There is a cast of characters living in the same apartment house and at first you think you know who they are , but then their complex stories and connections are told as the story progresses . I really enjoyed this book which is told from the point of view of a 7 year old (almost 8 as she says) girl named Elsa who is unusually clever for her age but in so many ways still very much a child.

Granny may seem crazy but she is such a very loving grandmother to Elsa that the things she does while they seem crazy , can be so easily forgiven by the reader once her story unfolds and you see what a good person and really a humanitarian she is . But Backman's writing is so different than Foer's that this story is absolutely still worth reading. Sure, I liked Elsa well enough, 7 going on 8, and Granny was pretty amazing, but the constant reverting to fairytale land made this such a disappointment for me, I was ready to ditch it several times. It is a celebration of difference; a chance to see our imperfect world through the eyes of a very special, and perhaps not so unusual, child. Britt-Marie, one of the busybody neighbors who would have been a perfect murder victim in a Inspector Poirot murder mystery, had everyone up in arms with her nosy interference.

Her grandmother always comes to defense, is always in her corner, something Elsa desperately needs because she is a little different. She used to be a doctor, a surgeon who traveled all around the world saving people’s lives in dangerous places. I appreciated the viewpoint of our precocious little protagonist at times, but most often found it frustrating.

What follows is the story behind the fairy tales and the person that Granny had been before she became a grandmother. I figured no matter how good the rest of the book was, the fantasy aspect was going to be worth at least 2 negative stars. Nothing is a shame, even believing in superheroes, if it eventually adds up to the good in this world.Elsa doesn’t know if this means that Granny took all her stories from the real world and placed them in Miamas, or if the stories from Miamas became so real that the creatures came across to the real world.