiful legacy that a grandmother leaves her granddaughter. Granny may seem crazy but she is such a very loving grandmother to Elsa that the things she does while they seem crazy , can be so easily forgiven by the reader once her story unfolds and you see what a good person and really a humanitarian she is . After my first daughter was born... she, too, felt as though she knew her great- grandmother through stories I shared with her. Plus I normally really like reading Scandinavian-translated books (I am the worst) because I like the way it sounds when it’s English-ized. It still holds a nice poetic effect. But I didn’t get that from this? Maybe because the little-girl-main-character speaks English a lot. Dunno. Didn’t like it.

Told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as [OVE] . . . It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different. * Laura's Little Book Blog * For Elsa that is her seventy-seven year old grandmother who regales her with stories that become like a secret communication between them. Her grandmother always comes to defense, is always in her corner, something Elsa desperately needs because she is a little different. This, of course, sets her up for a great deal of bullying at school, and causes her mother a good deal of exasperation at times. The novel suffers from a slow start. There is a fairy tale device that is interweaved into the narrative that never fully grabbed me, and it took me most of the book to buy into it. Other readers I know jumped right into that aspect of the text. To each his own, right? However, the last half of the book I thought was strong narratively, things started to fall into place for me with the fairy tale device, and from that point on I was fully in.

The precocious Elsa is definitely beyond her years but it was hard at times to believe that a 7 year old would be as wise and knowing about people as she was . She's so smart and astute that you sometimes forget she's only seven until we see the insecurities and vulnerabilities of a seven year old dealing with her parents' divorce, confronting grief and death and her anxiety over having a half brother or sister and fear that she won't be loved as much . But one day someone decided she was too old to save lives, even if Elsa quite strongly suspects what they really meant by “too old” was “too crazy.” Granny refers to this person as “Society” and says it’s only because everything has to be so bloody politically correct nowadays that she’s no longer allowed to make incisions in people. And that it was really mainly about Society getting so bleeding fussy about the smoking ban in the operating theaters, and who could work under those sorts of conditions?