Steph's January Book Club Book- Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman

Couple of things. One, I love to read. I wish there were a stronger way to make that statement but with things this important I feel it best to state things plainly. I love to read. It is my go-to. When I have down time I pick up a book. Stirring soup for dinner I'm also reading my book. In the parent pick up line to get kids after school I'm absolutely reading my book. Because this is the case I have 3 library cards in 3 different cities. I also have a Kindle Fire that I keep charged and the Kindle app on my iPhone just so that I'm never caught in a situation where I have no book.

Ok second thing. In order to fully enjoy my love of books and reading I started a book club almost 9 years ago. This book club has been through many changes. It started out a group of ladies from church, we read many good and some bad books and enjoyed lovely discussion. Eventually however it was just left to me and two very good friends of mine. We would meet faithfully every month at a restaurant or each other's houses and talk about the book we had all agreed to read. Again, some good books, some bad books. We added new friends to our meetings as we found people who shared our love of reading. Some of them lasted and some of them did not. Our book club  now consists of about 6-8 women who come faithfully and read regularly. Time and life changes have moved some of us farther away from each other but we've found a happy meeting place in the middle of our home bases. We meet at a restaurant so no one has to clean their house, we meet on Monday nights because there is generally the least amount of conflict with our families schedules and we love it every single month.

To start the new year our book club decided to read a book by Fredrik Backman, the author of A Man Called Ove. We read this as a book club back in 2015 and all of us just fell in love with Ove the grouchily lovable man from Sweden. The books we read the last couple of months in 2016 were......odd and we felt like we needed something semi familiar that we could count on. Britt-Marie did not disappoint. The story is fun, odd, heartwarming and left all of us feeling completely satisfied. Britt-Marie is a 63 year old women who is searching for a job for the first time in her life. You follow this very odd and slightly off putting woman in to a small town facing financial ruin. There the fastidious and socially awkward Britt-Marie is forced to interact with muddy soccer playing children, a rat for a roommate and the potential romantic affections of a policeman named Sven.

The women of book club all thoroughly enjoyed this book. Fredrik Backman writes so that you as the reader can really identify with the characters. Even though I'm not a 63 year old woman trying to start a new life there were aspects of Britt-Marie that I just thought yes I totally get that. It's easy to read with out being simple and we all found ourselves immersed in the story and in to the lives of the people that Britt-Marie comes in to contact with. There was even a nice little twist at the end where I ended up changing my mind about one of the characters. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for something quick to read but likes their books to reach out and grab their heart just a little. I will however say watch out for the language. There is a moderate amount of swearing from those muddy soccer players. Let me know if you like it! Happy reading!