[Book Review] A Man called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Plot:

This book is a character based novel. It's about a grumpy old man called Ove who is old fashioned, introverted, thinks that rules are important for life, and does little else other than work at office and home. He starts being happy when he finds the love of his life who is quite opposite to him in many of the ways. She is extroverted, fun loving and reads a lot as she enjoys abstract things  as well. The book is about how Ove has reacted to the departure of the only person that understood him from his life. What does he do when he finds himself in an ocean of loneliness?

Positives:

Characters are very well written, especially the lead character of Ove. His life is explained in detail starting from his childhood to the time of the story. Incidents which are explained makes you feel for Ove however grumpy he is. Other characters, surrounding the main character, are also well written. 
        Authors seems to be really good at capturing the smallest of emotions. This makes the characters lovable and their actions empathizable. When reading a scene, its almost as if we are teleported to the place of occurence.
        The English translation is extremely fluent. Language is easy to understand. Though the pace is slow, it doesn't bore you given the excellent writing style and attention to detail.
        Biggest positive of all and the one that makes this book special are moments. Moments of father teaching a son what kind of a man he should be, pain of becoming an orphan at young age, frustration of a young man against the thing that is bureaucracy, finding love of your life, pain of losing it, compassion of a neighbor, losing a friendship that was close to heart, struggle of an old man to keep finding purpose. All these moments expressed through the well written characters and even more impressively written lines are heart touching, and keep you hooked to the book throughout.

Negatives:

Author seems to believe in the stereotypes that men are reserved, less social and less emotional while women are charming, social and caring. Almost all the characters in the book fit into this description. This could be intentional or just a coincidence, but on my part I found it less appealing.
       Narration is slow at some places.

Conclusion: Overall, it's an excellent book which will take through roller-coaster ride of human emotions.

Following are some of the quotes that I absolutely loved from this book.

-> “People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.”
 
-> “Men are what they are because of what they do. Not what they say.”

-> “You only need one ray of light to chase all the shadows away,”
-> “All people at root are time optimists. We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”

-> “Of all the imaginable things he most misses about her, the thing he really wishes he could do again is hold her hand in his.”

-> “It is difficult to admit that one is wrong. Particularly when one has been wrong for a very long time.”
 
-> “A time like that comes for every man, when he chooses what sort of man he wants to be. And if you don't know the story, you don't know the man.”

-> “He misses her so much that sometimes he can’t bear existing in his own body.”

-> "They say the best men are born out of their faults and that they often improve later on, more than if they'd never done anything wrong.”
 
-> “Something inside a man goes to pieces when he has to bury the only person who ever understood him. There is no time to heal that sort of wound.”
 
-> “Because a time comes in every man's life when he decides what sort of man he's going to be: the kind who lets other people walk all over him, or not.”

-> “We can busy ourselves with living or with dying, Ove. We have to move on.” And that’s how it was.”