ByMarlida

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.

THE CALL OF THE WILD
BY JACK LONDON
PUBLISHED: 1903
AVERAGE RATING: 3.80
172 PAGES
READ: NOVEMBER 6TH - NOVEMBER 9TH 2015
★★★★☆
It's a coincidence that I stumbled over this exciting adventure of a book. I can see that it's known as a typical book encountered at school, but we never had it, so it's completely new to me. I read about it online, and decided to check it out - and soon enough I was fading into the world of Buck and his beautiful adventure.

The Call of the Wild was written by Jack London and was first published in 1903. It holds the genres classics, adventure, young adult and historical fiction.

Buck is a crossbreed canine (half st. Bernhards and half shepard), a dog born into the luxury of a warm and welcoming family in California. One day, he is kidnapped and sold to be a sled dog in the Yukon territory, a freezingly cold and unknown place for a dog that never in his life has seen snow. Passed from master to master, Buck must learn the harsh rules of this new life where only the strongest survive. 

There are many reasons to why I'll remember this book. First of all is probably London's wonderfully detailed despriction of the nature. It's easy to picture exactly what it looks like up in the snowy and cold Alaskan terrain. Secondly, this is a classic story of a character developing to find itself becoming something completely different then what it was from before. It's genuinly exciting to read about all the obstacles and challenges Buck has to go through just for surviving. It's a story about a dog discovering the truth about himself, and about what the world is like. It's sad, it's funny and it warms your heart throughout the whole book.

“There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.”

London also writes brilliantly. His descpriptions of Buck's thoughts is amazing, and the way Buck sometimes just does'nt think about things because it's just instinct, but at the same time can reflect over other things makes a perfect balance when making an animal the main character.

“Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest.”

This is simply a really good story with deep character development and amazing descriptions. It's worth the few hours it takes to read it, because it's not really a long story at all.

I've been looking forward to reviewing this book for a long time. It's one one the few books where only the intro itself made me think that this is a special and interesting book - before I even got started with the stories. And for each story I read, the more interesting the book became.

We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting. These are stories about those masks, and the people we are underneath them." 

- Neil Gaiman, writing from a cabin in the dark woods.  

This book contains 24 different stories, poems and "disturbances". It holds the genres fantasy, horror, science fiction, poetry, anthology and fiction. It contains horro stories, fairy tales and poems and a lot, lot more.


One of the stories I personally loved the most is "Nothing O'clock". It is a story Gaiman wrote for the fiftiteth anniversary of the Doctor Who series. It's a story about the doctor and Amy, and it was just perfect. As a Doctor Who fan, it felt like someone had taken an episode I had'nt seen before and written it like a story instead of a tv-episode. This could most definetly have been a part of the show, because it was so accurate and exciting and I recognized the characters from the show. Gaiman har actually written some episodes of the real show, so I get why he's good at it. This was just a fantastic read, and it was so nice to enjoy the world of doctor who again, even though it's not from the tv-show.


Another story I really liked is "The Sleeper and the Spindle". A few writers, including Gaiman, was asked to write a story based on a stories that had influenced them. "The Sleeper and the Spindle" was the outcome, inspired by both "Snow White and the Seven Dwarf's" and "Sleeping Beauty". This is just a really special and amazing version that I loved and would love to see as a movie. I could just picture this creepy, yet wonderful world all as I read. The story is actually also avialable as an illustrated storybook for children, as you can see on the picture above.

"Click Clack the Rattlebag" nearly scared me to death... It may be because of the timing and setting though; I was really tired and had already gone to bed, and decided to finish the story I was reading (wich was "Jerusalem", wich is really good but not scary). I did that and decided to read another, even though I was getting really sleepy. And there it was. I had to read yet another one to be able to sleep afterwards, because I was seriously scared. It's really short, and explains what all the creaks and clatter in the house that you only hear when you're alone really is.

A third story that I was really fascinated by is "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains...". It was really interesting and a world I just sunk into. The images that came up in my head while reading was amazing. I could just sit and think how beautiful and mighty the world looked like was. Also, Gaiman had about the coolest performance of the story at the Sydney Opera House (wich I did'nt know until I was done, but I can just imagine how wonderful it would have been to see that). He had a string quartet play a "moody and glorious soundtrack" while he was reading, and artist Eddie Campbell created illustrations that was shown during the performance. That, would have been so amazing to be at!


There are a lot of other really good stories and poems in this book, and I have enjoyed the whole journey from beginning to end. It's a collection worth having and worth reading. I have to be honest and say that I did'nt read "Black Dog", wich probably is the biggest reason for a lot of people to buy this book. It is a new tale, exclusively for this collection, that revisits the world of "American Gods". The only reason I did'nt read it, is because I want to read that one first.

All over, I'm really pleased and my love for short stories have been nothing but bigger after reading Trigger Warning.

WE WERE LIARS
BY E. LOCKHART
PUBLISHED: 2014
AVERAGE RATING: 3.86
242 PAGES
★★★★☆


With this book, it was the title that caught my attention. “We were liars” sounded exciting and thrilling. Also, it was hard to make an opinion about what kind of book this was, so that made me even more curious.

“We were liars” is written by E. Lockhart and was published may the 14th in 2014. It holds several genres, including young adult, suspense, mystery, fiction and romance.

At goodreads this is the description you get:

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies
True love.
The truth.

and that’s probably the best description to give, because it’s almost impossible to say something about this book without ruining the experience of reading it. This is one of the books you just have to read for yourself and just experience the feelings, the questions raising throughout the story progressing and so on.

This book still gets to me on so many levels, and I’m still not sure whether I like it or not. But it’s a book that I’ll remember for a long time, and a book I want to read again, so I absolutely recommend reading it. The story is special and told in a very exciting way, although I thought it was boring at first.

There are two things I disliked about the book. The first thing is the way the writing went crazy at times, without it being any reasons for it to do so. I don’t know if it’s the authors way of trying to be poetic, but for me it was just annoying. Especially because I seriously couldn’t find a reason for it to be written that way.

Just so you’ll understand what I’m talking about, I’ll write the next section for you in that way.

The other thing I
disliked about the
book
is the main character
Cadence. I can’t quite get her.
In many ways, I understand
her and relate to
her, but in other ways I find
her annoying, full of
herself and
whiny. I’ve seen that a lot
of the people reviewing the book calls it
“a shitload of #whitegirlproblems”
and I actually get that.
But in another way, everyone is allowed to have
problems, and they feel just as real to rich people.
So i understand to her, but I dislike her, and that feels really weird…

And as you just read, that’s the way the writing in the book sometimes is. Not all the time, but sometimes, and often on parts of the book that didn’t make sense at all to write like that. I just don’t get it.

But the story is good, and as I said, this is a book that really got to me and that I will be thinking about for a while. It’s worth reading.

I’ve always liked the movie, and in my experience, books are always so much better than the movie. In this case, not so much.

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.

★★★★★