Shannon's Library

LET’S GET EXCITED ABOUT THIS BOOK!

Elsa is a precocious seven year old who loves her eccentric grandmother dearly. Ever since she can remember her grandmother has told her bedtime stories about a magical place called, the “Land-of-Almost-Awake.” When Elsa’s grandmother dies, she leaves behind one last scavenger hunt for Elsa to accomplish and, by so doing, she delivers a series of letters apologizing to people her grandmother has wronged. Along the way, Elsa learns that the characters in her beloved “Land-of-Almost-Awake” might be closer than she ever realized! These new friends will help her discover love, acceptance and understanding in a whole new way. I can’t say enough about how much I adore this book! Please read it! And after you do, come back, read my full review and comment below. I’d love to know your thoughts about it!

Shannon’s Rating — PG-13

---

LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS BOOK!

I’ve been asked many times, “What is your all-time favorite book?” For a reader who has loved numerous books at various times and stages of life, this is a very difficult question to answer. But if I MUST pick my favorite book, it would have to be this one. “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry,” by Fredrik Backman. It’s almost as if Backman sat down at his computer one day and thought to himself, “I’m going to write a book just for you, Shannon Arbuckle, way over there across the ocean in the United States of America.” This novel has everything in it that I love. Fairytales? Check! Harry Potter and Marvel superhero references? Check! A storytelling grandparent? Check! A plucky young girl as the main character who carries around a red felt-tipped pen to correct grammar on store signs? Check! A giant, furry dog who loves cookies and ice-cream! Check! Well, thank you very much, Mr. Backman, for writing this book just for me! I appreciate it and will love it always!

As we all found out with his book, “A Man Called Ove,” Fredrik Backman is a master of taking a curmudgeonly, grumpy, slightly offensive, elderly person and making them delightfully loveable to his readers. This formula works once again in “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.” Backman walks a fine line by doing this with his main characters. We shouldn’t like the grandmother in this book. She swears like a soldier, is abrasive and rude to people, chain smokes, and gets her seven-year-old granddaughter arrested with her at 1:00 in the morning for breaking into a zoo. But when we discover the reason behind all of these erratic and seemingly crazy things the grandmother does throughout the book, they all of a sudden become endearing and sweet.

“Elsa is seven, going on eight. She knows she isn’t especially good at being seven. Granny is seventy-seven, going on seventy-eight. She’s not very good at it either.”

Elsa and Granny’s relationship is at the very core of this extraordinary novel. Again, more evidence as to why this book was written just for me. I’m all about quirky characters and Elsa and Granny could not be more quirky! This book most certainly embraces being different and not fitting into the stereotypical molds of society.

As long as Elsa can remember, Granny has told her stories before bed to help her fall asleep. They are about a magical place called, The Land-of-Almost-Awake. This fairytale land, and the stories that take place there, are what first drew me into this novel. I grew up loving fairy tales and I get super excited when I discover new ones; especially stories of a land where you can only enter in the moments right before you fall asleep and is made up of six separate kingdoms.

“All fairy tales that are worth something come from Miamas, says Granny. The other five kingdoms in the Land-of-Almost-Awake are busy doing other things; Mirevas is the kingdom where they stand guard over dreams. Miploris is the kingdom where they store all sorrow, Mimovas is where music comes from, Miaudacas is where courage comes from, and Mibatalos is the kingdom where the bravest warriors, who fought against the fearsome shadows in the War-Without-End, were raised.”

If I could, I’d spend hours and hours writing about all of these different kingdoms. I’m slightly obsessed with them. So much so, that I had a painting of the Land-of-Almost-Awake commissioned to hang in my library. While I loved the descriptions of these kingdoms and their inhabitants, unfortunately, I’m not in the least bit artistic or imaginative. I needed to see how an artist with a creative soul would bring these places and characters to life. I needed to see what an enphant, the creature that carries fairytales up onto the highest mountaintop and releases them into the real world, possibly looks like. I needed to envision the Paragraph Riders, members of the queen’s elite army who ride animals that are a cross between a giraffe and a rule book. I needed to see the enchanting houses of Miploris, the kingdom where all the sorrows of the world are stored away. I needed to see the last remaining snow-angel who is forever doomed to haunt the seashore looking for her lost 99 brothers and sisters. I needed to envision the wurses, the giant creatures that fought alongside Wolfheart and saved the kingdoms from the dragons and shadow monsters. Are you starting to see why I needed a painting of the Land-of-Almost-Awake? This book really should have been released as an illustrated novel! Or maybe it needs to be rereleased as a special illustrated edition. I’ll have to talk to my buddy, Fredrik Backman about this idea. In the meantime, Katie @thackshackart did an amazing job with her custom painting for me. It makes me inexplicably happy sitting on my comfy library chair and looking up at it while reading.

Anyway, back to the novel…

Before Granny loses her battle with cancer, she sends Elsa on one last treasure hunt. As Elsa completes these missions and delivers her granny’s letters, each one telling people she’s sorry (hence, the title of the book…), Elsa discovers that the fairytales from the Land-of-Almost-Awake begin to merge with her real life. She learns about friendship, forgiveness, compassion and love along the way. I strongly believe that one of the best ways to tell if a novel is truly great is if it can make you laugh and cry all at the same time. “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” does this for me. I recently reread this book and I was taken completely by surprised at how much the ending both devastated and touched me this time around. I closed the book and cried for about 10 minutes. And I wasn’t sure if they were happy or sad tears. I guess that means they were a combination of both. One of the final paragraphs in the book says,

“It’s difficult ending a fairy tale.  All tales have to end sometime, of course. Some can’t finish soon enough. This one, for example, could feasibly have been rounded off and packed away long ago. The problem is this whole issue of heroes at the ends of fairy tales, and how they are supposed to ‘live happily to the end of their days.’ This gets tricky, from a narrative perspective, because the people who reach the end of their days must leave others who have to live out their days without them. It is very, very difficult to be the one who has to stay behind and live without them.”

It was indeed very, very difficult to say goodbye to the heroes of this novel. But thank heavens, Fredrik Backman wrote this book for me. It helps knowing that I can revisit these characters and the “Land-of-Almost-Awake” whenever I need to!  

So, if you haven’t already, go read this one. And if you have read it, I highly recommend a reread. I didn’t think it was possible, but I actually loved it even better the second time around!

On a side note…”My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” was published in the United Kingdom as, “My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises.” For some reason I find this amusing and, of course, had to buy one of these versions for my Fredrik Backman collection!