ByMarlida

Goodreads Choice Awards 2015 is set, and the best books of every genre is announced!
We've been reading some of both the winners and the nominees, so we thought we'd share our thoughts about them with you!

The Winner of "Best Fiction" was Harper Lee's "Go set a Watchman". Neither Ida og Marlene has read this yet, but both of us has "To Kill a Mockingbird" in our bookshelves and we can't wait to read it.

We have, however read one of the nominated books, "My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry" by Fredrik Backman.
A beautiful book that shows the modern family's challenges and the world of an eight-year old trying to understand the world when her only friend, her grandmother, dies. We swear to God, Backman is the only one who could manage to make such a theme funny. If you need a beautiful, funny book for christmas, this one is a good choice. You can read our review of the book HERE


Jojo Moye's "After You" is also a nominated book for "best fiction" and Ida can't wait to read this beauty - after being teared apart by all the feelings from "Me Before You". Marlene also has Me Before You on her to-read list.


The winner of "Best Mystery & Thriller" is Paula Hawkins's "The Girl on The Train". A book Ida finished in about three days, while sitting by the window and watch the train passing by. And a book Marlene has on her bookshelf just glaring at her every time she chooses a new book to read.

This isn't a category Marlene often looks at or even reads for that matter, but there were two books that made she want to look at the winners again. She has a huge passion for killer-whales, and one of her all-time favorite documentaries are Blackfish, so when she saw what the winner book was all about, she wanted to check it out. Beneath the Surface by John Hargrove is a book she believes is worth reading! She also believes that its fellow nominee, Voices in the Ocean by Susan Casey, is worth checking out!



So, while Marlene was voting in this contest she was SO pleased to see Victoria Aveyard on the list, not only once, but twice! Her debut book, Red Queen is one of the most amazing dystopian books Marlene has ever read. She believes that it gives "new life" to the already existing and all-too-alike dystopian genre.


This years best YA book, which is, in Marlene's opinion more heartbreaking than the Fault in Our Stars, All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven.


This book made Marlene tear up on the beaches of Crete! It's this beautiful book about love, but also about friendship, about faith, about death and about finding those small, beautiful things in life. It's so damn beautiful, and Marlene can't wait for it to become a movie in 2017!!!!

The worst part is, that Marlene has most of the books amongst the nominees in her to-read list.
P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han, Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen, Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella, Nowhere But Here by Katie McGarry, Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga, The Last Time We Say Goodbye by Cynthia Hand, The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West,
Dumplin' by Julie Murphy and More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera. 

MIN MORMOR HALSAR OCH SAGER FORLÅT (MY GRANDMOTHER ASKED ME TO TELL YOU SHE'S SORRY) 
BY FREDRIK BACKMAN
PUBLISHED: 2013
AVERAGE RATING: 4.04
372 PAGES
★★★★★
Fredrik Backman. How is it that everytime i read a book of his, i feel that the world makes more sense than ever? How is it that he’s always able to take a really dislikeable characrer and make him or her a person i’ll love forever? Everyone Backman writers about turns to heroes. No kidding.

Backman is the writer of my all-time favorite book "A man called Ove". He also wrote Britt-Marie, another wonderfully beautiful book that I just love. And he's the writer of "My Grandmother Asked me to tell you that she's Sorry", wich was published september the 4th 2013 in sweidsh and in english the 15th of june 2015.

Having a grandmother is like having an army. This is a grandchild’s ultimate privilege: Knowing that someone is on your side, always, whatever the details.

This book is a little different than the two previously mentioned. As it is easy to compare the two main characters Ove and Britt-Marie from the other books, seven year old Elsa is not comparable to anyone at all.

Elsa is a seven year old girl who feels lonely in the world and acts different than others. Her parents are divorced; Her dad has found a new family, and Elsa feel like she does’nt belong, and her mom is pregnant with “Halfie” (half-brother or half-sister), wich makes Elsa feel a little threatened. At school she is bullied. When Elsa’s best friend in the whole world, the half-crazy, but loveable Grandmother, dies, Elsa have to pick up the pieces of her grandmothers unfinished business in form of a bunch of letters of apology. This turn out to be a journey that will change Elsa’s life forever.

“Only different people change the world”, granny used to say. “No one normal has ever changed a crapping thing.”

As I mentioned: What makes Backman's books so special is his ability of describing a person in a way that make you feel like you truly know them. There are a lot of good books out there that does this, but I've never read books that does it as good as Backman does it.

In this book, this exact ability works in a mysterious way. I don't know if it's a good sign at all (it's probably not...), but somehow, it was easier to relate to Ove and Britt-Marie than it was for me to relate to eight year old Elsa. I experienced the book through an eight year olds eyes, and it felt magical and weird at the same time. It felt kind of like I myself was eight years old again when I read it. You're just sitting there thinking "yep, that's probably what 8 year old me would have thought too".

