My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry

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Milk and Sugar?’ the girl asks, pouring some coffee into a plastic mug. Britt-Marie doesn’t judge anyone. Far from it. But who would behave like that? A plastic mug! Are we at war?”

When her half-brother is born, Elsa comes to terms with her parents' divorce and the new relationships that have formed because of it. She also develops a circle of friends at school, and they never again have to run away from the bullies who do not like people who are different. Elsa learns that Granny has put a great deal of responsibility in her hands by giving Elsa the apartment building where they all live, meaning Elsa will have to make the decision about the future ownership of the building. A Christmas tale has to be written with every pen you own,” Granny used to say. And they have to have happy endings, which is something that Elsa has decided completely on her own." Granny's fairy tales from Miamas was fairly dramatic as a rule. Wars and storms an pursuits and intrigues and stuff, because that was the sort of action stories that Granny liked.

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.

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. She ends up in the tiny village of Borg which has a delightful assortment of entertaining characters, none of whom understand her (or vice-versa), but she treats them all the same—drunks, hoodlums, orphans, cops—and they certainly can’t ignore her.I thought his book was wonderfully, sad. I loved Britt-Marie so much. She had these quirks that were in ways sad and in others beautiful. I would love to meet her, God would she give me a mouthful. lol *Possibly one mild spoiler* This novel is delightful and very quirky, with oddball characters, and situations, but underneath the humor there is an underlying seriousness, which explores relationships, loneliness, the desire to be needed and loved, appreciated, to make a real difference, and to matter to someone. Britt-Marie is a hot mess. She's left her husband - which was well overdue- but is lost in a world nonexistent to others. She's never worked outside of the home and she has cleaning OCD. She's really odd - her thoughts; her behaviours. A community unfolds strange petal by broken petal in the building where Elsa’s Granny lived and where Elsa’s mom and stepfather have their apartment (in a building it is rumored Granny won in a card game). Elsa learns to recognize the characters around her, at first jealously discovering that the fairy tale world she shared with her grandmother was not exclusively theirs. Elsa’s journey changes Elsa and her neighbors. It is not only the letters her granny left to Elsa to deliver, but also Elsa being Elsa (which her grandmother could count on) that precipitates healing in the letters’ recipients, including Elsa herself who finally forgives her granny for dying and leaving her. By the end of the book, which comes an eternity of fairy tales after it has begun, Elsa is still her “different” self, but she is also quite different from the original seven-year-old version of herself. She has not only turned eight, she….

However, she does manage to find temporary work at a recreation center, that is about to be shut down, in the small hamlet of ‘Borg’. This job, the town, and its residents will slowly draw Britt-Marie out of her shell, and will enrich her life via a string of wild adventures and through the game of soccer, a sport she initially resented and despised. 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 . The issues at heart are family bonds, Family history, reflections of the past, life lessons, love, forgiveness, acceptance, laughter. Among Elsa's neighbours are eccentric chatterboxes and drunken workaholics, weird hounds and mysterious lurkers. Her mother is her punch-bag over teen issues (if Elsa can be called a teen that is) and her Dad is her word collector who can stand everything except a grammatically incorrect sentence. Well, mostly.Grandmother is eccentric, a little nutty, a superhero.....both a sword and a shield. She is strong independent woman, who wants to say "I am sorry" to those she loves. Actually, since I really was not assured of a happy ending, considering that it might be a not so happy one, I will not go on now, but rather, will allow you not be so sure as you read (or listen to) this unforgettable novel. For the fastidious Britt-Marie, this new world of noisy children, muddy floors, and a roommate who is a rat (literally), is a hard adjustment. And she finds herself doing things she never would have believed she would do, and befriending and being befriended by people she would never have associated with in the past. And then she has to make a choice.... Loved it! Britt-Marie is an unappreciated social misfit, overlooked and living in the shadows of people who are more important, much like the author’s famous Ove from A Man Called Ove. She is as stubbornly awkward and set in her ways as Ove. I struggled with the first part of the story but then got caught up in the characters and was really enjoying it. And then came the very long drawn out and totally uninformative ending. It was such an anticlimax and I still do not really know what happened. If any of my Goodreads friends are reading this who did understand please pm me and let me know.

Britt-Marie is determined she can make it on her own. Her involvement with the kids and soccer brings her purpose, joy, and friendships, that are deeply moving.Let me tell you. She should have gotten a job as a maid. Your house would never be the same again. I would hire her in a heartbeat! Britt-Marie is an average-height woman. On the cover of Britt-Marie Was Here, she is shown to have brown hair. This is contradicted by Pernilla August's portrayal of Britt-Marie in the 2019 film, with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes (her eye color is not specified in the book series). I could see a little of myself in Britt-Marie at times, there is probably a little of her in most of us.