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

I loved Backman’s other books, but this one was a bit hit and miss for me, with more miss than hit. In some sense, it’s a very heart warming story, it’s well-written, has a reasonable sense of humor, and involves funny and quirky characters, just like Backman’s other books. But for some reason, this particular book felt like it was trying a little too hard to get the hart warming angle, and it just didn’t work for me.

It felt like someone asked ChatGPT for the most heart-wrenching and heart-warming ingredients, and combined them together: one part 7-year old girl protagonist who acts in every way like a completely mature and brilliant adult, two parts superhero mom and grandmom, a few sprinkles of stories of tragedy and romance and parenthood, and presto! But it felt like these were combined by a chemist, not a chef, and the result wasn’t particularly good. I found myself losing interest periodically and had to force myself to refocus and keep going.

Rating: 3.5 stars