おばあちゃんのごめんねリスト

First, I breaks my heart to rate this 3 stars, but I just can't give it 4. As a preface, I've read the following books by Backman in this order: Anxious People, Beartown, Us Against You - and I've rated them all a solid 5 stars. In fact, I own all his books and the reason why I haven't read The Winners yet is because I'm not quite ready to get my heart broken. I digress. So I chose this book of Backman's to read next. I loved Granny in this book for the most part and she reminded me of my own Grandma. So that made me happy. I liked Elsa but had a hard time wrapping my head around an almost eight year old being as intellectually advanced as she was. Perhaps it would've been more realistic and less stressful to my psyche if she were 10ish. The character development in this book was fantastic. However, I was aware of Brit-Marie's future considering she has her own book, but I still didn't care for her until, like Elsa, the ending. The way the characters all came together was unique, in a sort of gut-wretching yet hilarious way that only Backman can deliver. The reason why I didn't give this book the 4 stars that it may have very well deserved was that frankly, I was consistently bored. The fairytale parts weren't intriguing, albeit an integral part of the story. That being said, the last 40ish pages were phenomenal and of course, a tear-jerker.Overall, do I recommend this book? Absolutely.

The first time I tried reading this book I DNF'd it, maybe it wasn't the right time to pick it up. This time, the story was completely different. I laughed, giggled, cried, cried harder, devoured the last hundred pages, kept crying even harder.I loved the characters, their back stories, their personalities, and how one is putting everything in order with each letter. I wish everyone visits, or try to visit, the Land-Of-Almost-Awake at least once, and see y'all in Miamas telling stories for ten thousand eternities of fairy tales.

incredibly charming so many good quotes 5 stars because as Granny would say; "whoever disagrees needs their head examined." :⁠,⁠-⁠)