A Man Called Ove

I got this recommended by a book website called readgeeks based on other books I rated. This sounded both like something I could enjoy and something that I would hate, but I guess it ended up in the middle. This is like the popular version of the books I would like and I guess I don't like popular things! I was surprised to see this on feel good books lists when there were so many disturbing topics at the start, but yea I guess they sorta faded out in a weird way. It was a very readable book regardless.

I was also very curious about Swedish literature and this was quite a promising start, I have some hopes now for some reason that the classics from this country will be bangers. Not sure if I want to pick up another book from this author tho, I probably won't.

I have no idea how to feel about this book. At some points it got deep and interesting and I wanted it to go somewhere especially in the beginning, but I don't feel like they explored the topics I wanted that well. It felt like a disney film at times and I can see why it's popular. The main character was fascinating at times and at times worse than the worst of people I would interact with in real life, the shallowness of the car thing and how it's running so deep in the book. It is hard to believe that the wife really loved books or knew that much about them, some statements felt faulty about her and really why was she with Ove?

This book I guess is about altruistic people who are kinda annoying and normies. There are also a lot of parents. It is not my version of wholesome, but I am not so heartless as to dismiss it entirely.

A new reflection on april 6: Right now I feel like I gaslit myself into liking it a bit because there's just so many values there I don't want to be a part of. Like I want to live in an enviromentally friendly world, not the one where I get to hear people be oddly obsessed over ancient cars. These people are not vegan, not childfree and proud about it, that's already torture to me. That sounds a bit shallow, but honestly parenthood took up so much space in the book and I am personally not comfortable with it. These characters are not in search of the truth and values that I care about the most. Now that I am more comfortable with the stuff I enjoy, I am more comfortable in recognizing that this book, to me, personally was a waste of time.