What people planning to read the latest Fredrik Backman novel Britt-Marie was Here need to know

[Karin]

As I thought, since some of her backstory and her name were so familiar, Britt-Marie is a character in the most brilliant of the Backman novels I've read so far (perhaps because I read it first), My Grandmother Asked me to Tell You She's Sorry.

Sure, you can just pick up and read this book, and its style will be more familiar to those of you Ove fans (it got 4 stars from me, but the other got 5), and you'll do fine. But it answers one of the questions lingering from the end of Grandmother--where did Britt-Marie go?

[Booknblues]

So you need to read MY Grandmother first?

[Amy]

This is so helpful to know! I'm so grateful for this sequence....

[Ladyslott]

You don't need to read My Grandmother first. And my view of the book was quite different than Karin's, as I did not enjoy the book half as much as Ove and Britt Marie.

[Karin]

No, you don't need to read the first one first, but I still like Elsa best. I read it first, though, so wasn't expecting some endearing middle aged or elderly curmudgeon, either.

It's just that people who like Ove, don't seem to appreciate the brilliance of the fairy tale of Grandmother even though there was a very important reason for it and it all made sense in the end.

[Ladyslott]

Karin wrote: "It's just that people who like Ove, don't seem to appreciate the brilliance of the fairy tale of Grandmother .."

Really? That seems a bit of a broad stroke.

[Karin]

Ladyslott wrote: "Karin wrote: "It's just that people who like Ove, don't seem to appreciate the brilliance of the fairy tale of Grandmother .."

Really? That seems a bit of a broad stroke."

Perhaps, but since Elsa was so young, and her grandmother ill for so long, I thought that the Grandmother telling Elsa what she needed to know in the fairy tale worked. Plus I really like Elsa a LOT and have known a few kids that precocious. I thought Backman did a great job of seeing things from Elsa's POVV. I found the book on my library's new book shelf and took it out based on the title, cover and description, not really paying attention to A Man Called Ove. I wonder if because I read it first with no expectations that helped me enjoy it; no other books by him to compare it with, so no need to be disappointed by it being so different than Ove. It took me a long time to get into Ove and like him.