Pamela Jensen
A delightful book that keeps you guessing and reminds you that things aren't always as they appear. A sweet walk through a lovely series of relationships with a poignant reminder to not judge others by what we hear from other people, but only to build our thoughts from our own personal experience.
1 person found this review helpful
Deborah Craytor
Last year, I discovered the Best Translated Book Award, and since then, I have been reading a lot of fiction in translation. I'm so thankful that this path led me to Fredrik Backman's My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, originally written in Swedish but scheduled for release in English in the United States next week. I loved this book! On the surface, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry is about "almost-eight-year-old" Elsa's quest to deliver a series of apologetic letters to friends of her recently deceased grandmother. Her journey is by turns hilarious and terrifying, and the book is well worth reading for this plot alone. However, Backman uses his story to explore deeper and more rewarding themes: whether a woman can truly balance a demanding career with motherhood without sacrificing one to the other; the special, and often magical, relationship between a grandmother and her grandchild; the perils and rewards of being "different." Both Elsa and Granny are complex and delightful characters; here is Elsa describing herself and Granny: "Other adults describe her as 'very grown-up for her age.' Elsa knows this is just another way of saying 'massively annoying for her age,' because they only tend to say this when she corrects them for mispronouncing 'déjà vu' or not being able to tell the difference between 'me' and 'I' at the end of a sentence. . . . You can tell she’s old because her face looks like newspaper stuffed into wet shoes, but no one ever accuses Granny of being grown-up for her age. 'Perky,' people sometimes say to Elsa’s mum, looking either fairly worried or fairly angry as Mum sighs and asks how much she owes for the damages. While my maternal grandmother was not quite as eccentric as Granny (having never stood naked on her balcony shooting at Jehovah's Witnesses with a paintball gun, for example), she too left a career she loved (in her case, as a professional dancer) to take care of me while my newly-divorced mother worked two jobs to support us. I still recall vividly the day she stopped at the drycleaner after picking me up from school and got so engaged in talking with an acquaintance that her Lincoln Continental (with me inside) rolled backward into a telephone pole before she realized she had forgotten to put it in park. Elsa and Granny would have understood perfectly as they watched us laughing hysterically once she caught up with the car. My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry is that rare book which transports you back to the wonders of childhood, where even the irritating middle-aged neighbor may turn out to be a princess in disguise, while simultaneously urging you to reassess those memories with the wisdom of age. There is something here for every reader. I received a free copy of My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
2 people found this review helpful
Christina Morales
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The first half of this I felt was slow and it took me six or so months to
pick it back up but I am so glad I did. I loved this book. It made me laugh
out loud and sob like a baby. This is a new favorite.
9 people found this review helpful