A Man Called Ove

Genre: Fiction

I gave this book ****

This is the story of Ove (pronounced u-veh), a middle-aged, widower, overly obsessed with his neighbors’ comings and goings, judgmental of everyone who is different than him, and a curmudgeon. Or is he? As this story so expertly unfolds, we learn that Ove has lost his wife, the love of his life, to cancer and that his loneliness is too much to bare. About his wife it says, “People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.” But, through an encounter with a persistent new neighbor, Parvaneh, and a slew of other characters, Ove slowly becomes a part of a family and community and finds that life is worth living again.

I really enjoyed this book. I suspect that you will fall for Ove just as hard as I have. He is the perfect reminder that life, with all its ups and downs, is worth living because you might just be lucky enough to fall in love with just the right person, you might get to meet the right people who befriend and grow to understand you, and finally, you might get to share it all with a very persistent cat.