Review: A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman

A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman

While the opening chapter left me thinking "Oh here comes another NYT best-seller", I will admit that in short order I was swept up by the prose and the gently unfolding story. I whisked through the tale, delighting to see what was next for Ove in a life that had apparently met an end, and how he reluctantly improved the lives of so many others just by being a fundamentally decent person. The non-linear chapters flowed naturally which is a challenging accomplishment, and we learn just enough at just the right times to keep us interested for more and feeling like we are getting constant additional pieces of an interesting puzzle.

There are other books by this same author which I'll want to check out, though it will be a challenge for any others to resonate quite the way this one did. Ove the principled, disgruntled old dude in a world that he really has no patience for, hoping to be as little unlike his father as he can, is a wonderful and surprisingly sympathetic character that I highly recommend you meet.