Happy Days of the Grump (by Tuomas Kyrö)

I had never heard of Tuomas Kyrö, who is a Finnish writer. I doubt if I would have come across his writing, but I spotted his book ‘Happy Days of the Grump’ at a church  book stall nearly a year ago. The title intrigued me, and as I’ve been trying to read outside my usual preferred genres, I forked out fifty cents to buy it. It sat on my to-read shelf for all this time, and I finally picked it up to read a few days ago.

The narrator - whose name we don’t discover; or if it’s revealed, I don’...