Okay so I need to write this right now while my eyes are still puffy and my nose is still running because if I wait till tomorrow I'll lose the courage to be this embarrassingly honest on the internet.

I finished *A Man Called Ove* about 20 minutes ago. I am sitting on my terrace. The book is closed next to me and I genuinely cannot bring myself to put it back on the shelf yet. It feels wrong somehow. Like closing a chapter on someone real.

I don't cry easily while reading. Ask anyone who knows me. I read *Gunahon ka Devta* and completely broke down and I thought nothing would hit me like that again for a long, long time. But Ove? Ove found a way in through the back door when I wasn't even looking. I didn't realize I was crying until the tears were already on the page. That's how quietly this book destroys you.

I had been reading it slowly. Deliberately. Because somewhere around the 40% mark I realized *this is the kind of book you don't want to end.* So I stretched it. I told myself I was savoring it. But honestly? I think I was also just scared of what it would feel like to finish. And now I know. It feels like this.

The thing about Ove is... he is not a likeable character on paper. He is grumpy and rigid and absolutely insufferable about parking rules of all things. But Backman does this thing where he peels you like an onion. Every chapter you understand Ove a little more, you forgive him a little more, and by the end you're not just rooting for this grumpy old man, you love him. Like genuinely, unconditionally love him the way you love a real person.

And the humor!! That's what got me. I was laughing and crying sometimes within the same paragraph.

This is my second Backman back to back and I think I need to take a break honestly. Not because I don't want more but because I don't think my heart can handle it right now. Some books you finish and you think "that was good." And some books finish you. This one finished me.

Ove is going to live in my head for a very long time. Possibly forever.

If you've read this please tell me how you felt. Did you also cry before you realized you were crying? Did you also sit with the closed book for way too long after?

And if you haven't read it yet please just read it. Don't overthink it, don't wait for the right time. Just pick it up. You'll thank me when you're sobbing on your bed at whatever time it is where you are.

Fredrik Backman created something truly special with this one. That's it. That's all I have to say.

Finished A Man Called Ove and boy oh boy what a book...long post, sorry!