CURL UP WITH “A MAN CALLED OVE”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by A Daily Rhythm.

Today’s featured book is one I hope to read this week, but it’s been on Pippa since July 2015.

A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman, is a feel-good story in the spirit of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand; it is about the angry old man next door, a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others.

 

 

 

 

 

Intro:  A MAN CALLED OVE BUYS A COMPUTER THAT IS NOT A COMPUTER

Ove is fifty-nine.

He drives a Saab.  He’s the kind of man who points at people he doesn’t like the look of, as if they were burglars and his forefinger a policeman’s flashlight.  He stands at the counter of a shop where owners of Japanese cars come to purchase white cables.  Ove eyes the sales assistant for a long time before shaking a medium-sized white box at him.

“So this is one of those O-Pads, is it?” he demands.

The assistant, a young man with a single-digit body mass index, looks ill at ease.  He visibly struggles to control his urge to snatch the box out of Ove’s hand.

“Yes, exactly.  An iPad.  Do you think you could stop shaking it like that…?”

Ove gives the box a skeptical glance, as if it’s a highly dubious sort of box, a box that rides a scooter and wears tracksuit pants and just called Ove “my friend” before offering to sell him a watch.

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Teaser:  She believed in destiny.  That all the roads you walk in life, in one way or another, “lead to what has been predetermined for you.”  Ove, of course, just started muttering under his breath and got very busy fiddling about with a screw or something whenever she started going on like this.  But he never disagreed with her.  (p. 71).

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Synopsis:  Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

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What do you think?  Does this sound like a book you would keep reading?  I am hoping to be delighted by the curmudgeon that is Ove.

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