My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry by Fredrik BackmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Loved Backman’s previous novel “A Man Called Ove” and this has a lot of similarities. Both books are about the interactions of a community of people. This story is from the point of view of 7-year-old Elsa whose seemingly crazy grandmother dies leaving the girl with a series of letters to deliver. The recipients are characters in the fairy tales Grandma has been telling the girl but it turns out all the characters in the fantasy are people in the building where they live in Sweden. I found the fantasy too convoluted so I kept skipping chunks when the girl would try to relay the fantasy so perhaps I missed a little of the foreshadowing but I read enough to get the gist. The pace really picks up at the end with a lot of real danger and an unfortunate demise. Elsa is a tough talking kid, wise beyond her years. It’s impossible not to love her.