A Man Called Ove Book Club Questions & Discussion Guide

About this book

Ove is a fifty-nine-year-old widower with rigid routines, strong opinions, and no patience for a world he finds increasingly careless. Grieving his wife Sonja and freshly pushed out of his job, he sets out to end his life, only to be interrupted again and again by the noisy, needy new family next door. What follows is a funny, tender story that slowly reveals the love and loss beneath his gruffness, and the way an unwanted community can pull a person back toward life.

Discussion questions

1. Ove is introduced as a rigid, short-tempered man with strong opinions about the right way to do everything. What was your first impression of him, and how had it changed by the end?
2. The book slowly peels back Ove's gruff exterior through flashbacks to his life with Sonja. If you set it down early, what pulled you back, the humor, the neighbors, or the glimpses of his past?
3. Ove's crankiness turns out to be grief wearing a hard shell. Where did you first sense the sorrow underneath, and how did understanding it change the way you read him?
4. The new neighbors keep barging into Ove's life whether he likes it or not. Was their persistence a kindness or an intrusion, and where is the line between the two?
5. The book is about loneliness and the way community can reach a person who has closed himself off. What did it ultimately say about how we pull each other back toward life?
6. Backman braids present-day comedy with the love story of Ove and Sonja. How did moving between the two shape your feelings, and would the humor have landed the same way without the grief beneath it?
7. The tight little residential street, with its rules, feuds, and busybodies, is almost a character. How did that small, ordinary world become the stage for Ove's change?
8. Ove has become shorthand for the grump with a heart of gold. Did the book remind you of another curmudgeon in fiction, or of someone in your own life who softened once you understood them?
9. Ove finds new purpose in being needed by the people around him. Did the book make you think about what gives a life meaning after loss, and did anyone at the table see it differently?
10. Who would you hand this to next, the reader who wants to laugh and cry in equal measure or someone who loves a heartfelt character study, and who might it not be for?

Themes to listen for

• Grief and enduring love
• Loneliness and the reach of community
• The softness beneath a hard exterior
• Purpose and being needed
• Neighborliness and small kindnesses

If your club liked this, try…

• Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
• Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Where to get it

• Check availability at your local library
• Find it on Bookshop.org
• Listen on Libro.fm

Practical notes

Best for clubs that want to laugh and cry together, and a gentle entry point to Backman.

Content notes: The book deals with grief and suicide, handled with warmth and dark humor but present throughout; this is a sensitive topic, so consider flagging it to your group in advance.