I used to hate doing book reports back in school. I didn’t mind reading the book we were assigned to read but I always thought that book reports were just a lazy teachers’ way of finding out if you actually read the book.
The whole format thing of the book report seemed a waste of time to me too. The teacher assigned the book to read so why did you have to regurgitate all that book title, author, copyright and character stuff. Why couldn’t you just write what you thought of it and be done with it?
That said, I am going to use the old book report format to tell you about the one I just finished reading. (My thanks to my Sister Donna Jean and friend Pat Shroeder for passing it along to me.)
TITLE: A Man Called Ove
AUTHOR: Fredrik Backman
COPYRIGHT: 2012 (Translated into English 2014)
MAIN CHARACTERS: Ove Lindahl
PLOT: A cranky old man loses his wife and then undergoes several life changing events. After several unsuccessful suicide attempts he learns to live without his wife and to deal with those around him.
CONCLUSION: Well written, funny, and sardonic, Ove is a book of surprises. You find yourself surprised on several occasions as you learn about Ove’s past as well as his present. Ove is a real curmudgeon of a person but you quickly come to understand why he is the way he is. You even find yourself in agreement with him as he wends his way through some difficult situations. You will laugh and you may even cry some. Most of all though, Ove is going to make you think and that’s what a really good book does.
It was made into a movie that you can see on Amazon Prime. Here is the trailer for it. (If like me, you prefer to read the book before viewing the movie you may want to skip this video of it.)
