Britt-Marie Was Here: A Novel

This is a great book. I love Fredrik Backman. He really knows how to develop interesting characters that draw us in 🩷

I am a huge fan of this author ever since reading Beartown. It amazes me how young he is yet has his finger on the pulse of humanity so astutely. This was, for me, a thoroughly charming, engrossing novel about someone who clearly has 'issues'. She has left her former life (husband who cheated on her) to embark on being on her own. You will grow to 'understand' her. As the author occasionally tosses in information about where Britt-Marie has come from, you get a glimpse into her entire life leading up to now, you will question whether her experienced issues contributed to how she is now, or did they accelerate issues she already had embedded in her. You will form your own opinions about all the other characters. You have to remember this takes place in a tiny 'town' in Norway - things are not anything like any of us have experienced. This novel needs to be digested for exactly what it is: The journey of a very 'challenged' woman. It took my heart into another whole dimension. Bachman's incredible insight into others' 'idiosyncracies' is amazing. I think the main message for me, aside from loving the story, the interplay of the characters, the wanting to know where it all leads, is how the players 'accept' Britt-Marie's personality. I am a huge 'highlighter' of passages and though I have too many to put forth here, I shall share what I can to hopefully give you a true 'feel' of what this author portrays in his wondrous story:"Once he used to hold her hand when they slept, and she dreamed his dreams. Not that Britt-Marie didn't have any dreams of her own; it was just that his were bigger, and the one with the biggest dreams always wins in this world.""Kent said that Britt-Marie was socially incompetent, so she stayed home for another few years so he could be social on behalf of the both of them. It's not that she chose not to have any expectations, she just woke up one morning and realized they were past their sell-by date.""In the end, all she dreamed of was a balcony and a husband who did not walk on the parquet in his golf shoes, who occasionally put his shirt in the laundry basket without her having to ask him to do it, and who now and then said he liked the food without her having to ask. A home. Children who, although they weren't her own, came for Christmas in spite of everything. Or at least tried to pretend they had a decent reason not to. A correctly organized cutlery drawer. An evening at the theater every now and again. Windows you could see the world through, someone who noticed that she had taken special care with her hair. Or at least pretended to notice. Or at least let her go on pretending. Someone who came home to a newly mopped floor and a hot dinner on the table and, on the odd occasion, noticed that she had made an effort. ""She misses her balcony more than anything. You're never quite alone when you can stand on a balcony - you have all the cars and houses and the people in the streets. You're among them, but also not. That's the best thing about balconies.""It may be that a heart only finally breaks after leaving a hospital room in which a shirt smells of pizza and perfume, but it will break more readily if it has burst a few times before.""She wasn't upset about what Kent had said, because most likely he didn't even understand it himself. On the other hand she was offended that he hadn't even checked to see if she was standing close enough to hear.""Ingrid (Britt's deceased sister) was never negative. As always with people like this, it's difficult to know whether everyone loved Ingrid because she was so positive, or if she was so positive because everyone loved her. Ingrid also loved to play. As with all people like that, it's difficult to know if she was the best because she loved the games, or if she loved them because she was the best.""It's the silence that she struggles most of all to live with, because while immersed in silence you don't know if anyone knows you are there, and Winter is also the quiet season because the cold insulates people. Makes the world soundless. It was the silence that paralyzed her when Ingrid died.""All marriages have their bad sides, because all people have weaknesses. If you live with another human being you learn to handle these weaknesses in a variety of ways. For instance, you might take the view that weaknesses are a bit like heavy pieces of furniture, and based on this you must learn to clean around them. To maintain the illusion. Of course the dust is building up unseen, but you learn to repress this for as long as it goes unnoticed by guests. And then one day someone moves a piece of furniture without your say-so, and everything comes into plain view. Dirt an scratch marks. Permanent damage to the parquet floor. By then it's too late.""Societies are like people in that way. If you don't ask too many questions and don't shift any heavy furniture around, there's no need to notice their worst sides."There are two parts of the novel whereby the title of the book will come to your mind (I always enjoy finding out where titles come from) - one of which is when Britt is looking at a map of Borg on the wall - she looks at the red dot that first made her fall in love with the picture. The reason for her love of maps. It's half worn away, the dot, and the red color is bleached. Yet it's there, flung down there on the map halfway between the lower left corner and its center, and next to it is written "You are here.""Sometimes it's easier to go on living, not even knowing who you are, when at lest you know precisely where you are while you go on not knowing.""Human beings are the only animals that smile as a gesture of peace, whereas other animals show their teeth as a threat. This is perfectly understandable now; she can see the animal inside the human being.""They got married because Kant's accountant said it made sense from a 'tax-planning perspective'. She never had a plan, she hoped it would be enough if you were faithful and in love. Until the day came when it wasn't enough.""Then she rubbed the white mark on her ring finger. People who have not worn a wedding ring for almost their entire lives are unaware of how a mark like that looks. Some people take theirs off from time to time - while doing the washing-up, for instance - but she had never once taken off her ring until the day she took it off once and for all. So the white mark is permanent, as if her skin had another color when she was married. As if this is what is left of her, underneath, if your scrape off everything she turned into.""A few moments. A human being, any human being at all, has so perishingly few chances to stay right there, to let go of time and fall into the moment. And to love someone without measure.""All passion is childish. It's banal and naïve. It's nothing we learn; it's instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. All other emotions belong to the earth, but passion inhabits the universe. That is the reason why passion is worth something, not for what it gives us but for what it demands that we risk. Our dignity The puzzlement of others and their condescending, shaking heads.""She asks herself if choices or circumstances make us the sort of people we become. She wonders what takes the most out of a person: to be the kind that jumps, or the kind that doesn't? she wonders how much space a person has left in her soul to change herself, once she gets older. What people does she still have to meet, what will they see in her, and what will they make her see in herself?""One remarkable thing about communities built along roads is that you can find just as many reasons for leaving them as excuses to stay. Some people never quite stop devoting themselves to one or the other.""Morning comes to Borg with a sun that controls itself and waits respectfully on the horizon, as if wanting to give her enough time to make a last choice, and then to choose for herself for the first time."The scenes with Britt-Marie and Sven brought me to my knees - the first being when he produces a bamboo screen in order to calm her before riding in his patrol car going by townspeople. He was beyond an incredible human being. When she rides in his patrol car she reflects 'He talks all the way, just as Kent used to do when they were in the car. But it was different, because Kent always told her things, whereas the policeman asks her questions. It irritates her. You do get irritated by someone taking an interest in you when you're not used to it."Pay attention to how the author planted just one little drawing at the start of each paragraph - one that encapsulated what the most important point of that chapter was.I am still reeling from the ending. I cannot comment one bit on it. I would dearly love to know how others feel about it.

