A Man Called Ove: Fredrik Backman

Do you sometimes love a book so much that you don’t know what to write about it? Because you know that whatever you write will not do justice to the book. Some books come into your life to touch your heart and give a warm hug and without saying A Man called Ove is one such book.

What the book is about?

The book is about a 59-year-old Ove, who is one the grumpiest person you will ever meet. He likes to see things in black and white. He believes there should be a certain order and ideas about how the world should run.

His life has reached a point where Ove doesn’t know how to live anymore, till a chatty couple moved into the neighborhood and an unlikely friendship is formed between them.

My thoughts

“People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was colour, all the colour he had.”

I somehow disagree with it. To me Ove was color, but you will have to look from the eyes of a 3-year-old, Nasanin.

People said Ove was bitter and grumpy.

But I disagree here too. He just had a hard exterior which has formed due to the bitterness and injustice he has received from the world.

“Because a time comes in every man’s life when he decides what sort of man he’s going to be: the kind who lets other people walk all over him, or not.”

This book is one of the most heartwarming reads I have come across in a long time. The beauty of the book is that you will giggle loud in one moment, will be awed in the next, and will be in tears in the next. And the cycle keeps on going. You don’t know whether to cry or to smile.

He never understood why she chose him.

It breaks my heart to think that he considers that he doesn’t deserve Sonja. The love between Ove and Sonja is relationship goals. Sonja understands that men like Ove were simply the man caught in the wrong times. And Ove loves Sonja the way every girl dreams of being loved by any man.

In the end, the doctor tells Parvaneh “His heart is too big” and that’s what summarizes Ove’s character for you. I know that this book will always remain my favorite and it’s going to be one of my top recommendations.

Favorite Quotes

“To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.”

“All people at root are time optimists. We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”

“But sorrow is unreliable in that way. When people don’t share it there’s a good chance that it will drive them apart instead.”

“You have to love me twice as much now," she said.
And then Ove lied to her for the second - and last - time: he said that he would. Even though he knew it wasn't possible for him to love her anymore than he already did.”

“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.”