Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik BackmanMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I met Britt-Marie in another Fredrik Backman novel. I didn’t particularly like her in “My Grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry” because we mostly saw her fastidious busybody side, but there were a few hints of her big heart. It’s the heart that wins in this sequel. Britt-Marie has left her cheating husband and taken a job as caretaker of a soon-to-be-closed rec center in a dying town. Everything is crumbling around her so badly that she makes friends with a rat as her dinner companion. There are real threats like drugs and unsupervised children, but somehow Britt-Marie straightens it out the same way she rearranges messy silverware drawers. Ya gotta love her.