A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Rating: ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 8/10
I finished this book in September, but never really felt motivated to write the review until now, because I’m about to finish Obama’s memoir (and by about to finish, I mean I have 300/700 pages left to read), and writing reviews out of order just feels wrong.
A Man Called Ove was a modern twist on the classic feel-good story, cleverly employing the enemy-to-friend trope to keep the reader interested until the end. I must say that this is one of the most main character centric books I’ve ever read. By that I mean most of the other characters see little development – they are largely static, while Ove changes around them. All the subplots basically add supporting evidence to a minor character shift in Ove. But this is not to say that that’s a flaw! People relate to characters the most (duh, what else do people relate to?) and seeing the transformation of a character while simultaneously learning the motivations behind the character’s transformative actions is tremendously satisfying.
As I was reading, I remember thinking “a good author can describe a character in such a way that even though the character’s personality is SO unique and very few people truly share that personality, all readers nevertheless relate to the character and understand such a rationale.” As with palm readers and fortune cookies, a good author knows how to distill a small piece of humanity into an entity, and the reader can then readily take it and insert it into their own context. To say that good authors are potent retroviruses affecting character would be an understatement.
Anyway, in the month of October I was super busy working, and in the month of November I started and promptly failed at NaNoWriMo, and that’s why this blog has seen nothing but tumbleweeds and dust for the past few months. Now that the holiday season is upon us, I hope to write more reviews again and keep you all, whoever you are, updated with the thoughts of a brain cell.
Peter's Life 