Fredrik Backman was my discovery of 2018. As I mentioned earlier, his novel A Man Called Ove was the best fiction book I read that year. That’s why I decided that I definitely needed to read his other books—or at least give them a try, since sometimes an author writes one exceptional work, but the rest don’t live up to it.
Backman’s second novel is intriguing from the title alone—My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. It immediately makes you curious about who this grandmother is and what she’s apologizing for.
The main character of the book is a girl named Elsa, and her grandmother is quite a character. If Ove—the hero of A Man Called Ove—believed that life should be orderly and by the rules, Elsa’s grandmother is the complete opposite. She doesn’t accept any rules or laws, and Elsa adores her for it. Partly because every night in their dreams, they fly off to the magical land of Miamas together. And her grandmother is always on the lookout for adventures. Even her final quest for her granddaughter promises many mysteries and discoveries.
The most interesting thing is that, despite my super positive attitude going in, the first part of the book didn’t flow as smoothly for me as A Man Called Ove did. With Ove, I couldn’t put it down. Here, the rhythm was different, and while the grandmother is a colorful character, there’s just so much fantasy and make-believe that she feeds to her granddaughter.
But then, as soon as Elsa starts solving the first riddles of her grandmother’s task, you begin to realize that the fairy tale is just a lens through which the little girl views the world. The further she progresses in her quest, the less fairy tale remains, and more of life’s harsh truths come into focus. And it doesn’t matter that Elsa herself continues living in that imaginary world—the key is how the reader’s perception of events changes. The magical rhythm of the book’s transformation intensifies with each chapter.
At first, I was grumbling like Ove, thinking that this book wasn’t nearly as good. But by the end, I couldn’t put it down, and my opinion changed completely. It’s clear that this was the author’s intention. He starts by presenting a fantastical world, and then you see how this imagined realm is intricately woven into Elsa’s everyday life. As she completes each hidden task from her grandmother, she learns more about the people around her and about her grandmother herself.
A very strong book, the second in a row from this author. I only slightly lowered my rating because the beginning was misleading for me. I fear many may give up too early, but they definitely shouldn’t.
My rating: 4,75/5
[…] Was Here is exactly that kind of book. It tells the story of one of the characters from the novel My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry. The events of the new novel begin almost immediately after those of the previous one, although […]