Britt Marie developed sincere relationships in a community far from everywhere and away from anything she ever thought she would enjoy. She gave to the children and they gave back to her in appreciation of all she had done. Fun read!

Loved this book and the author. Britt-Marie is so endearing even with her quirks. My favorite book of the year so far!

Loved the book, it’s hardcover, great font size

Captivating story line with many surprises. A good look at human nature and a good laugh a tear or two to fill out the story

This was a very light-hearted, fun book to read. It has well-developed characters and a lively plot. If you are looking for some light, fun, warm reading…this is it. Highly recommended.

I have an "on and off relationship" with the author. Some I love, some are so-so, and a couple I've wondered why I tried again after I had sissy dnf'd it. However, Brett-Marie is my kind of girl! She's pretty much a "my way or no way" lady, but not rude, it's just her and she doesn't understand how you can't understand! And seeing people doing both eye rolling and loving her just made my day.

This is not for everyone. Some laughs and insight, but I struggled with it. Britt-Marie not the easiest character to follow.

È il terzo romanzo che leggo di questo autore, dopo L’uomo che mette in ordine il mondo e Gli Ansiosi.Mi sono piaciuti tutti moltissimo, ma questo è probabilmente il mio preferito.La trama è ricca di colpi di scena, cosa che non ti aspetteresti visto che la protagonista è una casalinga ultrasessantenne . I personaggi sono ben delineati e i dialoghi riescono ad essere insieme profondi e molto divertenti. Ho riso, mi sono commossa e ho fatto il tifo per questi “perdenti” che riescono a dare una svolta alla loro vita.Quando leggo Fredrick Backman ho sempre la sensazione di impiegare bene il mio tempo.

Me costó meterme en la historia y entender al personaje. Pero la historia te envuelve, te quedas con ganas de más. Muy recomendable

Llego malatratado de el lomo y roto de la parte de arriba con algunas paginas dobladas.

I stopped reading it...uninteresting and inconsistant. The cliché of a bug in her washing up, full of préjudices, abandoned by her husband who finds a job in a neglected city with a bunch of children playing football... as in all happy ending, she saves herself by helping the kids to reach their goal. Sooo predictible.