J-Dub’s Take On A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

I am reading A Man Called Ove (pronounced oo-va) for book club.  I’ve only one week to finish so I am basically skimming to get through.  But that’s ok because the name of our book club is Schaefer’s Skimmers and Sippers.  It is the public library so we do not sip wine but tea or coffee or even water fill the bill.  Rule breakers that we are to have drinks and snacks in the stacks.

The book is really good.  Despite the dark themes of placing an anchor for the rope in the living room ceiling or the piping that lay on the floor of the garage.  Then there is the loss of his beloved wife.  The only person on the planet who understood him.  Ove is such a sympathetic character.  I may try a more leisurely pace on a second read as the book is loaned to me until April 8th.

Some of my favorite quotes follow:

“He’d never understood the need to go around stewing on why things turned out the way they did.  You are what you are and you do what you do.”

“They never had much, but they always had enough.”

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white.  But she was color.  All the color he had.”

“He never understood why she chose him.  She loved only abstract things like music and books and strange words.  Ove was a man entirely filled with tangible things.”

A solid 4 out of 5 stars.  Recommended reading or watching since the book became a movie.

As always, more to come.