A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove. Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy–as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the … Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.
When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.more
A wonderful story of the life of precocious Elsa and her incredible friendship with her grandmother. Through her own personal tragedy, she comes to learn more about her mother, grandmother and all of those around her. Delightfully written.
Amazing!
A wonderful book hard to categorize spoke to me on multiple levels.
Not a run of the mill expectation. Very intricate detailing of characters and life in motion. True story of growth and learning how life really is. Loved it. A book that will remain in your memory long after you’ve turned the last page
Great characters that you really care for
Read anything you can by Fredrick Blackman. Now.
Great boo, great author. I need more
I wish that every adult who works with children would read this book, if only for the line “being different is your super power”.
There is always more to a person’s story than meets the eye. Loved this book about exactly that AND the wonderful relationship between an eccentric grandmother and her young granddaughter and the people who lived around them.
I really enjoyed this novel. It’s very different, well written, and captivating. Definitely worth reading.
Loved this book! Beautiful way to show interconnectedness of the characters.
Absolutely love this story! It is so well written and unpredictable. I fell in love with the characters and could not put the book down. I haven’t read a story like this before, it is a definite original!
A wonderful story of a precocious seven year-old, her free-spirited granny, and a flat full of interesting characters. Seven-year-old Elsa is wise, way beyond her years. She and her Granny have a made-up language and an entire world of fantasy to share – the land of Almost Awake. I loved the characters in this story, every one is unique and interesting. Granny and Elsa’s fairy tale world is rich and imaginative as well. However, the first half of the novel is roughly 90% narration. There is little dialog, and although the narration is wonderfully written, it’s still narration. It took me a while to figure out, why this story with excellent characters, and an interesting plot, with much to discover was dragging. When I stepped back I realized it was from the amount of narration. I want author Backman to pull me into land of Almost Awake and Elsa’s reality, show me how the characters are experiencing the tension and let me hear them interact. Instead, I get to hear it through lots of narration. Here is the crazy thing, Backman still somehow mostly pulls it off – he largely keep me engaged – with almost all narration. His vocabulary is vast and he keeps up the tension through-out. The final third of the book, picks up, as we get more dialog and more direct action.
So, I rated this story at four stars, largely, because it’s difficult to get engaged early on, and we don’t connect with the characters near as much as we could. But, even with this challenge, I still really liked this book. It’s unpredictable and it’s full of wisdom (some from a 77 year old, some from a 7 year old). I love how a seemly unrelated group of characters are woven together just as deftly as the Land of Almost Awake is woven into the reality of Granny’s past.
Definitely worth the read, and Backman has substantial talent. But I still finished this book with a bitter taste in my mouth, because, I believe this very entertaining book, could of been absolutely fantastic memorable classic if we had been pulled into the story earlier with more dialog and direct action.
Good book
I am a grandmother. The title caught my eye. Unexpected lesson in multi-generational Family Impact.
This is actually one of my favourite-est books of ALL. TIME. The writing is phenomenal. Elsa, though she’s only seven, is so relatable (especially to Harry Potter fans). For her, real life is entwined in the stories Granny tells her. And Granny– Granny makes you wish you could know her in real life. Each and every character is developed so well: each of them, their personalities, their backstories, are ingrained in the mystery that is Granny. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed and cried while reading as much as I always do with this one. This is a must read.
(Fun fact: this was on my summer reading list for school and I almost fell out of my chair when I heard.)