My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry in Our Shared Shelf

Jun 03, 2019 Cindy rated it it was amazing

Oh my word! I LOVED THIS BOOK. If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would. From the beginning, I was riveted by the multi layer storytelling, the rich characters, the bonds, and the beautiful, strong knight. It was a fairy tale worth reading over and over again, if only to identify certain things sooner. I am still emotionally spent and more than a few tissues were needed. Speechless.

Favorite lines:
"There are many ways of being alone, darling." p.137
"People can turn into idiots if they're alo Oh my word! I LOVED THIS BOOK. If I could give it more than 5 stars, I would. From the beginning, I was riveted by the multi layer storytelling, the rich characters, the bonds, and the beautiful, strong knight. It was a fairy tale worth reading over and over again, if only to identify certain things sooner. I am still emotionally spent and more than a few tissues were needed. Speechless.

Favorite lines:
"There are many ways of being alone, darling." p.137
"People can turn into idiots if they're alone for long enough." p.137
"Your granny traveled around the world saving children's lives, darling. She was a...superhero!...All superheroes have to make sacrifices, darling." p.137
"The mightiest power of death is not that it can make people die, but that it can make the people left behind want to stop living." p. 220 and p. 225 (variation)
"People in the real world always say, when something terrible happens, that the sadness and loss and aching pain of the heart will 'lessen as time passes,' but it isn't true. Sorrow and loss are constant, but if we all had to go through our whole lives carrying them the whole time, we wouldn't be able to stand it. The sadness would paralyze us. So in the end we just pack it into bags and find somewhere to leave it." p. 220
"Granny wasn't a time-optimist, she was a time-atheist, and the only religion she believed in was Do-It-Later-Buddhism." p.231
"Fears don't transform themselves, they just bite and try to scratch your eyes..." p.232
"Because not even fairy tales defeat shadows." p.233
"Don't fight with monsters, for you can become one. If you look into the abyss for long enough, the abyss looks into you." p. 243
"Did she know you wanted to become a policewoman...she's the one who made me want to become one...why...because I was afraid of everything when I was small. And she told me I should do what I was most afraid of. I should laugh at my fears." p. 300
"We want to be loved, Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact." p. 335
"It's complicated being a grown-up sometimes...it's not, like, easy-peasy being a kid either..." p. 335
"I want someone to remember I existed. I want someone to know I was here." p. 336
"You can't die, because I'm here now. And you're my friend. No real friend would just go and die like that, do you understand? Friends don't die on each other." p. 336 SOBFEST!!!
"You've completed your mission, you don't have to protect the castle anymore. Protect Granny now. Protect all the fairy tales!" p. 339 SOBFEST!!!
"They laugh until no one can forget that this is what we leave behind when we go: the laughs." p. 354
"So that's what she does. One day at a time. One dream at a time. And one could say it's right and one could say it's wrong. And probably both would be right. Because life is both complicated and simple." p. 368
"And after that, they're the boy's superheroes. Because all seven-year-olds deserve superheroes." p. 370
...more

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Dec 15, 2017 Brittany rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This book is a little bit too consciously heart-warming to be a truly five-star book, and I just don't care. I haven't cried so hard at a book since I was pregnant and reading Written in My Own Heart's Blood (view spoiler).

After that book, my husband made a rule that while pregnant, or when he's overseas, I'm only to read books about "dragons, and happy dogs running on the beach." This book is a bit about both, bu ...more

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Feb 22, 2017 Etchison rated it liked it · review of another edition

Really a 3.5 - I enjoyed the narrator and I'm a sucker for the precocious child character. Still liked A Man Called Ove more. ...more

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Aug 07, 2018 Samantha rated it it was ok

I could never get past the inconsistent narration. The story is told from the POV of a young girl, which could be interesting, but not for a whole book. Also, the references to Harry Potter felt more like theft from, rather than tribute to Rowling

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