My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Not too much to say about this one outside of the fact that I should have DNFed this one instead of proceeding. I think I just have to deal with the fact that the only book of Backman’s that I liked was A Man Named Ove. And everything else has been pretty much misses for me. My Friends had a lot going on and it was just too much after a while. There was so much repetitiveness, so many stops and starts to telling a […]
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
This was actually my first Fredrik Backman but quite a few fellow Cannonballers mentioned this novel during one of the Zoom meet ups so I decided it was time to give him a shot (and then got distracted by other books). The story explores two timelines, 25 years apart. The present or later timeline (it’s a bit vague on specifics that would tie either timeline to a specific decade so when I say present, that’s just for simplicity) focuses on Louisa, a teen in foster […]
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
If you plotted my enjoyment of this book over time, it would resemble a V shape. I really liked the beginning. I love Backman’s humor and I was interested in the setup of the book. However, the characters were both unlikable and zany, and by about 35-40%, that combination was starting to get a little too repetitive. But then the characters started to become more fleshed out, more human, less like caricatures, and I started to like the book again. Some (not all) of the […]
Us Against You: A Novel by Fredrik Backman
Cbr17bingo Play (hockey) bingo Us Against You is the second novel in Backman’s Beartown trilogy, something I didn’t realize until I was well into the novel. I haven’t read book 1, Beartown, but as it turns out, it doesn’t matter much. Anything important from that story is more or less explained in the course of this one. The trilogy is about the people of Beartown, a small remote town in Sweden, where hockey is more than just a game. It is the heart of the […]
Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
CBR 17 BINGO: Family, because family relationships (police officers Jim & Jack; Anna-Lena and Roger; Ro and Julia; the bank robber and the robber’s children) are motivating factors for the characters Back in 2017, I was, like everyone else, charmed by A Man Called Ove, so when I saw another novel by Fredrik Backman in a Little Free Library, I snapped it up. It started strong when, on the first page, I smiled at this paragraph, “This story is about a lot of things, but […]
My Friends by Fredrik Backman
Bingo: I’m using this book for the “Arts” Bingo space, since the book centers on multiple characters who are artists and on the definition of art itself. I should really know better, at this point. I should know that if a book has Fredrik Backman’s name on the cover, it will break my heart. But I let myself be tricked by the cover art of carefree swimmers, and went into it expecting a light beach read. While the story did involve beaches, it was not […]
