A Man Called Ove

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

I found this rather unremarkable considering the rave reviews. The characters are not very developed, especially the minor ones, some of whom are quite one-sidedly stereotypical (a “bent” boy, his bigoted father, an overweight neighbor). And Ove keeps wondering why his wife, Sonja, chose to be with him – I'm not at all sure either. They seem to exist in parallel universes.

The narrative flowed along and was pleasant enough to read, but in the end I was not very satisfied. The repeated suicide attempts were not so pleasant and could be triggering for anybody with suicide trauma. They were played for black comedy, which will be a matter of your taste and tolerance.