My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry: Fredrik Backman

I've got to love a child protagonist who's described early in the book as sitting "reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the iPad for about the twelfth time. It's the Harry Potter book she likes the least; that's why she's read it so few times" (22-3). Elsa and her Granny and the collection of characters who live in their building are wonderful to spend time with. While the novel is sad and moving in places--which I expected--it was also laugh-out-loud funny quite frequently; yet the existentialist themes of death, trauma, and loss were not diminished or minimized, but enhanced in rich ways. This story about the power of stories to help us understand ourselves, others, and complicated lives is--I think--my favorite book of 2016.