My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman

from goodreads

4 stars

I feel like I haven't been super branchy outy lately in my reading. If I read a book from a series I feel compelled to read the entire series right away (If the books have all been published and I actually liked the first book). This means that I am not getting much done on my to-read list for this year, which is fine. That list is more there for if I am stumped for what to read next. But still, it would be nice to tick off a few. It also means that I am not as far ahead on my book club reading as I would like to be. But, I am sure I'll manage.

Do you get like that with reading. Where you feel you can't read anything else until you read everything by that author or in a series?

Synopsis

Elsa is a 7-year old who is different and much more grown up than you would expect. Her best friend is her free-living grandmother. When her grandmother dies, she leaves Elsa a treasure hunt to figure out and more is revealed about the neighbours around her then Elsa realizes.

My Thoughts

This was such a delightfully fun read. When I loved A Man Called Ove so much I was nervous if I would like this one as much. I really shouldn't have been.

This book had enough happiness, sadness, quirkiness, mystery and lovingness that you couldn't help but love Elsa and her family. You want to envelope Elsa in a big hug and let her know things are going to be just fine and that she has people she can count on.

Sometimes the narrative got a bit lost when things got switched between the imaginary world that Elsa's grandmother created and the real world. You had to work at it to keep things straight, at least I did. And sometimes the imaginary world took over too much, it would have been nice just to get on with the story sometimes.

My other beef was, Elsa was only 7. How is it okay that she was running around by herself so much. I don't consider myself to be a helicopter parent, but there is no way I would be fine with my 7 year-old running around the city streets and being as independent as Elsa was. It just didn't seem realistic to me and kind of bothered me.

Those minor criticisms aside I thought this was a beautiful story of love, loss and forgiveness. You should definitely put this on your to read list. (Please note, I read the British version of this book, it is also known as My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry.)