A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

If you have not read Fredrik Backman yet, start with A Man Called Ove, follow that up with everything else he has written, and then re-read them all 📚🏃🏾‍♀️

On the surface, it may seem like Ove is just another grumpy old man waving his fists at the rugrats and rule breakers in the neighbourhood. But that’s the problem with first impressions. We don’t see the *medically-diagnosed* big heart within the curmudgeon. We don’t know someone until we know their story and as we read Ove’s story, he becomes someone we wish for in our lives, someone from whom the best compliment would be, “you’re not a complete twit.”

Ove’s story is one of grief and loss but Fredrik Backman laces it with so much heart, light, and the giggles. Snippets of Ove’s life with his wife, Sonja, are basically relationship goals (heart emoji) Two people who deeply understand and love one another even though they are very different people; While Ove “went through his life with his hands shoved firmly in his pockets. She danced.” While Ove “saw the world in black and white,” Sonja “was all colour. All the colour he had.” Just the visual of that says so much. As you see Ove through Sonja’s eyes and really start to understand him, so do the other people who come into his life. And you see the impact this quiet, sad, unassuming, stubborn old man has on an entire neighbourhood.

Ove has a very simple worldview, one that he holds onto with an iron grip, one that he believes in strongly (and sold us on as well!). He believes in

justice and fair play and hard work and a world where right just had to be right.

He believes in doing more and talking less, and in doing things properly. And mostly, in being self-reliant. All these very reasonable beliefs are sprinkled with Ove’s lovely, absurd opinions and thoughts, like feeling

an instinctive scepticism towards all people taller than six feet; the blood can’t quite make it all the way up to the brain.

I mean, aren’t you immediately curious about all his thoughts? We cannot help but love Ove!

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Our favourite quote from the book:

In a tale about grief and loss, Fredrik Backman very simply captures what we fear most about death, losing the ones we love and being left behind 💔 How do we then go on living? We learn from this lovely, funny, heart-rending story about Ove 😍✨