Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Hi All!

This coming weekend I am driving my Grandma out of town to a wedding and back again so the two of us have about 10 hours to spend in the car together and I was thinking it would be fun to get an audiobook for the trip! :)

I know many of you have read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and really enjoyed it and I think it sounds like it might be a good option since it sounds comical & heartwarming and is the right length (9h) but wanted to ask you guys about the content to double check that it would be a good fit.

Does it have a lot of profanity (some is ok as long as it isn't all throughout the book!) or anything else content-wise that grandma might not appreciate??

Also, does anyone else have any ideas/recommendations that both of us would probably enjoy? =)

Thanks a bunch for your feedback guys!

Hi Stacey, at first I heard the audio (I am 47). Then I heard the audio with my husband (he's 50) and he normally does not listen to audio books - he loved it (well, I got him to listen to one Jules Vernes successfully after this, but then, he had loved him as a boy).
We then gave the book to my mother-in-law - and she loved it, too (she is 82). And my mom (73) heard it from us, liked it and thus gave the book to an older friend - who liked it :-)
I think Ove is great unless you are too young (you have got to have lived to see some hardship to understand the text - "young" being relative to what your live is).

I'm so glad to hear that other people in my grandma's generation have enjoyed this book! (She is in her 80s)

I am pretty easy going when it comes to books that I'll enjoy so I'm not too worried about that, I was mostly just concerned that it would be a bust for her - that she might not enjoy it or that there might be a lot of profanity/content she wouldn't appreciate and that we'd end up shutting it off. She's not super easily put off but it's so hard to tell from just a synopsis whether something is appropriate or not!

I think I'll be able to appreciate it as well, although maybe not to the extent that someone older would. (I'm 28) I haven't faced a ton of hardship personally but lots of people in my life sure have! Also, if there's something I don't really understand I'm sure it would make for an interesting discussion for us! (Grandma loves to talk!) :)

I think Ove is a great pick for her!!! Enjoy it 😊

She'll love it, I'm certain. There is likely to be much in the book that she can relate to, either in her own life or in the lives of people she has known. It's a beautiful book - one of my all-time favorites.

That is an excellent book for listening. It is one of my favorites as well. I'm sure you both will enjoy it!

Awesome! Thanks so much for the feedback guys! 😁

no profanity in terms of "f**k" - words, but of course Ove DOES curse - like "an idiot, of course, he drives an Audi" or wanting to know directly, completely ignoring political correctness. He is grumpy.

I do not think that for many audio books, but I actually believe Ove is better heard than read - there is a sort of rhyme to the chapters, like the similar headers "A man named Ove does this or that" and a certain setup of those chapters, you will see (well, hear).