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Reviewer Jean Longo

Jean Longo is a Research & Learning Librarian at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Review

A Man Called Ove

By Fredrik Backman

This story about a lonely man named Ove will make you laugh and cry.  Ove is a curmudgeon yet at the same time loveable.  He does things the way they are supposed to be done.  He is a man of black and white.  His wife, Sonja, was color.  They met on a train where he was the night cleaner and she was traveling to school to become a teacher.  After three years of dating and some other misfortune Sonja tells Ove she is pregnant and demands they buy a house.  They move to their new home the same day as Rune and Anita and a friendship forms between the couples.

Having recently lost his wife, Sonja, to cancer and his job to downsizing he decides to plan his own suicide.  Unfortunately, his neighbors unknowingly put up one obstacle after another.  Especially the Pregnant One, Parvaneh.  In all his efforts to put an end to his misery, he saves a man from an approaching train and becomes a hero.  The cast of characters repeatedly draw him into their own drama and request his help.  And, as the story unfolds you find he has an generous heart and plenty of people who care about him. (Reviewed May, 2019)