Well, what can I say?

I LOVE IT.

I absolutely, totally love it.

It took a couple chapters for me to get into it, but when I did, I couldn't put it down. Quite literally—I've been carrying it everywhere with me for the past day or two.

Every character made me love them. Well, except for The Weed and the men in the white shirts, but they were never meant to be lovable.

When I reached chapter 39, I had to run upstairs so my family wouldn't see me crying into my fist. (There were a lot of sad and close-to-home moments—I mean, it's no secret this book is largely about suicide,

and then there's the whole thing with cancer and people dying

.) And in all the chapters after that, I couldn't stop grinning. (It was also heartwarming, and it made me laugh out loud too many times to count.)

I wish Ove were real and I'd been given the privilege to know him.

And if all of Backman's books have such a full and chaotic and diverse and heart-stealable cast of characters, I want to read every one of them right now.