My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman

Read from August 18th - 26th 2015.

Published June 4th 2015 by Sceptre Books

Format    Hardcover - 320 pages

Review

LOVED IT, LOVED IT, LOVED IT!!! Ok, calm down. A mix of Alice in Wonderland verses Narnia,kept me engrossed throughout.Beautifully written.The beginning had me chuckling away at the relationship between Elsa who is almost nearly eight and her rather non granny eccentric like grandmother who takes Elsa into a pretend fantasy world not like any other. Elsa is a precocious child,cheeky and at times appeared a little rude but so insightful and very caring. Be aware, there is a few 'bad words' throughout which is relevant to the character it comes from and definitely an adult/young adult read. The book is more like two stories rolled into one. I struggled to see her as a seven year old to be fair but the book is remarkable and amazing and I could not put it down.I wanted more...and more.....and more. Taken from the blurb- 'Granny has been telling fairy tales for as long as Elsa can remember. In the beginning they were only to make Elsa go to sleep, and to get her to practise granny's secret language, and a little because granny is just about as nutty as a granny should be. But lately the stories have another dimension as well. Something Elsa can't quite put her finger on...' Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy. Standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa's best, and only, friend. At night Elsa runs to her grandmother's stories, to the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas. There, everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal. So when Elsa's grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has hurt, it marks the beginning of Elsa's greatest adventure. Her grandmother's letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones-but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other. My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman's bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different. 5 stars given for this book.