Review: My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry by Fredrik Backman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hooter: An almost 8 year old goes about saying sorry on behalf of her dead grandmother and building relationships with her family and neighbors as an adventure only a nearly 8 year old could think of.

Backman leverages a very light vein to real human issues and only when you double take do you realize how depressing reality could be, only for his writing perspective that adds a halo of positivity to it. Our protagonist Elsa is a loner in school, bullied by the kids. Her parents are divorced, she has a step father and a step brother halfie is on his way. Granny is her only friend in the world and Granny decides to move on. There are a motley crew in her apartment and each one outwardly as despicable a neighbour as the other. Not till Elsa realises apart from the make believe fantasy world she and granny had, her granny had also prepared a treasure hunt for Elsa to come in terms with life and leverage the people around her. As she delivers letters of her granny being sorry for each person, she gets to know more about the disasters that life has thrown at each one and how they have survived life rather than cruise through it. Heart wrenching yet kept light since all of it is from a kid's perspective ( no matter how mature she is for her age).

The fairy land felt like an interesting premise that could go somewhere but didn't really except act like a filler to switch over between chapters. Not all superhero wear capes and not all books filled with nuggets of wisdom have to be heavy reading. Backman proves it with this book of an eccentric granny and her wise 7 year old granddaughter.

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