a man called ove, by fredrik backman
humour, friendship | teen audiences | 5 stars

*smol spoilers ahead*
tw: mention/depiction of depression and suicide

ove is the grumpy old man that will make you love him after he firsts tries to make you really fucking hate him.

he’s a curmudgeon, he’s bitter (supposedly), he’s the neighbour from hell. he’s got principles, he dislikes a lot of things and he generally seems pretty damn unlikeable.

but when a young couple with two young kids move in next door and flatten ove’s mailbox in the process, the story that follows uncovers his deep sadness and tragedy and why he’s so bitter. and somehow, his tough, bitter facade chips down and falls apart and you’ll love him in the end.

this book will make you laugh and cry and wonder about the people in your own life and what’s their story.

ove is rigid, he has trouble understanding people who are different than him (and that makes most people), but slowly, he tries to do better over the course of the book and that’s what makes the story so valuable. it shows how community can have a profound impact on someone. how people can change. how, sometimes, having a difficult life means, yes, you are a difficult person, but then you learn that can’t be your excuse to be a shitty person, and i can definitely appreciate that.

the novel also shows you life in sweden, and how immigration influences it and how it also brings in new life and new dynamic and it can be confusing but it can also result in beautiful things, like friendship and appreciation of one another and make the community a better one.

it’s sometimes a tough read because it also deals with dark subject matters like depression and loneliness, and how ove can only see one way out of it after he loses his wife and then his job, and how debilitating loneliness and depression that follows it can be debilitating for elderly people without families or partners, or whose partners passed away (which then also has grief to accompany everything else). ove’s first suicide attempt is interrupted by his new neighbour, a very pregnant iranian woman named parvaneh who is also very blunt, and her husband, and the two of them and their own family in a series of humorous encounters with ove manage to make him “sufficiently angry to hold his attention”. what unfolds is a loving story of budding friendship and, i might even say found family for ove.

you might feel a bit whiplashed because even dark themes are interspersed with humour, but i found that it makes for easy, binge-worthy reading and i couldn’t put the book down.

backman is also really good at characterisation and all the characters feel so real you can touch them and see them come alive.