A Man Called Ove

Ove (In English it’s ooh-ve. ve as in "vegetarian" and ooh like the expression of dismay, not the oo sound of "glue") Ove is a man, 59 years of age, that wants to kill himself. After suffering a rather unfortunate childhood, Ove surprises himself by falling in love with Sonja. She is beautiful, smart and kind. They are married for over forty years and albeit with much misery (he never outgrew,) Sonja was his only sunshine. But now Sonja is gone, Ove has been asked to “retire” from his job and Ove is done. In his small row house, in an average sized village, Ove tries every day (unsuccessfully) to end his life. With each attempt another annoying neighbor knocks on his door to bring a bit of meaning to his miserable days and purpose to keep on living. A job to do. And Ove figures another day can’t hurt too much. The writing is beautiful and translation well done but I struggled to keep turning these pages. To put it simply, I was bored. I managed to stick with it for the sake of my book club and at 70% the pace and story brightened (a little) with a somewhat meaningful ending to finish up the task. All in all, this book was not for me and although other reviews out there raved, I cannot.