It was saturday and granny and Elsa were going to an exhibit about dinosaurs. That was the morning Mum put the Gryffingdor scarf in the was without asking and made Elsa take another scarf - a vomit green one. She really lacks empathy sometimes, that woman.

But not in every situation, because Elsa is "adult for her age", usually spell-corrects when adults say something wrong, loves to look up things on Wikipedia and keep a “word jar” at her dad with words she's curious about.

“Then the boy shouted that Elsa couldn't be Spider-Man because 'only boys can be Spider-Man!' And then Elsa told him he could be Spider-Man's girlfriend. And then he pushed Elsa into a radiator. And then Elsa hit him with a book. Elsa still thinks he should thank her for it, because that's probably the nearest that boy ever got to a book.”

The book is a wonderful journey through adventures both in the real world and in Elsa's world and every chapter made me wanna order the first plane ticket to go and visit my own grandmother. It's a book that tells a sad story in a wonderful, heartwarming, funny way, and you'll never forget Elsa and her journey throught both the real world and Miamas, Elsa and granny’s fantasy world. As always, backman's book is beautifully written and it's one of the books I'm proud to put at the front of my bookshelf, almost hoping that people who visits will ask about it so I can give them such a wonderful reading experience.

Britt-Marie was here is written by the Swedish writer Fredrik Backman and was first published October 3rd 2014. it holds the genres fiction and comedy.

when Britt-Marie, a woman in her 60's decides to leave her cheating husband, she don’t expect to end up as the leader of a youth club in a deserted little place called “Borg”. And the fact that she soon will experience being a football trainer against her will, being asked on a date by a cop and a lot of other things makes her future something she never in her whole life would agree to or belive in.

Britt-Marie can’t stand filth, and cutlery not sorted in the right way make her scream inside. She eats dinner at the right time, and get up at 6 in the morning, because only lunatics get up later than that. And she is not passive-aggressive. Definitely not.

Backman has done it again. As I've mentioned so many times before, his book "a man called Ove" is one of the books I'll forever hold most precious in my heart. I was a little disappointed with his book "mormor hilser og sier unnskyld" (notice the word "little" in this sentence, because that too is really a good book), but this time I'm more pleased that I could have hoped for. He's done it again.

In my review of “a man named Ove”, i wrote this: “he is that grumpy old man you sigh at when you see him entering the store you work in, because you know there will be arguing. He is that always pissed-off neighbor you used to have when you were a child, the one that always yelled at you for kicking the in his garden or yelling to loud”.

Britt-Marie is not exactly the same character, but she’s definitely one of those you see weekly and sigh at. And this is the biggest reason Backman is a good writer. He manages to make the people you disguise into someone you completely fall in love with. He reminds us that we are all people, and we all have our stories. And he creates a reality and characters you just don’t want to leave. Britt-Marie is without doubt the strongest character I’ve read about sine Ove.

★★★★★

EN MANN SOM HETER OVE (A MAN CALLED OVE)
BY FREDRIK BACKMAN
PUBLISHED: 2012
AVERAGE RATING: 4.29
337 PAGES
★★★★★

Ove is 59 years old, and lives in a housing cooperative. He used to be the chairman, but even though he’s not anymore (because of what Ove refers to as “the countercoup”) he still makes sure everything in the neighborhood is in order during his inspection-rounds every morning. Ove has strict routines of everything, he is determined and everything around him has to be in order. Then one day, a new family moves in and accidentally destroys drives a trailer in Ove’s mailbox and destroys it. This is the start of a series of events that will spin both Ove and the rest of the neighborhood’s world upside down.

A man Called Ove caught my attention while working in a bookstore, and seeing it throne the first place at our top 10-shelf for weeks. It did not take long before I fell in love with this book. Ove is one of the most real fictional character I’ve ever read about. The book is kind of split in half, with one chapter about Ove “now”, and then one about his past and so on. Both the parts about Ove in the present and the parts about Ove’s past is strong and touching. Especially the parts about Ove “now” is also incredibly funny.

 At the start I did not really like Ove at all, actually. He is that grumpy old man you sigh at when you see him entering the store you work in, because you know there will be arguing. He is that always pissed-off neighbor you used to have when you were a child, the one that always yelled at you for kicking the football in his garden or yelling to loud.

 But the more pages I read, the more I loved him. I ended up feeling like he was a dear friend. During the book I seriously cried tears of both joy and sadness several times. Just the character-development in itself is enough to make this book one of my favorites. This goes for the other characters in the book as well. The author has done an amazing job painting the pictures of these people, and you end up loving everybody. I even fell in love with the cat. This is absolutely a book I will read again.