Such a wonderful story this book takes you through. I felt like I was with Doris on her travels. I loved the flashbacks.

Eine Lebensgeschichte erzählt anhand eines Adressbuches. Genial. Ich fand es toll und war emotional sehr angefasst. Reinhören!

What a lovely story.

Doris is a 96 year old woman living in Stockholm. She has no family other than her niece who lives in America and with whom she speaks to daily via Skype.

When Doris was 13, her father gave her a red address book. Doris has written the names of all of the people who she has met in this book. Doris is looking through this book and reminiscing all of the people throughout her life.

The book is full of love, death, fun, poverty and hope.

3.75

The premise for this novel is excellent. A woman, nearly 100 years old, is dying. She has kept an address book her entire life and revisits important chapters of her life based on the names in it. This is not unlike Jonas Jonasson's upbeat and quirky The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. When a reader works through 100 years of someone's existence, bits of real history are presented, so this is a contemporary story with many historical elements.

Jonasson's book has humor throughout whereas Lundberg's borders on melancholy yet is also heartwarming and charming. Issues of poverty, grief, abandonment, sexual assault, war, romantic betrayal, and ultimately illness shape the life of Doris, once a stunningly beautiful Swedish girl. As she reminisces in Sweden, her grand-niece in San Francisco feels an overwhelming need to get to her as Doris is the only one with the secrets to her past. Theirs is a special, tender relationship.

This is a very nice read, but one with a somewhat unrealistic, almost smarmy ending that wraps up too neatly in three story threads. Doris had a life with one major setback after another, toggling between extreme poverty and life with wealthy people. She is a great character; does not want to be treated like an elderly person. Loves her computer and loves to writes stories. Just a bit overly sweet.

This book had an interesting premise and structure, but the writing was so mediocre I had to just skim through the last half of the book to find out what happened. I don't know if it was poor translation from the original Swedish or poor composition, but the book read like a monotone 4th grade chapter book. It was choppy, repetitive, and lacked depth or nuance.

Tunteisiinhan tämä kävi, eikä välttämättä aina niin hyvällä tavalla. Sai kuitenkin ajattelemaan sitä, miten monta eri ihmistä meistä jokainen elämänsä aikana kohtaa ja millaisia jälkiä heistä meihin jää. Ja meistä heihin.

By far, the best book I read this year! Bravo to author Sofia Lundberg on her debut novel. I felt i knew everyone from the address book as well as I traveled to all Doris's adventures.

Reviewed on: Ashes Books & Bobs.

Many thanks to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for granting my Netgalley wish for The Red Address Book.

As soon as I saw the cover for this book and briefly skimmed the blurb, I knew it would be a book I loved. I immediately tracked down the publisher and inquired about an advance review copy, only to be turned down. I don’t think I have ever been so bummed to be denied for a book, but as fate would have it, I ended up with a copy a month or two later. This beautiful book by Swedish author, Sofia Lundberg, was the exact reason I held out on publishing my “Favorite Reads of 2018” list yesterday when I wanted to. I had high hopes for this one and knew it was going to touch the deepest parts of my heart.

There’s something about the nostalgia of an elderly person reflecting upon their life that I’ve always been drawn to, even as a child. There’s age in my soul, the empathy I’ve been given, that allows me to deeply feel a connection to stories like this one. I desire to make my life a life well lived because I know precisely the things I will come to feel remorseful about if I make it to old age. Even from childhood, I have lived life resistant to regret, thanks to the wisdom I’ve garnered from stories like this one. The ups, downs, and in-between moments of a person’s life are fascinating, and since I only get one chance of my own, being able to dive into these stories, fictional or not, fulfills my curiosity.

“When time is all you have, your thoughts become quite deep.”

The Red Address Book is intensely sentimental, often depressing, and wholly captivating. I loved reading about each person that impacted Doris’s life in one way another, whether for a short time or decades. The attachments we form to some people are always intriguing and to read about the history and shared moments between these characters felt real. I loved how this story read, in some ways, like a memoir and Historical Fiction, combining two of my favorite genres into one. In many ways, this story made me think of my all-time favorite movie – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer.

As I was reading, I had to pause to underline many beautiful sentences and thoughts I wish I had the words to craft myself. Those moments are what reading is for. It connects us with people who live far away, people we are unlikely to never meet, and find a kindred spirit in a stranger. It makes us realize we’re all connected and we all share the same emotions and innate desires for lives.

“The greatest comfort in life comes from freely expressing one’s opinion and being met with nothing but love in return, even when opinions diverge.”

Though this book had a predominately melancholy tone, I couldn’t help but love it all the more. If this book would have been wholly cheerful, I would not have connected to the story in the way I did. The ending, though sad, is worth sticking around for. I was able to finish this with dry eyes and fullness in my heart. If you like sentimental stories, definitely pick this incredible book up on January 8, 2019, and start your new year off right!