Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - L'uomo che metteva in ordine il mondo

Ove is a 59 year old Swedish man, who recently lost his wife. His wife was the love of his life, and they were together for many years.
Ove has lived in the same house in the same neighborhood for around 40 years. He’s a curmudgeon, and he likes to keep to himself.
After losing his wife, he has been contemplating suicide. However, his suicide attempt is interrupted by his new, foreign neighbor, Parvaneh.
“It is the leadin 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.”

MY THOUGHTS

I rarely cry when reading, but I shed tears in the epilogue.
Backman skillfully juggles comedy and tragedy. He explores a lot of deep themes: community, the impact we have on others, grief, loss, loneliness, aging, healing, love.
Expert level character development. I enjoyed Ove’s backstory & learning about why he is who he is. I also loved his love story with his wife.
I felt for Ove throughout the whole story. He feels like your friend, and you get to know him throughout the book.
So many wonderful side characters throughout the story.
Satisfying ending.
Loved Backman’s writing style. Admittedly, this is the first one I have read by him. I am definitely going to look for more by this author.
I loved the incorporation of the cat into the story, and I thought it was interesting to see how having a pet was clearly healthy & helpful for Ove.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️cried in epilogue. beautifully crafted story with expert level character development.

Content Warnings

alex1's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Content Warnings

idk1806's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

pkc's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This book is so beautiful. I love it when an author takes a seemingly unloveable character and fills them with so much heart, pathos and goodness that you can’t help but root for them. Backman even goes as far as to book-end the story with two halves of the same scene so that where the unsuspecting reader views the eponymous Ove as a grumpy, horrid man in the beginning, we have accepted his flaws (for the most part!) by the end. The cast of supporting characters is so beautifully drawn and I’d be so shocked if you didn’t finish this book in floods of tears. I sure as heck did.

Content Warnings

torismazarine's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

espookita's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

My friends lent me this book and then had to bully me over the course of multiple weeks to actually pick it up and start reading. It’s not that I was expecting it to be bad, more so unrelatable and perhaps boring. I judged this book incredibly wrong. When I started reading this, (it took me about a month to read the whole thing) I read about 4 chapters in a sitting and had to put it down because this book brought me genuinely to tears every four chapters or so. It’s very simple, but its beauty is in its simplicity. Ove’s daily inspections, the drab Swedish winters, the heavy piles of snow, the sausage and potatoes for dinner every single day create this very easy picture of life to imagine that, while clearly Swedish, can also be found anywhere. Ove’s grumpy curmudgeonliness is a characteristic of old men worldwide. But there is such simple beauty. His loyalty to his Saab, his long-standing marriage that brought color to his life, his friendship with a neighbourhood cat. There is a profound amount of emotion within this book because it is not so much about adventures or stories, but about the way we humans live our lives and feel pain, fall in love, experience loss, and find our way through that grief to something new again. That is something valuable for everyone. There is not a single person I think who would not be able to gain something from this book. 100% recommendation.

Content Warnings

krysley's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Ove is the kind of cantankerous old man you can’t help but love. He hangs on to his beliefs even when others challenge him and is a good man, even though he gripes about everyone else’s incompetence. This novel is a lesson in grief and love and how we choose to go on with life even when it feels like it’s crumbling down around us.

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