My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises: From the bestselling author of A MAN CALLED OVE

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At some point, the author introduces a few twists to the story, adding a bit of thriller that just compels you to read on and think!!! The ending was worth every struggle through the sometimes overbearing fairytales!! At the centre of this book, is an almost-eight-years old, Elsa. When her best (and quirky) friend, her grandmother, leaves her a series of letters upon her death to be delivered to their intended receivers, she sets onto a thrilling journey of discoveries. What was the primary purpose of the letters you ask? You guessed it. To say sorry. The precocious Elsa is definitely beyond her years but it was hard at times to believe that a 7 year old would be as wise and knowing about people as she was . She's so smart and astute that you sometimes forget she's only seven until we see the insecurities and vulnerabilities of a seven year old dealing with her parents' divorce, confronting grief and death and her anxiety over having a half brother or sister and fear that she won't be loved as much .

I mention make believe, and at times this book ventures into the realm of magical realism. Usually my experience with magical realism is a positive one, but I did not care for it much here. I think the reason might be that it frequently reminded me of Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I didn't care for at all. So, if you are a fan of that book, you may enjoy this one, too. Creating fairy tale-metaphors for little Elsa, was her grandmother's way of teaching the hard realities of life in story form to the little girl without friends. Nobody understood this bright child, not even the teachers and headmaster at school, where she was constantly bullied. Her busy parents did not know what was happening to her. This may not be for everyone but if you loved A Man Called Ove , although a different story , you will find the same humanity here with imperfections, vulnerabilities and triumphs of spirit . This is about a little girl and fairytale but this is definitely a book for grownup kids . In My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises, each character was one that took me by surprise during Elsa's journey throughout the novel. Tasked to deliver letters from her grandmother to the people who live in the same building as her, people who have been around Elsa her entire life, she uncovers one surprising thing after another; there are monsters living in the flat, heroes and even a Wurse, who is a little bit of both. And as the lines between her granny's imaginary Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas start to blur with the real world, Elsa discovers something incredible about those around her, something that even with all her wit beyond her years and excessive use of Wikipedia she hadn't realised before.That is not to say this book is fluffy, because it’s not. There are plenty poignant and emotional moments expertly woven into this humorous and whimsical story which features a precocious seven -year old girl named Elsa. Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

Granny does all she can to help Elsa through a hard time . Her parents are divorced and her mother and new partner are expecting a baby but worst of all Elsa is having a rough time at school . She has no friends and is constantly bullied. Granny gives this lonely little girl the gift of love and friendship and teaches her to cope by giving her a fairytale world in the Land-of-Almost -Awake. It captivated me at first but then I couldn't keep up with the details of the characters and the rules of this complex kingdom. But at some point I understood better who these characters were and just went with the flow because what is divulged about Granny's past will make you love her in spite of everything . After my first daughter was born... she, too, felt as though she knew her great- grandmother through stories I shared with her. Some might call Elsa's granny 'eccentric', or even 'crazy'. Elsa calls her a superhero. And granny's stories, of knights and princesses and dragons and castles, are her superpower. Because, as Elsa is starting to learn, heroes and villains don't always exist in imaginary kingdoms; they could live just down the hallway. At this point too, I thought, my 12 year old needs to be in on this so, I let him listen to a few chapters and confirmed its a book for both young adults and adults. However, it is not long into the book when the fairly complex and very childlike fairytales seem to take over the real story. And one might be tempted to either skip the parts with the fairytale (which would prove tedious given how intertwined the fairytale parts are with the underlying real story) or give up reading the book altogether on the premise that for adults, the film (when it does come out) would be better tuned to keep adults engaged!! My Grandmother Sends Her Regards And Apologises is a step above A Man Called Ove in literary terms, fusing stark Swedish realism with childhood imagination and fairy tales. While I didn’t find Elsa quite as endearing a main character as darling old Ove, she still provided a humourous and poignant insight into what might otherwise have been a very dark story.

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Breaking into a zoo in the middle of the night? Firing a paintball gun from a balcony in her dressing gown? At the centre of ' My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises' is an almost-eight-years old, Elsa. When her best (and quirky) friend, her grandmother, leaves her a series of letters upon her death to be delivered to their intended receivers, she sets onto a thrilling journey of discoveries. What was the primary purpose of the letters you ask? You guessed it. To say sorry. Just before Granny dies she presses an envelope into Elsa's hand, and asks her granddaughter to deliver a letter.

At the heart of the story is a seven year old girl without friends, an outsider in her school who is loved deeply by her cantankerous , seventy-seven year old grandmother. I was taken by Elsa and her grandmother from the very beginning. It's the story of the beautiful legacy that a grandmother leaves her granddaughter. Granny may seem crazy but she is such a very loving grandmother to Elsa that the things she does while they seem crazy , can be so easily forgiven by the reader once her story unfolds and you see what a good person and really a humanitarian she is . The novel suffers from a slow start. There is a fairy tale device that is interweaved into the narrative that never fully grabbed me, and it took me most of the book to buy into it. Other readers I know jumped right into that aspect of the text. To each his own, right? However, the last half of the book I thought was strong narratively, things started to fall into place for me with the fairy tale device, and from that point on I was fully in. Later-- she wrote a paper about her -great grandmother- from our family history. I was touched beyond words. For Elsa that is her seventy-seven year old grandmother who regales her with stories that become like a secret communication between them. Her grandmother always comes to defense, is always in her corner, something Elsa desperately needs because she is a little different. This, of course, sets her up for a great deal of bullying at school, and causes her mother a good deal of exasperation at times.

I do not hate this book. Neither do I love it, or like it a whole lot. Or even like it a little bit. It just...exists.

But, dear readers, hang on and try to follow the tedious fairytales which in fact, you will come to realise, are the life stories that in turn explain the problems/issues faced by the different characters in the book... Sorry, I refuse to say more in fear of releasing spoilers!! Plus I normally really like reading Scandinavian-translated books (I am the worst) because I like the way it sounds when it’s English-ized. It still holds a nice poetic effect. But I didn’t get that from this? Maybe because the little-girl-main-character speaks English a lot. Dunno. Didn’t like it. Elsa is the greatest combinations of both her parents, and grandparents, but mostly she is unique and different. Precocious, and lovable!Give the letter to him who's waiting. He won't want to accept it, but tell him it's from me. Tell him your granny sends her regards and says she's sorry" I was bowled over when I discovered, after finishing the book, that it was written by the author of A Man Called Ove. Yes, I know I was a bit dimwitted. But just remember, it is every single person's undeniable right to make a fool of him/herself, and I am exercising that right by admitting this here! By saying this I admit being in total cohorts with Grandma in the story. I not only liked her; I recognized her as a soulmate! Heartbreaking and hilarious in equal measure, this novel will charm and delight anyone who has ever had a grandmother. Elsa’s love of Wikipedia is hilarious at times, but it’s her fondness for Harry Potter books that was so telling. That she related to those characters, is a testament to how stories and books can offer relief and comfort, as well as influence and teach.