We are convinced that Fredrik Backman’s books can do no Wrong✨
Elsa is incredibly smart, wise and lovely, and she is almost 8-years old, it’s important for her that you know that she is almost eight since “she isn’t especially good at being 7.” Her Granny is almost 78, is also not very good at her age, and loves Elsa more than 10,000 eternities of fairy tales (I mean🥹). The book is entirely from Elsa’s PoV; we get to see how she interacts with the adults in her life, her deep understanding of them, and how she makes sense of the world around her through the incredible tales her Granny has woven for her🥰
The book starts with Elsa and her grandmother at the police station. We are immediately taken in by this relationship, this almost eight year-old with her best friend, her Granny 👧🏻👵🏼. Her Granny is good at coming up with things, like the Land-of-Almost-Awake. For a child who is different from her peers (who give her a hard time about it!), whose parents are divorced, and who couldn’t sleep because “she read on the internet about children who died in their sleep,” her Granny intricately crafts her a whole new world that you only have to be almost asleep to go to!💫 And Elsa would just like to live forever with her Granny in the Land-of-Almost-Awake, but life, as always, does not go her way.
Granny tasks Elsa to go on an adventure, one that makes her realise that her beloved fairy tales don’t exist only in her imagination. We adored these characters, the interactions between Elsa and her dad, mom, Granny, and her neighbours demanded re-reading just because they were so sweet. You will laugh, be moved, and surreptitiously wipe away tears that unexpectedly show up when reading this book, so be careful when in public ⚠️😄
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