Book 43/30.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
FIVE FAXIN STARS 🌟 🌟🌟🌟🌟
This was my TENTH!!!!!!!!!! 5 star read of my 2023 reading challenge and:
1. I LOVE THAT FOR ME 💅🤓
2. Oh, I don’t know, you got me good, you got me really good (Olivia Rodrigo voice) with this one Fredrik Backman.
It took me 3 days to read A Man Called Ove in 2021. It was my first Backman read as well as my first 5 star read of the year 🤩 so I went into this hoping it would be just as good 🤞
Spoiler alert: IT WAS JUST AS GOOD 🤩
Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.
After an upheaval in her personal life, Britt-Marie finds herself in Borg with a temporary job as a caretaker of a recreation centre. Borg is a dying town where everything is closing down and at first it is quite heartbreaking to read how lonely and alone the broken Britt-Marie is in the broken and dying town. But after a few comic setbacks and the introduction of a great set of characters, Britt-Marie finds herself integrating into the town’s life, opening up and slowly beginning to live her life for herself. She starts to care for these people, and they for her. She finds a place in the little community where people are just trying to survive and help each other the best they can.
When I started this I was bit concerned that Britt-Marie was a female Ove, and while there are some similarities, they are both wholly and wonderfully their own person. On the topic of similarities, Backman had me laughing my ass off in this book just as much as he did in Ove. And just like Ove, there is sooo much heart and wisdom in the pages of both books.
If I were to describe Britt-Marie Was Here in one emoji it would be 🥹 and if I were to describe it in one sentence I would say it’s the kind of book that breaks your heart and mends it right back up, sometimes all on the same page.
View all my reviews
** A guide to ratings **
1 star – did not like it
2 stars – it was okay
3 stars – liked it
4 stars – really liked it
5 stars – it was amazing
Lwile the Leo 