I wanted to love this book, but I didn't. It turned out to be just an "ok" read for me. Perhaps I shouldn't have gone directly into reading it right after finishing "A Man Called Ove", because that one was a 5-star read for me, and I don't hand out that kind of praise lightly.
I struggled to connect with Britt-Marie right from the beginning of the story. While I could certainly understand how she may have developed her many odd behaviors, that didn't make it any easier to like her. I did enjoy seeing how she learned to interact with the very quirky characters in the town of Borg, and how she grew personally as a result.
I did not like the push/pull relationships between Sven, Britt-Marie, and Kent. I began to feel like I had whiplash with due to all of the mood swings and missed opportunities there.
I was also rather disappointed with how some of the threads within the story were simply left dangling. I don't expect for every single part of a novel to be tied into a pretty little bow by the end, but I grew increasingly annoyed with Britt-Marie's indecisiveness during the last quarter of the novel.
There were some very predictable events that happened, and then the story just fizzled. The last few sentences of the book simply drop readers off at an indeterminate place somewhere within the story and abandon them. I had to go back and double check to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I hadn't.
So- some good parts, some disappointments. Will it put me off of reading Backman's other books? No. I just don't think any of them will top Ove.
I struggled to connect with Britt-Marie right from the beginning of the story. While I could certainly understand how she may have developed her many odd behaviors, that didn't make it any easier to like her. I did enjoy seeing how she learned to interact with the very quirky characters in the town of Borg, and how she grew personally as a result.
I did not like the push/pull relationships between Sven, Britt-Marie, and Kent. I began to feel like I had whiplash with due to all of the mood swings and missed opportunities there.
I was also rather disappointed with how some of the threads within the story were simply left dangling. I don't expect for every single part of a novel to be tied into a pretty little bow by the end, but I grew increasingly annoyed with Britt-Marie's indecisiveness during the last quarter of the novel.
There were some very predictable events that happened, and then the story just fizzled. The last few sentences of the book simply drop readers off at an indeterminate place somewhere within the story and abandon them. I had to go back and double check to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I hadn't.
So- some good parts, some disappointments. Will it put me off of reading Backman's other books? No. I just don't think any of them will top Ove.
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