A Man Called Ove

by Fredrik Backman

She believed in destiny. That all the roads you walk in life, in one way or another, “lead to what has been predetermined for you.”

“Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say,” said Ove.

But if anyone had asked, he would have told them that he never lived before he met her. And not after either.

“They say the best men are born out of their faults and that they often improve later on, more than if they’d never done anything wrong,” she’d said gently.

People had always said that Ove was “bitter.” But he wasn’t bloody bitter. He just didn’t go around grinning the whole time.

Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound.